London's Guide to Finding Facebook Ads Experts

I get it. You're a course creator in London, you've built something brilliant, and now you need to get it in front of the right people. But the world of Facebook ads feels like a minefield, especially here. The market is saturated with agencies in slick offices making big promises, and every other 'guru' on LinkedIn seems to be a Facebook ads expert. How do you find someone who actually knows what they're doing and won't just burn through your budget?

The truth is, most people get it wrong. They look for the wrong things, ask the wrong questions, and end up with an expensive lesson in what doesn't work. The key isn't just finding someone to run your ads; it's finding a partner who understands the specific economics of selling online courses in the hyper-competitive UK market. You need someone who obsesses over your numbers as much as you do. Let's cut through the noise and talk about how you actually find that person.

So, why is London so bloody expensive for course ads anyway?

First, let's be honest about the battlefield. Advertising in London and the UK is just more expensive. It's a mature, high-income market, which means two things: people have money to spend on courses, but every other course creator from here to Manchester knows it. Competition is fierce. You're not just bidding against other course creators; you're bidding against massive brands with bottomless pockets for the same eyeballs on a screen.

We're talking about Cost Per Click (CPC) that can easily be in the £0.80 - £2.00 range for a decent audience. That's just for a click, not a sale. If you've got a landing page that converts at, say, 3%, which is pretty standard for e-commerce or course sales, you can do the maths. Your Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) can quickly climb. A £1.50 CPC with a 3% conversion rate means you're paying £50 to get one student. If your course is £49... you see the problem.

I remember a campaign we took over for an e-learning client. They'd been running ads targeting the whole of Europe and were getting signups for about £1.50, which they thought was amazing. But when we looked closer, the engagement from those users was dreadful. They weren't completing the course or buying upsells. We switched the focus to a UK-only campaign. The cost per signup jumped to £4, which scared them at first. But these users were twice as likely to become long-term customers. You have to be prepared to pay more for quality in this market, and anyone who tells you they can get you penny clicks for a high-value UK audience is probably pulling your leg.

This environment means there's no room for error. Your ad creative can't be 'okay', your landing page can't be 'alright', and your targeting can't be 'close enough'. Everything has to be sharp, because your budget will evaporate if it isn't. This is why vetting an expert is so critical; you're not just paying for their time, you're paying for their precision to navigate this expensive landscape without wasting your cash.

The 'London Agency' Myth: Does a Shoreditch Postcode Even Matter?

There's this weird obsession with hiring a 'London agency'. People think that having an office near Silicon Roundabout somehow imbues an agency with magical advertising powers. Let me be brutally honest: it doesn't matter. In fact, it can often be a disadvantage.

A fancy office in Shoreditch or Soho means massive overheads. Who do you think pays for that? You do, in your management fees. I've seen brilliant agencies run by a small team working remotely from different parts of the country who would run rings around some of the big London shops. Their lower overheads mean they can be more competitive on price, or more importantly, invest more time and senior talent into your account instead of paying rent.

The single most important factor is not their location, but their specific, demonstrable experience in your niche. Have they successfully sold online courses to a UK audience before? That's the only question. An expert in Manchester who has scaled three UK-based course businesses is infinitely more valuable to you than a massive London agency that mostly deals with fashion brands or B2B software.

Here's a quick breakdown of who you'll likely encounter:

• The Big London Agency: They'll have a slick presentation, a nice office, and probably a junior account manager who'll actually be running your ads. You'll be a small fish in a very big pond. Good if you have a £50k+ monthly budget and need a huge team, probably overkill and impersonal for most course creators.
• The Boutique Specialist: These are smaller teams, often 2-10 people, that specialise in a specific area like e-learning or info-products. This is often the sweet spot. They have the expertise you need, but you're a significant client to them, so you get the attention you deserve. They could be based anywhere.
• The Freelancer: A one-person operation. This can be fantastic if you find the right person. You get their direct expertise, and costs are usually lower. The risk is that they're a single point of failure. If they get sick, go on holiday, or get swamped by another client, your account can suffer.

Don't get dazzled by a postcode. The internet has made geography irrelevant for this kind of work. Focus entirely on their track record. When you're looking for the right partner, it helps to understand how to properly vet an expert, regardless of their location. Your bank account will thank you for it.

How Do I Spot a Real Expert from a Pretender?

This is the real heart of the matter. It all comes down to evidence. A slick talker can sell you a dream, but they can't fake a track record. Here's what you need to dig for.

