LinkedIn Ads UK: Agency Guide for Online Courses

I see this all the time. A UK course creator with a genuinely brilliant product is getting absolutely rinsed on LinkedIn Ads. They've hired an agency, maybe even one with a slick office in Shoreditch, and all they've got to show for it is a fancy dashboard full of impressions and clicks, but a bank account that's heading in the wrong direction. The agency blames the platform, the audience, the price point—anything but their own flawed strategy.

Let's be brutally honest. The problem isn't LinkedIn. The problem is that most agencies approach selling a course with the same tired playbook they use for selling enterprise software. They don't understand the nuance. They're chasing leads, not enrolments. They're building 'awareness' among people who will never, ever buy.

Getting this right isn't about finding a "LinkedIn Ads expert". It's about finding a partner who understands customer acquisition for the UK education and digital product market. It's about maths, psychology, and having a deep-seated hatred for wasted ad spend. If you're struggling, it's probably because you've been sold the wrong approach from the very beginning. We need to fix that.

So why are most UK agencies messing this up so badly?

The core of the issue is a fundamental misunderstanding of the objective. When an agency tells you they're going to run a 'brand awareness' campaign for your new course, you should run for the hills. Seriously. When you set your campaign objective on Meta or LinkedIn to 'Reach' or 'Brand Awareness', you are literally paying the algorithm to find the people in your audience who are least likely to take any action. They're cheap to show ads to precisely because they don't click, engage, or buy. It's the digital equivalent of handing out flyers in a tube station at rush hour—lots of activity, zero meaningful results.

We had a client come to us after spending £10,000 with another agency on a campaign that generated millions of impressions but fewer than ten sign-ups. The agency celebrated the 'brand lift'. The founder was, understandably, furious. Awareness is a byproduct of making sales and having happy customers, not a prerequisite for it. For a course creator, every single pound spent must be accountable to one thing: driving profitable enrolments.

This leads to the second major failure: treating your course like a piece of B2B SaaS. An agency might suggest running ads to a "Request a Demo" landing page. This is probably the worst call to action you could possibly use for a course. No one wants a 'demo' of a course. They want a taste of the transformation you promise. The buying journey is entirely different. A Chief Technology Officer buying a six-figure software solution has a procurement process. A marketing manager looking to upskill with your £1,500 course is often spending their own money or a limited training budget. It's a much more personal, value-driven decision. Yet agencies insist on using the same high-friction, low-value funnel, and then wonder why conversion rates are abysmal. Tbh, it's often pure laziness.

Many agencies also just don't know how to target properly for this kind of offer. They'll plug in a few job titles like "Marketing Manager" and "Sales Director", set the location to the UK, and let it rip. This is a recipe for disaster. As we'll get into, effective LinkedIn targeting is about finding people with a specific, expensive problem, not just people with a certain job title. Many course creators come to us thinking their ads are broken, when in reality their agency has just been showing them to the wrong people all along. Often, the real reason LinkedIn ads seem useless is a complete mismatch between the ad's message and the audience's actual needs.

What does a winning strategy for a UK course actually look like then?

Alright, so we've established what doesn't work. A winning strategy starts by completely reframing the approach. You're not selling a course; you're selling a solution to a career-defining nightmare.

Forget generic job titles. You need to define your ideal customer by their pain. Let's say you're selling a high-ticket "Advanced Presentation Skills" course for finance professionals in London. A bad agency targets "Financial Analyst" in the UK. A good consultant targets people with the job title "Financial Analyst" who work at specific companies like Goldman Sachs or J.P. Morgan within a 10-mile radius of Canary Wharf, and then layers on interests related to public speaking anxiety or career progression. You're not just finding analysts; you're finding ambitious analysts in a hyper-competitive environment who are terrified of fumbling their next big presentation to the board. The ad copy then speaks directly to *that* fear. "Worried your data isn't landing with the C-suite? Turn your complex analysis into a compelling story that gets you noticed." That's how you get a click that matters.

Next, you have to kill the "Request a Demo" button and replace it with an offer that delivers immediate, undeniable value. For a course, this could be:

• -> A free, instantly accessible video module: Give them the first chapter for free. Let them experience your teaching style and see the quality of your content.
• -> A live expert webinar: Host a 45-minute session that solves one small but painful problem for your audience. At the end, you pitch the full course as the comprehensive solution.
• -> A downloadable 'toolkit' or template: If you teach financial modelling, offer a free, powerful Excel template. They get value, and you get a highly qualified lead.

Your entire funnel should be built around this value-first principle. You're not trying to drag them onto a sales call; you're trying to prove your expertise so compellingly that they *want* to buy from you. This approach builds trust and pre-qualifies your audience far more effectively than any lead form ever could.

Here’s a simple visual of what that funnel might look like. It's not rocket science, but it requires a level of thought that many agencies just don't bother with.

