Meta Ads Consultant: The Ultimate Reading Hiring Guide

Finding a good Meta ads consultant, especially somewhere like Reading with its booming tech and service scene, can feel like a complete minefield. You're probably being bombarded with promises of guaranteed results and explosive growth. The truth is, most of that is rubbish. The secret to not getting your fingers burnt isn't about finding a magician, it's about understanding what actually matters and knowing how to spot a genuine expert from a charlatan who just knows how to run a sales pitch.

Before you even think about handing over a single pound to a consultant or agency, you need to do some homework on your own business. If you skip this, you’re setting them—and your money—up for failure. This is the stuff a real expert would force you to do on your first call anyway.

Why are you even looking for a consultant?

This sounds like a daft question, but it’s not. If your answer is "to get more leads" or "to increase sales," you're thinking about it all wrong. That's a result, not a strategy. A good consultant doesn't just manage ads; they help you solve a specific, expensive business problem. The problem isn't a lack of leads; the problem is that your pipeline is empty and you're worried about making payroll next quarter. The problem isn't low sales; it's that your cost to acquire a customer is so high that you're barely making a profit.

This starts by forgetting the bland, demographic-based customer profile you might have. "SMEs in the Thames Valley with 50-100 employees" is utterly useless. It tells a consultant nothing of value and leads to generic, ineffective ads that speak to precisely no one. To stop wasting cash, you have to define your customer by their pain. You need to become an expert in their specific, urgent, career-threatening nightmare.

Your Head of Sales client isn't just a job title; she's a leader terrified of missing her quarterly target again and having an uncomfortable conversation with the board. For a local B2B service firm in Berkshire, the nightmare isn't 'needing better IT support'; it's 'the entire server going down during a critical client presentation, costing them the biggest deal of the year.' Your ideal customer profile isn't a person; it's a problem state. A good consultant understands this. A bad one just asks for your target audience and starts clicking buttons in Ads Manager.

Once you've identified that nightmare, you can figure out where these people actually live online. What industry podcasts do they listen to on their commute into Reading or London? What newsletters do they actually open? Are they in specific Facebook groups? This intelligence is the blueprint for your entire targeting strategy. Do this work first, or you have no business spending money on ads.

How to calculate what a customer is actually worth to you

The next non-negotiable step is knowing your numbers. The real question isn't "How low can my cost per lead go?" but "How high a cost per lead can I afford to acquire a fantastic customer?" The answer is your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). Without this, you're flying blind.

It’s simpler than it sounds. You just need three bits of info:

• -> Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What do you make per customer, per month/year? Let's say it's a modest £300/month for a service business.
• -> Gross Margin %: What's your profit margin on that revenue after direct costs? Let's say it's 70%.
• -> Monthly Churn Rate: What percentage of customers do you lose each month? Let's say it's 5% (meaning a customer stays for 20 months on average).

Now, the calculation:

LTV = (ARPA * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate
LTV = (£300 * 0.70) / 0.05
LTV = £210 / 0.05 = £4,200

In this example, each customer is worth £4,200 in gross margin to your business over their lifetime. Now you have the truth. A healthy business model often aims for a 3:1 LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio. This means you can afford to spend up to £1,400 (£4,200 / 3) to acquire a single customer. If your sales team converts 1 in 5 qualified leads, you can afford to pay up to £280 for that lead. Suddenly, a £50 lead from Meta ads doesn’t seem so bad, does it? It looks like a bargain. This is the maths that unlocks intelligent growth. Any consultant who doesn't ask about this in the first conversation isn't worth your time.

Are their case studies actually impressive, or just shiny?

Once you've got your own house in order, you can start looking outwards. The first port of call for any consultant should be their case studies. But you need to read them with a critical eye. They are marketing materials, after all.

Look for relevance. If you're a B2B SaaS company, a case study about a local eCommerce fashion brand is almost irrelevant. The audiences, sales cycles, and strategies are completely different. You want to see that they have experience in your world. Have they wrestled with LinkedIn Ads to target niche decision-makers? Have they scaled a Meta campaign for software trials? I remember one B2B software client where we generated leads for just $22 CPL on LinkedIn, which is notoriously expensive. For another, we reduced their cost per user acquisition from a painful £100 down to just £7. Those are the kind of specific, relevant results you're looking for.

Then, question the metrics. A case study bragging about "10 Million Views" for a luxury brand sounds amazing, but what did it actually achieve for the business? Did it lead to sales? Or was it just a vanity metric that made the marketing manager look good? Be wary of consultants who lead with reach and impressions. You can't take impressions to the bank. Look for results that impact the bottom line: Return On Ad Spend (ROAS), Cost Per Acquisition (CPA), or revenue generated. We ran a campaign for a prize draw company that generated £107k in revenue at a 618% ROAS. That’s a number with real business impact. It shows the ads didnt just get seen, they made money.

A good consultant will be proud of their results but also honest about the fact that they aren't transferrable. What worked for one client might not work for you. The market changes, competition is different. Their case studies are proof of competence, not a promise of performance.

What should you ask on that 'free consultation' call?

Most consultants will offer a free intro call or consultation. You should treat this as your intelligence-gathering mission. It's not a sales call for them; it's an audition. You are interviewing them for a critical role in your business. A good consultant will give you genuine value and ideas on this call, not just a hard sell. We offer a free account review where we actually go through their strategy with them. It gives a potential client a real taste of the expertise they'd be getting.