Case Studies Are Everything (But You Need to Read Them Properly)

Don't just glance at the headline "10x ROAS for Client!". That's marketing fluff. You need to dissect their case studies like you're studying for an exam. A good case study should tell you:

• -> The Niche: Was it an online course? A coaching program? A high-ticket mastermind? The closer to your business model, the better. Selling a £49 video course is a completely different game to selling a £5,000 coaching package.
• -> The Market: Were they selling in the UK? As we've discussed, results from a US or global campaign aren't always transferrable. You want to see proof they can make the numbers work here.
• -> The Actual Numbers: They must talk about Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) and Cost Per Acquisition (CPA). If they only talk about 'reach' or 'impressions', run a mile. Ask for specific figures. We recently helped a client launch a course and generated $115k in revenue in the first month and a half. That's a real, tangible result tied to business success, not a fluffy vanity metric.
• -> The 'How': A great case study doesn't just show the result, it gives you a peek behind the curtain. Did they succeed because of a clever targeting strategy? A new creative angle? A funnel optimisation? This shows they have a repeatable process, not just that they got lucky once.

If their case studies are vague or not relevant, ask them directly. "Can you walk me through a campaign you've run for a UK course creator that's similar to me?" If they hesitate or can't give you specifics, it's a huge red flag.

The Initial Consultation is a Two-Way Interview

The first call you have with a potential expert is your best chance to size them up. Too many course creators treat this as a sales pitch where they just sit and listen. Wrong. You need to go in with a purpose and a list of tough questions. You should be interviewing them.

A real pro will spend most of the call asking you questions. They'll want to know about your course, your price point, your ideal student, your profit margins, and your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). They are trying to figure out if your business is in a position to succeed with paid ads. They're qualifying you as much as you're qualifying them.

Someone who's just a salesperson will launch into a pitch about their 'secret formula' or 'proprietary system'. They'll talk a lot about themselves and won't dig deep into your business. A massive red flag is if you leave the call without having learned anything. A good consultation should give you value, wether you decide to work with them or not. We always do a free review of a potential client's ad account or strategy on our first call. They walk away with concrete suggestions they can implement immediately. That's how you build trust and demonstrate expertise, not with a fancy PowerPoint.

Ultimately, a good expert will feel like a strategic partner from the very first conversation. They'll be realistic, data-driven, and focused on your business goals. For more on this, check out our guide specifically for UK course creators on finding the right fit, it goes deeper into this process.

What Questions Should I Actually Be Asking Them?

Alright, so you've got a consultation booked. Don't just wing it. Go in prepared with a list of questions that cut to the chase and force them to demonstrate real expertise. Here are the ones I'd be asking:

1. "Can you show me a detailed example of a campaign you've run for an online course in the UK? What was the starting budget, what was the final CPA, and what was the ROAS?" - This is the big one. It's specific. It asks for UK experience, niche experience, and the key metrics. If they can't answer this clearly and confidently, that's a problem.
2. "What is your process for creative testing and development?" - The ad creative is one of the biggest levers for success. You want to hear about a structured process. Do they test different hooks, formats (video, image, carousel), and copy? Do they have a system, or do they just 'come up with ideas'? Many creators find that understanding what kind of ad creatives actually convert course students is a huge part of the battle.
3. "Let's say we launch and the initial campaigns aren't hitting our targets. What's your step-by-step plan?" - This separates the pros from the amateurs. Anyone can manage a campaign that's working. The real test is what they do when it's not. A good answer will involve analysing data (CTR, CPC, landing page conversion rate), forming hypotheses, and systematically testing solutions. A bad answer is "We'll just try some new ads."
4. "How do you approach audience targeting for a new course with no existing customer data?" - This tests their strategic thinking. They should talk about building an Ideal Customer Profile based on your input, researching competitor audiences, and using interest and behaviour-based targeting as a starting point, before moving on to lookalike audiences once you have data.
5. "Who will actually be working on my account day-to-day, and what is their experience level?" - Crucial if you're talking to an agency. You want to make sure you're not sold by the senior expert only to be handed off to a recent graduate who is learning on your dime.

Use this scorecard below to grade them during your call. It'll help you stay objective and compare different options fairly. A high score doesn't guarantee success, but a low score almost certainly predicts failure.

Forget 'Awareness'. Are They Talking About the Right Numbers?