This structure allows you to build a relationship with potential customers. You're not just shouting into the void; you're guiding them on a journey. And because you're tracking conversions at each stage (CPL for the webinar, CPA for the final enrolment), you have real data to optimise, not just fuzzy awareness metrics. It's a system built for profit, not just for looking busy.

How do I spot an agency that actually gets it?

Vetting an agency in the UK can feel like navigating a minefield, but there are some very clear signals that separate the experts from the cowboys. It all comes down to the questions they ask you, and the evidence they provide.

Red Flags (Avoid at all costs):

• -> They promise guaranteed results. No one can guarantee results in paid advertising. The market changes, auctions fluctuate. An expert will talk about a clear process for testing and optimisation, not make wild promises about a 10x ROAS in the first month.
• -> Their case studies are vague. "We increased brand awareness by 300% for a client in the education sector." This is meaningless. You need to see specifics: "We ran a campaign for a financial modelling course that generated $115k in revenue from $25k ad spend over 3 months, resulting in a 4.6x ROAS and a Cost Per Enrolment of $180." See the difference? You need an agency that can show you real, profitable results. For example, in our work with course creators on Meta Ads, we've generated $115k in revenue in just 1.5 months, and for another, we drove a 447% ROAS in just one week. While the platform is different, the strategic focus on profitable enrolment—not vanity metrics—is exactly what's needed on LinkedIn. That's the level of detail you should demand.
• -> They talk more about their 'proprietary software' or 'secret process' than your business. A good agency's process is simple: understand your customer, create a compelling offer, test relentlessly, and scale what works. Fancy jargon is often used to hide a lack of real strategy.
• -> They don't ask about your numbers. If they aren't asking about your course price, your target Cost Per Enrolment, and your customer lifetime value (LTV), they aren't thinking about your profitability. They're thinking about how to spend your budget.

Green Flags (Signs you've found a good'un):

• -> They are obsessed with your unit economics. They ask questions like: "What's the absolute most you can afford to pay to acquire one student and still be profitable?" This shows they're thinking like a business partner, not just a media buyer.
• -> They challenge your assumptions. They might question your target audience or your offer, suggesting improvements based on their experience. This is a great sign. You're paying for their expertise, not for someone to just press buttons on your ideas.
• -> They show you relevant, detailed case studies. They should be able to walk you through campaigns they've run for other course creators or digital product businesses in the UK. They should be transparent about the budget, the results, and the challenges they faced.
• -> They propose a clear, phased testing plan. They won't suggest throwing your entire budget at one big campaign. They'll talk about starting with a smaller budget to validate audiences and creative, then scaling up based on data. This is the smart, responsible way to manage your money.

Finding the right partner can be tough, which is why we've put together a more detailed guide on how founders can properly vet and hire paid ad agencies in the UK. It's worth a read before you sign any contracts.

What results should I actually expect in the UK market?

This is the million-dollar—or rather, million-pound—question. The answer is, "it depends". But that's not very helpful, so let's break it down with some realistic numbers based on what we see with our own clients in the UK.

Your costs will vary based on your audience, your offer, and how well your funnel is optimised. A webinar lead for a broad topic might be cheap, but an enrolment for a £2,000 specialist course will naturally cost more to acquire. The goal isn't just to get cheap leads; it's to get a profitable Cost Per Enrolment (CPE).

Here’s a rough breakdown of what you might expect for Cost Per Lead (CPL) on LinkedIn in the UK for a well-run campaign targeting professionals:

The key isn't just the CPL, it's the conversion rate from lead to customer. If you pay £20 for a webinar lead and 10% of attendees buy your £1,000 course, you need 10 leads (£200 ad spend) to make one sale. Your CPE is £200, which is fantastic. If you pay £8 for a low-quality eBook lead and only 1% convert, your CPE is £800. The cheaper lead was actually four times more expensive.

To help you get a feel for your own numbers, I've built a simple calculator. Play around with the sliders to see how changes in ad spend, course price, and cost per enrolment affect your overall return.

This is the kind of conversation you should be having with an agency. It's about levers and numbers, not just pretty ads. If you're based in London and want to go even deeper, we've written a specific guide on how to dominate the London market with LinkedIn ads for courses.

What specific questions should I grill them with?

When you get on that initial call, you need to take control and ask questions that cut through the sales pitch. Don't let them just run through their standard deck. Here are a few sharp questions to have ready. Their answers will tell you everything you need to know.

1. "Can you walk me through, in detail, a campaign you've run for a UK-based online course similar to mine? What was the initial Cost Per Lead, what was the final Cost Per Enrolment, and what was the ROAS?"
   This forces them to go beyond a glossy case study PDF. Look for honesty. Did they mention any challenges? What did they test that *didn't* work? An expert is confident enough to discuss failures as learning experiences.


