TLDR;
- Stop obsessing over location. For most digital businesses, it's a lazy proxy for a real audience. Your customer is defined by their problem, not their postcode.
- Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn't a demographic, it's a nightmare. Identify their specific, urgent, expensive problem and target *that*.
- Platform choice is simple: Are they actively searching for a solution? Use Google Ads. Are they unaware they have a problem you can solve? Use Meta or LinkedIn Ads to interrupt them.
- Your offer is probably the reason your ads fail. "Request a Demo" is a high-friction, low-value ask. Offer a free trial, a useful tool, or a free strategy session to provide value first.
- This article includes an interactive LTV calculator to show you exactly how much you can afford to pay for a lead, and a platform selection flowchart to help you make the right choice.
One of the biggest hang-ups I see people have when they start with paid ads is this obsession with location. "I don't have a specific city to target, so how can I even start?" The truth is, unless you're a plumber or a local restaurant, location targeting is often a crutch. It's an easy, but fundamentally flawed, way to define who you're selling to.
Thinking your customer is "people in London" is lazy. Thinking your customer is "a Head of Engineering at a 100-person tech company in London who's terrified of her best developers quitting over a broken workflow"... now you're getting somewhere. The geography is the least interesting part of that description. The real targeting gold is in the problem.
This guide is about throwing away the crutch of location targeting and learning to walk. It's about fundamentally shifting your mindset from *where* your customers are to *who* they are, what keeps them up at night, and how to find them online, regardless of their physical address.
So, your ICP isn't a place, it's a problem?
Exactly. Forget the sterile, demographic-based profiles. "Companies in the finance sector with 50-200 employees" tells you nothing of value. It leads to boring, generic ads that get ignored because they speak to absolutely no one. To stop burning cash, you have to define your customer by their pain. Their nightmare.
You need to become an expert in their specific, urgent, expensive, career-threatening problem. For a legal tech SaaS, for instance, the nightmare isn't 'needing document management'; it's 'a senior partner missing a critical filing deadline and exposing the firm to a multi-million pound malpractice suit.' One is a feature, the other is a disaster. You sell the solution to the disaster.
Once you've isolated that nightmare, you can start building a real profile.
-> What niche podcasts do they listen to on their commute? (e.g., 'Acquired', 'The All-In Podcast')
-> What industry newsletters do they actually open and read? (e.g., 'Stratechery', 'The Hustle')
-> What SaaS tools do they already pay for every month? (e.g., HubSpot, Salesforce, Slack)
-> What online communities are they a part of? (e.g., 'SaaS Growth Hacks' on Facebook, specific subreddits, private Slack groups)
-> Who do they follow on LinkedIn or Twitter for industry insight? (e.g., Jason Lemkin, April Dunford)
This isn't just data; it's the blueprint for your entire targeting strategy. You don't need to know their city, you need to know their world. If you haven't done this work, you have no business spending a single pound on ads. It's the difference between shouting into a crowded stadium and whispering in someone's ear. This deep understanding is how you can finally get your LinkedIn ads to target nightmares, not just job titles.
Okay, I know their nightmare. How do I actually find them?
Now that you've stopped thinking about maps, you can start thinking about intent and behaviour. This is where you pick your platform. It boils down to a very simple question: is your audience actively searching for a solution, or do they need to be shown that a solution exists?
1. For the Active Searcher: Google Ads
If your customer's nightmare has reached a boiling point, they are going to go to Google and type their problem into the search bar. They are problem-aware and solution-aware. Your job is simply to be the best answer waiting for them.
This is about targeting keywords that signal commercial intent, not just informational curiosity. For an outreach tool like Apollo.io, you wouldn't target "what is lead generation". That's a student doing research. You'd target "software for finding contact info" or "apollo.io alternatives". The user is pre-qualified by their search query; they have a problem and they're looking to pay for a fix. This is the most direct way to get in front of people with a high willingness to pay, allowing you to target problems, not just postcodes.
I remember one B2B software client in the recruitment space. They were trying to get traction on social media with little success. We shifted their entire budget to Google Ads, focusing on very specific, long-tail keywords that only a frustrated hiring manager would search for. Their CPA (Cost Per User Acquisition) dropped from over £100 to just £7. That's the power of capturing intent.
2. For the Passive Problem-Haver: Meta & LinkedIn Ads
What if your audience doesn't know a solution like yours exists? Or they're tolerating their problem because they think it's just 'the cost of doing business'? This is where social platforms come in. You're not capturing existing demand; you're creating it. Your ad interrupts their scroll with a message so relevant to their unspoken frustration that they have to stop and listen.