This might be the most important section in this whole guide. If you get this bit right, you'll be ahead of 90% of other course creators trying to use paid ads. Most agencies love to talk about vanity metrics like reach, impressions, and clicks. Why? Because they're easy to get and make their reports look good. But they don't pay your bills.

The only thing that matters is profitability. For a course creator, that boils down to two key numbers: your Lifetime Value (LTV) and your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). A true expert will build their entire strategy around the relationship between these two figures.

Lifetime Value (LTV): This is the total profit you can expect to make from a single student over their entire time with you. It's not just the price of your first course. Do you have an upsell? A membership? A high-ticket coaching program? You need to know this number. If you don't, you're flying blind.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): This is simply how much it costs you in advertising to get one new student. It's your total ad spend divided by the number of new customers.

The golden rule is that your LTV should be at least 3 times your CAC. An LTV:CAC ratio of 3:1 is considered healthy. This means for every £1 you spend on ads to get a customer, you should expect to get £3 back in profit over their lifetime. This is the maths that unlocks scalable growth. If you know a customer is worth £500 to you, you know you can afford to spend up to £166 to acquire them. This changes everything. You stop worrying about a high CPC and start focusing on acquiring high-value customers profitably.

Any expert who doesn't immediately start asking about your LTV and what your target CAC is, isn't a true growth partner. They're just a media buyer. They're focused on buying ad space, not on growing your bussiness. And don't let them sell you on "brand awareness" campaigns. That's what Coca-Cola does. For a course creator needing to make sales to survive, awareness is a byproduct of effective direct-response advertising, not a goal in itself.

Use the calculator below to get a rough idea of your numbers. Playing with this will give you a much better feel for the economics of your own business before you even get on a call.

So, What Should I Expect to Pay for Management in London?

This is always a tricky question, but an important one. The short answer is: you get what you pay for. If you're looking for the cheapest option, you'll almost certainly end up with the worst results, costing you more in the long run through wasted ad spend and missed opportunities.

In London and the UK, for a good, experienced specialist or boutique agency, you should expect to see management fees in these ballparks:

• Monthly Retainer: This is the most common model. It's a fixed fee you pay each month for the management of your campaigns. For a decent level of service, this typically starts at around £1,500 per month and can go up to £5,000+ for more complex accounts or those with higher ad spends. Anything less than £1,000 a month should be viewed with suspicion – they simply can't afford to dedicate enough senior time to your account at that rate.
• Percentage of Ad Spend: Some agencies charge a percentage of your monthly ad spend, usually between 10-20%. This can work well as it aligns their incentives with scaling your budget, but make sure there's a minimum fee in place so they're still motivated if you have to pull back spend for a month.
• Performance-Based: This sounds great in theory ("you only pay for results!"), but it's rare to find a good agency that works this way, especially with new clients. There are too many variables outside of their control (your landing page, your offer, your sales process) for them to risk their income on it. It's often a sign of a less confident or newer agency.

When you're evaluating costs, don't just look at the fee. Think about the value. An expert charging £2,500/month who gets you a 4x ROAS on your £5,000 ad spend is delivering £20,000 in revenue. A cheaper manager at £1,000/month who only manages a 1.5x ROAS gets you £7,500. The 'more expensive' expert has made you an extra £11,000 for an additional £1,500 investment. It's a no-brainer. If you're serious about this, we have a much more detailed breakdown of management costs in London that's worth a read.

The key is to view the management fee not as a cost, but as an investment in expertise that should pay for itself many times over. If you find the right person, it will be the best money you spend.

This is the main advice I have for you:

Finding the right Facebook Ads expert in a crowded market like London is a daunting task, but it's not impossible if you approach it with the right mindset and a clear process. It's less about finding a 'media buyer' and more about finding a strategic growth partner who understands the unique challenges of selling online courses to a UK audience. Below is a summary of the step-by-step process you should follow. Treat it like a checklist to ensure you're making a smart, data-driven decision rather than an emotional one.

Ultimately, the right expert can be a massive catalyst for your growth, while the wrong one can set you back months and cost you thousands. The time you invest in this vetting process is an investment in your own success. It's hard work, but getting it right is one of the most impactful decisions you can make for your course business.

If you've gone through this guide and feel you'd like a professional opinion on your current situation, we offer a completely free, no-obligation strategy session. We can take a look at your course, your goals, and your existing ad campaigns (if you have any) and give you our honest, unfiltered advice on what your next steps should be. It's a chance to get some real, actionable insights from specialists who live and breathe this stuff every day. Feel free to get in touch if you think that would be helpful.