2. "How do you approach targeting for a niche professional course beyond just job titles and company lists?"
   A great answer will involve talking about layering audiences, using group targeting (e.g., members of specific professional LinkedIn Groups), and targeting based on skills or interests that indicate a specific pain point. A poor answer will be vague and stick to the basics. If they don't have a solid answer, they might be relying on outdated techniques which is a huge red flag and one of the reasons so many UK course campaigns on LinkedIn fail.


3. "What is your philosophy on LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms vs. sending traffic to a dedicated landing page for course webinar sign-ups?"
   There's no single right answer here, but their reasoning is what's important. An expert will explain the trade-offs: Lead Gen Forms often get a lower CPL but the lead quality can be poorer because it's so frictionless. A landing page gets a higher CPL but the leads are more qualified because they've had to make more effort. Their answer should show they think strategically about lead quality, not just lead volume.


4. "Let's assume our Cost Per Enrolment target is £250. If after two weeks the campaign is averaging a £400 CPE, what is your exact, step-by-step process for diagnosing and fixing the problem?"
   This is a critical stress test. A good answer will be methodical: "First, we'd check the ad-level metrics like CTR and CPC to see if the creative is the issue. Then we'd look at the landing page conversion rate. If that's low, we'd analyse the page and suggest copy or design tests. We'd also review the audience performance to see if one particular segment is driving up the cost and reallocate budget accordingly." A bad answer is "We'd try some new ads."


5. "Who, specifically, will be working on my account? What is their direct experience with promoting digital products in the UK?"
   Don't be fobbed off with the slick salesperson. You need to know if the person actually managing your campaigns day-to-day has the right experience. It’s a common agency trick to have seniors sell and juniors execute. If you're an EdTech founder, this is even more critical; you need someone who understands your world, which is why we put together a specific guide for EdTech founders hiring LinkedIn experts.

Their answers to these questions will reveal their depth of knowledge far more than any polished presentation. If they get flustered or give vague, generic answers, they are probably not the right fit for you.

I've hired someone... how do I know they're actually doing a good job?

So you've signed a contract and the campaigns are live. The first month can be nerve-wracking. How can you tell if things are on the right track or if you've made a terrible mistake? It's about looking at the right signals.

Don't get fixated on the number of enrolments in week one. It takes time to gather data and optimise. Instead, focus on the leading indicators. These are the early signs that the agency's strategy is sound:

• -> Intelligent Testing: Are they methodically testing different audiences, ad creatives, and headlines? You should see a structured approach in the account, not just one campaign with a bunch of random ads thrown in. They should be able to clearly explain *why* they are running each test.
• -> Improving Metrics: Even if the Cost Per Enrolment isn't at your target yet, are other metrics moving in the right direction? Is the Click-Through Rate (CTR) improving as they find better creative? Is the Cost Per Lead (CPL) for your webinar dropping? These are signs of active, effective management.
• -> High-Quality Reporting: Their reports shouldn't just be a data dump from the LinkedIn Ads dashboard. They should provide analysis and insight. "We saw a low CTR on Audience X, so next week we're testing a new video creative that addresses their specific pain point more directly. Our hypothesis is this will increase CTR by 20%." This shows they are thinking, not just reporting.
• -> Proactive Communication: A good agency doesn't wait for you to ask what's going on. They should be providing regular updates on performance, tests, and next steps.

After the initial testing phase (usually the first 2-4 weeks), you should start seeing the lagging indicators—the ones that really matter to your bottom line—start to improve. Your Cost Per Enrolment should be trending downwards towards your target, and your Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) should be climbing.

If after 6-8 weeks, you're still seeing poor results, a lack of clear strategy, and vague communication, it might be time to cut your losses. A good agency will have a clear picture of what's working and what's not by that point and a solid plan to scale the winners. If they're still "gathering data" with no clear insights after two months, that's a major red flag.

This is the main advice I have for you:

Navigating the world of LinkedIn Ads, especially in the competitive UK market, is complex. It's not just about technical skill on the platform; it's about deep strategic thinking, understanding buyer psychology, and a relentless focus on commercial results. While you can certainly apply the principles here yourself, the learning curve can be steep and expensive.

Working with a specialist who has already made the mistakes and learned the lessons on other people's budgets can be a significant shortcut to profitability. An expert partner can help you sidestep the common pitfalls, implement a proven strategy from day one, and start generating a return on your investment much faster.

If you're tired of wasting money and want a clear, data-driven plan to fill your courses using LinkedIn Ads, we offer a free, no-obligation 20-minute strategy session. We'll review your current setup, your course, and your goals, and give you some actionable advice you can implement immediately. It's a chance to get an expert second opinion and see if we might be the right partner to help you grow.