Go into that call armed with tough questions that cut through the fluff:

• -> "Based on what you know about my business, how would you define my ideal customer's 'nightmare scenario' that our service solves?" - This tests if they were listening and if they think in terms of problems, not just demographics.
• -> "Our LTV is roughly £4,200. What would you consider a healthy target CPA for us on Meta, and why?" - This shows you know your numbers and forces them to justify their strategy with real maths.
• -> "For a new account like ours, what audience types would you prioritise testing first on Meta, and in what order?" - A real expert will have a clear answer. They'll probably talk about starting with detailed targeting (interests/behaviours) to gather data, then moving to retargeting (BoFu/MoFu audiences) and then building lookalikes from your best customers. If they just say "we'll target people interested in 'business'", hang up.
• -> "What's your process for creative testing? How do you decide what messaging to use?" - This gets into the nitty-gritty. They should talk about testing different angles (e.g., Problem-Agitate-Solve vs Before-After-Bridge), different formats (Image vs Video vs Carousel), and having a structured way to find winning ads, not just guessing.
• -> "Can you show me an example of a campaign you ran that failed initially, and what you did to turn it around?" - This is a great one. It tests for honesty and problem-solving ability. Anyone who claims they've never had a campaign fail is a liar.

Their answers will tell you everything you need to know. Are they strategic, data-driven, and transparent? Or are they vague, full of jargon, and just trying to get you to sign a contract?

Does my consultant really need to be in Reading?

This is a common question, and my contrarian view is: probably not. In 9 out of 10 cases, expertise trumps postcode. With tools like Zoom and Slack, physical location has become almost irrelevant for digital services. I'd much rather work with a world-class Meta ads expert based in Manchester or even further afield than a mediocre one who happens to have an office in Green Park.

The only time location really matters is if your business is intrinsically local. If you're a restaurant in the town centre, a local plumber, or a retail shop that relies on footfall, then yes, a consultant with deep knowledge of the local Reading area, its demographics, and what works here could be a benefit. They'll understand the local competition and media landscape.

But for the vast majority of businesses, especially the tech, SaaS, and service-based companies that are common in the Thames Valley, you're competing on a national or global stage. Your customers aren't just in Reading. Your talent pool isn't just in Reading. Why should your advertising expertise be confined to Reading? You need the best person you can find, wherever they are. Don't let geography limit your growth potential. Chose the best expert, not the closest one.

What are the big red flags I should watch out for?

During your search, you’ll encounter some common red flags. Spotting these early can save you a lot of time, money, and heartache.

1. The Guarantee. This is the biggest red flag of all. Anyone who guarantees you a specific ROAS, a certain number of leads, or a #1 ranking on Google is either a fool or a liar. Paid advertising operates in a live auction environment. Costs fluctuate, competitors change their strategies, platform algorithms get updated. There are far too many variables to make promises. An expert talks in probabilities and processes, not certainties.

2. Vague Strategy & Jargon. If you ask how they'll achieve results and they respond with a word salad of "synergies," "leveraging assets," and "growth hacking paradigms," run away. A real expert can explain their strategy in plain English. They should be able to tell you exactly what they plan to test first, why they're choosing specific audiences, and what success looks like in a measurable way.

3. The Reference Trap. This is a subtle one. Of course, you should check reviews. But if you've seen their detailed case studies, had a great strategy call where they demonstrated real expertise, and you *still* feel the need to ask to speak to one of their current clients, you should ask yourself why. Tbh, for us, this can be a red flag. It signals a fundamental lack of trust from the very beginning, which is a terrible foundation for a partnership. A good working relationship is built on trust in the demonstrated expertise, not on hassling their existing clients to vouch for them.

4. The "Set and Forget" Approach. Some agencies will onboard you, build a campaign, and then you won't hear from them until the next invoice is due. This is not how high-performance advertising works. Campaigns need constant monitoring, testing, and optimisation. Ask about their communication and reporting rythm. How often will you get updates? What do their reports look like? You should expect a proactive partner, not a passive account manager.

So, what's my exact plan for finding the right person?

It's a process, but it's one that protects your investment and dramatically increases your chances of success. It's about moving from being a hopeful buyer to an informed decision-maker. This is the main advice I have for you:

Can't I just do this myself?

After reading all this, you might be thinking you could just have a crack at it yourself. And you absolutely can. Platforms like Meta make it seem incredibly easy to get started. But there's a huge difference between running ads and running ads *profitably* and *at scale*.

The real cost of doing it yourself isn't just the ad spend you'll inevitably waste while you learn. It's the opportunity cost. It's the months you'll spend making common mistakes that an expert could have helped you avoid. It's the growth you miss out on while you're stuck in the weeds of Ads Manager instead of working on your product or servicing your clients. A good consultant isn't a cost; they're an investment in speed. They've already made the mistakes, but on other people's budgets. You're paying for their accumulated experience to get you to your goal faster and more efficiently.

If this all sounds like a lot of work, it's because it is. Getting paid advertising right is a full-time specialism. It requires a deep understanding of strategy, data analysis, copywriting, consumer psychology, and the ever-changing ad platforms.

If you'd rather focus on running your business and want a second pair of expert eyes on your strategy, we offer a completely free, no-obligation consultation. We can walk through your goals, audit your current approach, and see if we might be the right partner to help you grow.