On LinkedIn: This is your B2B sniper rifle. It's expensive, but unbelievably precise. You can layer targeting to find exactly who you need:
-> Job Title: 'Head of Engineering' OR 'CTO' OR 'VP of Engineering'
-> Company Size: 50-250 employees
-> Industry: 'Computer Software'
-> Skills listed on profile: 'Amazon Web Services (AWS)', 'Kubernetes'
Now you can show an ad that speaks directly to their nightmare: "Tired of your AWS bill spiralling out of control? Your best engineers are wasting time on cost optimisation instead of building product. Here's how to fix it." For one of our B2B SaaS clients, this level of precision on LinkedIn got them qualified leads for just $22 a pop. It's pricey per click, but the quality is unmatched when you get it right.
On Meta (Facebook & Instagram): This is your B2B shotgun or your B2C powerhouse. It's cheaper than LinkedIn but the targeting is broader. You build audiences based on the intelligence you gathered earlier:
-> Interests: People who like 'SaaS', 'Shopify', 'HubSpot', or follow pages of competitors.
-> Behaviours: 'Small business owners', 'Facebook page admins'.
-> Lookalike Audiences: This is where it gets powerful. Once you have a list of your first 100+ customers, you can upload it to Meta and say, "Go find me millions of people who look just like my best customers." This is almost always the best-performing cold audience.
We had a client selling an e-learning course. We started with interest targeting which worked okay, generating about $15k in revenue. But once we built a lookalike audience from their existing student list, the campaign exploded. We generated over $115k in revenue in just six weeks. Meta's algorithm knew who their best customers were better than they did. Deciding which platform is right for your goals can be tough, which is why having a clear framework for choosing the right paid social platform is so important.
The single biggest reason your ads are failing (it's not your targeting)
Let's be brutally honest. You could have the most perfectly targeted audience in the world, but if you send them to a page with a weak offer, you've wasted your money. And the most common failure point in all of advertising, especially B2B, is the offer itself.
The "Request a Demo" button is perhaps the most arrogant Call to Action ever conceived. It presumes your prospect, a busy decision-maker, has nothing better to do than book a 30-minute slot in their calendar to be sold to. It's all friction and no value. It instantly positions you as just another vendor begging for their time.
Your offer's only job is to deliver an "aha!" moment—a small, undeniable win that makes the prospect sell themselves on your solution. You must give value before you ask for a sale.
-> For SaaS founders: This is your superpower. The gold standard is a free trial or a freemium plan (no credit card required). Let them use the actual product. Let them feel the transformation. When the product proves its own value, the sale becomes a formality. One of our SaaS clients saw a huge jump in signups when they switched from a demo request to a 14-day free trial, eventually getting 5,082 trial users from a single Meta ads campaign.
-> For service businesses or agencies: You're not exempt. You have to bottle your expertise. We do this ourselves by offering a free 20-minute ad account audit. For a marketing agency, it could be a free, automated SEO report that finds their top 3 keyword opportunities. For a corporate training company, a free 15-minute interactive video on 'Handling Difficult Conversations'. Solve a small, real problem for free to earn the right to solve the big one.
-> For e-commerce: The offer is often a discount, free shipping, or a bundle. But you can be more creative. For a high-ticket product, it could be a detailed buyer's guide or a free sample. The goal is always to lower the barrier to that first transaction and prove your worth.
Delete "Request a Demo". Replace it with "Get Your Free [Valuable Thing]". Your conversion rates will thank you for it.
The Maths That Actually Matters: Are You Paying Too Much for a Lead?
So many businesses get fixated on the wrong metric. They panic over a £50 Cost Per Lead (CPL) without knowing if that's good or bad. The real question isn't "How low can my CPL go?" but "How high a CPL can I afford to acquire a truly great customer?" The answer lies in your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).
Most buisnesses don't know their numbers. They're flying blind, making decisions based on gut feel. This is how you burn through cash. Let's do the simple maths.
You need three numbers:
1. Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What do you make per customer, per month?
2. Gross Margin %: What's your profit margin on that revenue?
3. Monthly Churn Rate: What percentage of customers do you lose each month?
The calculation is simple: LTV = (ARPA * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate
Let's say your ARPA is £500, your Gross Margin is 80%, and your monthly churn is 4%.
