Solved: Best Payment App Ad Platforms in the UK (Data Inside)

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

Happy to give you some of my thoughts on advertising your new fintech product in the UK. The question of "which platform" is a good one, but it’s actually the second question you should be asking. The first, and much more important question, is *who* are you advertising to and *what* problem are you actually solving for them. Get that wrong and it doesn't matter which platform you pour your money into, it just wont work.

I'll walk you through how I'd approach this, from nailing your audience to structuring your campaigns. It’s a bit of a process, but getting the foundations right is the only way to avoid burning through your budget with nothing to show for it.

Your ICP is a Nightmare, Not a Demograhic

Right, let's get one thing straight. Forget the generic profiles you've probably seen. "Millennials in London who are interested in finance" tells you absolutely nothing useful. It's a recipe for bland ads that get ignored. To stop wasting money, you have to define your customer by their pain.

You need to become an obsessive expert in their specific, urgent, career-threatening (or life-complicating) nightmare. Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn't a person; it's a problem state. Let's think about your payment app. Who is it for, really?

• -> Is it for freelancers who are constantly chasing invoices and getting crippled by cash flow gaps? Their nightmare isn't 'needing a payment app'; it's the gut-wrenching anxiety of not knowing if they can pay their rent next month because a client is 60 days late.
• -> Is it for small e-commerce businesses getting eaten alive by the high transaction fees from Shopify Payments or Stripe? Their nightmare isn't 'high fees'; it's seeing their already thin profit margins vanish, making all their hard work feel pointless.
• -> Is it for groups of friends who find it awkward to split bills for holidays or dinners, leading to resentment? Their nightmare isn't 'complex bill splitting'; it's the social friction and potential damage to their friendships.

See the difference? We're talking about real, emotional problems. Once you've isolated that specific nightmare, you can build your entire advertising strategy around it. Your ad copy stops being about your app's features ("instant transfers!") and starts being about solving their pain ("Stop chasing late payments and get paid on time, every time.").

This deep understanding of the problem also tells you where to find these people. The freelancer worried about cash flow is probably listening to podcasts like 'Freelance Heroes', not 'The Economist'. The e-commerce owner is in Facebook Groups like 'Shopify Entrepreneurs', not just targeting a broad 'e-commerce' interest. This intelligence is the blueprint for your targeting. You have to do this work first, otherwise you have no business spending a single pound on ads.

We'll need to look at your offer...

Now we get to the second most common reason campaigns fail: the offer. For a fintech app, your offer is the action you want someone to take after clicking your ad. And this is where so many software companies get it wrong.

The "Request a Demo" button is probably the worst call to action ever invented. It assumes your potential user, who is likely busy and sceptical, has nothing better to do than schedule a meeting to be sold to. It's high-friction and screams "I'm going to waste your time". It instantly positions you as just another vendor, not a problem-solver.

Your offer's only job is to deliver a moment of undeniable value—an "aha!" moment that makes the prospect sell *themselves* on your solution. For a software or fintech app, you have an incredible advantage here.

The gold standard is a free trial (with no credit card details) or a freemium plan. Let them get their hands on the actual product. Let them experience the relief of solving their problem. When your app itself proves its value, the sale becomes a formality. You’re not trying to generate leads for a sales team to chase; you're creating Product Qualified Leads (PQLs) who are already convinced.

I remember one B2B software client we worked with. They were struggling to get signups. Their offer was a demo. We convinced them to switch to a simple, no-card-required free trial. The results were immediate. We ended up driving 1,535 trials for them through Meta ads because the barrier to entry was suddenly gone. People could instantly see the value without having to talk to anyone. That's what you need to aim for. Make it as easy as possible for someone to experience that "aha!" moment.

I'd say you need to understand your numbers first...

Before you spend a penny, you need to know what a user is actually worth to you. So many founders are obsessed with getting the lowest Cost Per Install (CPI) or Cost Per Lead (CPL) possible. But the real question isn't "How low can my CPL go?" it's "How high a CPL can I afford to acquire a great user?"

The answer is in your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). This is the total profit you can expect to make from a single customer over the entire time they use your app. If you don't know this number, you're flying blind.

Here’s the basic maths:

• Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What do you make per user, per month (from subscriptions, transaction fees, etc.)?
• Gross Margin %: What's your profit margin on that revenue?
• Monthly Churn Rate %: What percentage of users do you lose each month?

The calculation is: LTV = (ARPA * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate

For example, if you make £10 per user per month (ARPA), your gross margin is 75%, and you lose 5% of your users each month (churn), your LTV would be (£10 * 0.75) / 0.05 = £150.

This is your truth. A healthy business model often aims for a 3:1 LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio. So, with a £150 LTV, you can afford to spend up to £50 to acquire a single user and still have a very healthy, profitable business. Suddenly, a £2 cost per install doesn't just look good, it looks like an incredible bargain you should be scaling as fast as possible.

I've built a simple calculator for you below. Play around with the sliders to see how small changes in your pricing, margins, or user retention can dramatically change what you can afford to spend on ads. This is the maths that unlocks intelligent, agressive growth.

You probably should focus on these platforms...

Okay, with the foundation of your ICP, offer, and numbers sorted, *now* we can talk about platforms. You don't pick a platform because it's popular; you pick it based on whether your ideal customer is there and what their mindset is when they're using it.