LTV = (£500 * 0.80) / 0.04
LTV = £400 / 0.04 = £10,000
In this example, each customer is worth £10,000 in gross margin over their lifetime. A healthy LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio is typically 3:1. This means you can afford to spend up to £3,333 to acquire a single customer. If your sales process converts 1 in 10 qualified leads into a customer, you can afford to pay up to £333 per qualified lead.
Suddenly that £50 CPL from LinkedIn doesn't seem so expensive, does it? It looks like an absolute bargain. This is the maths that unlocks aggressive, intelligent growth. Use the calculator below to find your own numbers.
Putting It All Together: A Framework for Choosing Your Channel
So we've established that location is irrelevant for most, the customer's problem is everything, your offer needs to be valuable, and you need to know your numbers. Now, how do you decide where to actually spend your money?
It's not about being on every platform. It's about being on the *right* one for your specific customer and their state of mind. Too many companies try to be everywhere at once and end up making no impact anywhere. For most small businesses, it's far better to master one channel before moving to the next. This decision flowchart should help you make a smarter choice. The path you take should form the foundation of your entire paid ads strategy.
Are your customers actively searching for a solution to their problem right now?
Google Ads.
Focus on high-intent keywords. Capture the demand that already exists. This is your lowest-hanging fruit.
Are you selling to other businesses (B2B)?
LinkedIn Ads.
Target specific job titles, industries, and company sizes. Expensive, but precise for high-value deals.
Meta Ads (FB/IG).
Use interest, behaviour, and lookalike audiences to create demand. The default for most B2C products.
This framework forces you to make a strategic choice rather than just throwing money at a platform because you've heard it's popular. For a deeper analysis, our guide on choosing a platform with data-driven comparisons might be helpful. The goal is to stop wasting ad money and start investing it where it will generate a return.
I've summarised the main points in a table below to give you a quick overview.
| Factor | Google Ads | LinkedIn Ads | Meta Ads (Facebook/Instagram) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary Use Case | Capture existing demand from active searchers. People with a problem looking for a solution NOW. | Precise B2B targeting. Reaching specific decision-makers based on their professional profile. | Create new demand. Reaching broad consumer (B2C) or small business (B2B) audiences based on interests and behaviours. |
| Targeting Method | Keywords (what people are searching for). | Job Title, Company Size, Industry, Skills, Groups. | Interests, Behaviours, Demographics, Lookalike Audiences. |
| Typical Cost | Moderate to High CPC (£1 - £50+). Cost is driven by keyword competition. | Very High CPC (£5 - £15+). You pay a premium for the quality of the B2B data. | Low to Moderate CPC (£0.50 - £2.00). Cost is lower due to massive scale and auction dynamics. |
| When to use it | When you know people are actively looking for what you sell (e.g., "emergency electrician", "CRM software"). | When you sell a high-ticket B2B product/service and need to reach a specific person in a specific company. | When you sell a B2C product, an e-learning course, a low-ticket SaaS, or anything with a broad potential audience. |
| Biggest Mistake to Avoid | Targeting broad, informational keywords instead of specific, commercial-intent keywords. Wastes money on researchers, not buyers. | Using it for brand awareness campaigns or low-value offers. The high costs demand a strong offer and a clear path to ROI. | Optimising for clicks or reach instead of conversions. You'll get cheap traffic that never buys anything. |
You've Got the Blueprint. Now What?
You now have the exact framework we use to approach campaigns for clients who sell digital products, SaaS, or services nationally or globally. The core principle is simple: stop worrying about location and start obsessing over your customer's most painful, urgent problem. When you get that right, your targeting, your messaging, and your offer all click into place.
This is a lot to take in, and while the principles are straightforward, the execution is where most people get stuck. It takes experience to know which LinkedIn job titles to test, how to structure a Google Ads campaign for profit, or how to write Meta ad copy that actually stops the scroll. There are hundreds of little missteps that can drain your budget with nothing to show for it.
This is where getting some expert help can make a huge difference. You can spend the next six months and thousands of pounds learning through trial and error, or you can work with someone who has already made all the expensive mistakes and knows how to get it right from the start.
If you're serious about growing your business and want a clear, no-nonsense strategy for your paid advertising, we offer a completely free, 20-minute strategy session. We'll look at your business, your offer, and your goals, and give you honest advice on what your next steps should be. There's no hard sell. Just practical advice that you can implement right away. If you'd like to book one in, feel free to get in touch.
Hope that helps!