I'd split the platforms into two camps: those that *capture existing demand* and those that *create new demand*.

1. Capturing Existing Demand (Start Here)

These are people already looking for a solution to their problem. They are actively searching. This is the lowest-hanging fruit and the best place to start because the intent to buy (or try) is already there. For a fintech app, your primary channels are:

-> Google Search Ads & Apple Search Ads: This is non-negotiable. When someone has a problem, their first stop is often the Google search bar or the App Store search. You need to be there. You'd target keywords that show clear intent, like:

• "best payment app for freelancers uk"
• "low fee payment processing for small business"
• "app to split bills with friends"
• "stripe alternative uk"

The beauty here is that you're only paying for clicks from people who are *pre-qualified*. They've literally told you they're looking for what you offer. We worked on an app growth campaign for a client where we drove over 45,000 signups, and a huge chunk of that came from Apple Search Ads and Google Ads because we could so precisely target users at the exact moment they were searching for a solution.

2. Creating New Demand (Scale Here)

These are people who have the problem you solve, but they aren't actively looking for a solution right now. You need to interrupt them and make them problem-aware. This is harder and can be more expensive, but it's how you scale beyond the limited pool of active searchers.

-> Meta Ads (Facebook & Instagram): This is a powerhouse for creating demand, but only if you get it right. Here’s the big mistake everyone makes: they run "Brand Awareness" or "Reach" campaigns. When you do this, you are literally paying Meta to find the cheapest, lowest-quality users in your audience—the ones who never click, never engage, and certainly never buy. It's a total waste of money.

You MUST use a conversion objective, like App Installs or Signups/Registrations. This tells the algorithm to find people who are not just *like* your target audience, but who also have a history of actually taking the action you want. We ran a campaign for a B2B software tool and got 4,622 registrations at just $2.38 each on Meta by focusing purely on a conversion objective and letting the algorithm do the heavy lifting.

Your targeting on Meta will come directly from your ICP nightmare work. If you're targeting freelancers, you'd test interests like 'Upwork', 'PeoplePerHour', or followers of influential freelancer blogs.

-> TikTok Ads: If your target audience is younger (under 35), TikTok could be a brilliant chanel. The format has to be native—don't just run a polished corporate ad. It needs to look and feel like a real TikTok video. This could be a user-generated-style video showing how easy it is to solve that bill-splitting nightmare, for example. Again, always optimise for conversions.

-> LinkedIn Ads: This is only relevant if you have a very clear B2B angle. For example, if your app is built specifically for accountants or law firms. The cost per click is much higher, but the targeting is incredibly precise. You can target by job title, company size, and industry. We've seen leads for B2B decision makers come in at around $22, which sounds expensive until you remember your LTV calculation.

To make it clearer, here’s a simple flowchart to help you decide where to start.

You'll need a solid testing structure...

Once you've picked your starting platform, you can't just throw a few audiences into a campaign and hope for the best. You need a logical structure that lets you test systematically and understand what's working.

I usually structure accounts based on the marketing funnel: Top of Funnel (ToFu), Middle of Funnel (MoFu), and Bottom of Funnel (BoFu).

• ToFu (Top of Funnel - Cold Audiences): This is where you target people who have never heard of you before. Your goal is acquisition. On Meta, this would be your campaigns targeting interests, behaviours, and Lookalike audiences.
• MoFu (Middle of Funnel - Warm Audiences): These are people who have shown some interest but haven't taken a key action yet. This could be people who watched 50% of your video ad or visited your website, but didn't sign up. Your goal is to re-engage them.
• BoFu (Bottom of Funnel - Hot Audiences): These are people who are very close to converting. They might have started the signup process but got distracted, or added a subscription to their cart but didn't complete the purchase. Your goal is to get them over the finish line.

For a new app with a limited budget, you can combine MoFu and BoFu into a single 'Retargeting' campaign. The principle is to have separate, long-term campaigns for each stage of the funnel. Inside each campaign, you can then test different ad sets (audiences) and ads (creatives).

Here’s what a starting Meta Ads structure might look like:

You'd let these run and after a few days (or once an ad set has spent about 3x your target cost per signup), you can see which audiences are performing best. You turn off the losers and put more budget behind the winners. It's a continous process of testing and optimisation.

And what should you expect to pay? Well, it varies hugely. For a simple signup in a developed country like the UK, you might see a cost per result anywhere from £1.60 to £15. We've had campaigns for software that got signups for under £2, but others that were closer to $7. It depends on your audience, your creative, your offer, and a dozen other things. The key is to know your LTV so you know what you can *afford* to pay.

This all might seem like a lot, and honestly, it is. But it's the difference between a structured, data-driven approach and just setting money on fire. I've broken down the key steps into a table for you below to give you a clearer action plan.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:

Getting this right takes expertise, time, and a relentless focus on testing. It's not just about setting up an ad; it's about building a predictable growth engine for your business. This is where working with a specialist can make a huge difference, helping you avoid the common mistakes and scale faster and more profitably.

If you'd like to chat through your specific situation in more detail, we offer a free 20-minute strategy session where we can look at your app and give you some tailored advice. No obligation at all, just a chance to get an expert pair of eyes on your plans.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh