Solved: Liverpool Ads Strategy (Data Inside)

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out. Happy to give you some initial thoughts on expanding into Liverpool. It's a common question, trying to figure out the 'best' channels for a new area.

Tbh, the question isn't really about Liverpool itself, or even about specific digital channels in isolation. The real task is to figure out who your customers are, what problem you solve for them, and how they behave when they have that problem. Once you know that, the right channel becomes obvious. Focusing on the city first is putting the cart before the horse. I'll walk you through how I'd approach this.

We'll need to look at your ICP, not your postcode...

Right, first thing's first. Forget about Liverpool for a second. The biggest mistake I see people make is thinking that geography is a targeting strategy. It isn't. It's just a boundary. You could have the most granular location targeting in the world, showing your ads to every single person in the L1 postcode, and still get zero results if your message is wrong.

You need to get obsessed with your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), but not in the way most marketing people think about it. "Males aged 25-45 in Liverpool" is useless. "Small businesses in the creative sector" is also pretty useless. It's too generic. It leads to ads that sound like they were written by a committee and they speak to absolutley no one.

Instead, you need to define your customer by their nightmare. What is the specific, urgent, expensive, maybe even career-threatening problem that keeps them up at night? What pain do they have that you, and only you, can solve?

• -> If you're a B2B service, it’s not ‘needing accountancy help’. It’s the terror of a surprise VAT inspection or the frustration of not knowing if they can afford to hire someone new.
• -> If you're an eCommerce store, it's not 'wanting a new jacket'. It's the feeling of being underdressed and overlooked at an important event.
• -> If you're a B2C service, it's not 'needing a plumber'. It's the panic of a burst pipe flooding the kitchen at 10pm on a Sunday.

That is your ICP. It's a problem state, not a demographic. Once you've defined that nightmare with crystal clarity, you can start figuring out where those people hang out online. What blogs do they read? What influencers do they follow on Instagram? What trade magazines are on their desk? Are they in specific Facebook groups for their industry or hobby? This intelligence is the foundation of your entire advertising strategy. Without it, you're just throwing money at a map of Liverpool and hoping for the best. It's a surefire way to burn cash.

I'd say you first need to decide between Search vs. Social...

Once you understand your customer's problem, the next question is: are they *aware* they have it and are they actively looking for a solution? The answer to this dictates your primary channel choice. There are really only two games in town to start with: Search and Social.

1. Google Ads (For Active Searchers)

If your potential customers in Liverpool are waking up and typing their problem into Google, then Google Ads is where you need to be. It's that simple. This is for businesses that solve a known, immediate need. Think electricians, dentists, lawyers, recruitment agencies, or a SaaS tool that replaces another specific tool.

The user has intent. They are raising their hand and saying "I have this problem right now, please sell me a solution". Your job is simply to show up with a relevant ad and a compelling offer. You'd target keywords like "emergency electrician liverpool", "divorce lawyer near me", or "shopify accounting software". You can also use Local Service Ads if you're an eligible service provider, which puts you right at the top with a Google-backed guarantee. This is probably the most direct way to get leads for many service businesses.

2. Meta/LinkedIn Ads (For Passive Discovery)

What if your customers aren't searching for you? What if they don't even know a solution like yours exists? This is where social ads (Meta for B2C/some SMBs, LinkedIn for B2B) come in. You're not capturing existing demand; you're creating it. You have to interrupt their scrolling with a message so relevant to their 'nightmare' that it stops them in their tracks.

This is for innovative products, new categories of service, most eCommerce brands, and things people buy based on desire rather than need. Your targeting here is based on the ICP work you did earlier—layering Liverpool as a location with interests, behaviours, job titles, or company characteristics that signal they are your ideal customer. But a word of warning: do NOT run "Brand Awareness" or "Reach" campaigns. All you are doing is paying Facebook to find the people in your audience *least* likely to ever buy anything. Their attention is cheap for a reason. You must always, always optimise for a conversion objective like leads or purchases. Awareness is a byproduct of sales, not the other way around for a business trying to grow.

Here’s a simple way to think about it:

You probably should calculate what you can afford to pay...

You mentioned wanting to "maximize return on investment". You cannot do this by guessing. The question isn't "how cheap can I get a lead?", it's "how much can I afford to spend to acquire a great customer?". The answer to that lies in a simple but powerful metric: Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). Until you know this number, you're flying blind.

It tells you what a customer is worth to you in profit over their entire relationship with your business. Here's how to work it out:

• Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What's the average amount a customer pays you per month (or year, just be consistent)?
• Gross Margin %: What's your profit margin on that revenue? If you sell a £100 product and it costs you £30 to make and deliver, your gross margin is 70%.
• Monthly Churn Rate %: What percentage of your customers do you lose each month? If you have 100 customers and 5 leave, your churn rate is 5%.

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

A healthy business model often aims for a 3:1 LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio. So, if your LTV is £9,000, you can afford to spend up to £3,000 to acquire a new customer and still have a very healthy business. Suddenly that £100 lead from Google Ads or that £200 lead from LinkedIn doesn't seem so expensive, does it? It looks like a bargain. This is the maths that unlocks confident, aggressive scaling. Without it, you'll always be scared to spend money and will likely choke your own growth.

Use this calculator to get a rough idea of your LTV.

You'll need to know what a lead will realy cost...

So you know what you can afford to pay. Now, what should you expect to pay? Tbh, this is the million-dollar question, and anyone who gives you a definitive number is lying. It varies massively by industry, offer, competition, and the quality of your ads.

However, we can talk in ballpark figures based on our experience running campaigns for loads of different businesses. For a lead (someone filling in a form, signing up for a trial, etc.) in a developed country like the UK, you're often looking at a Cost Per Click (CPC) between £0.50 and £1.50 on platforms like Meta. Your landing page might convert anywhere from 10% (for a decent page) to 30% (for a really well-optimised one). Do the maths, and your Cost Per Lead (CPL) could be anywhere from £1.60 (£0.50 / 0.30) to £15 (£1.50 / 0.10).

For eCommerce sales, the numbers are different. Conversion rates are naturally lower, maybe 2-5%. So your Cost Per Purchase could be between £10 and £75. For high-ticket B2B leads on a platform like LinkedIn, it's not uncommon to see CPLs well over £50-£100, but the LTV justifies it.

I remember one campaign we ran for a home cleaning company which got a cost of £5 per lead, which was fantastic. But we are also currently managing ads for an HVAC client in a really competitive market, and they're seeing lead costs closer to $60. It really just depends on your niche. The point is to have a realistic starting point and not to panic if your first leads aren't pennies. The goal is to be profitable on your LTV, not to have the lowest CPL.

We'll need to look at your offer, it's more important than anything else...

This is probably the most important part of this whole letter. You can have the perfect ICP, choose the right channel, and have your LTV calculated to the penny, but if your offer is weak, you will fail. The offer is the number one reason I see campaigns underperform.

The "Request a Demo" button is the most arrogant, high-friction Call To Action in modern marketing. It screams, "I expect you, a busy and important person, to give up 30 minutes of your time to be sold to by my junior sales rep". It offers zero value upfront. The same goes for the lazy "Contact Us" or "Learn More" buttons. They are conversion killers.

Your offer's only job is to provide a moment of undeniable value. An 'aha!' moment that makes the prospect sell themselves on your full solution. You must solve a small, real problem for free to earn the right to solve the big one for money.

What does a good offer look like?

• -> For a SaaS company: A free trial or a freemium plan. No credit card required. Let them experience the product's value firsthand. This creates Product Qualified Leads who are already convinced.
• -> For a service business (like an agency): A free, automated audit (e.g., an SEO audit that finds 3 keyword opportunities). A free 15-minute strategy session where you actually solve a problem, not just qualify them. A valuable checklist or template.
• -> For an eCommerce brand: A compelling discount on the first order is standard, but you could also offer a free 'style guide' download, a quiz to find the perfect product, or entry into an exclusive community.

Look at the friction involved in your ask. The lower the friction, the higher the conversion rate.

This is the main advice I have for you:

So, to bring this all together, expanding into Liverpool isn't about some secret local marketing trick. It's about applying solid, first-principles advertising strategy. I've detailed my main recommendations for you in the table below. This is the exact process we would follow.

Following these steps will put you miles ahead of competitors who are just boosting posts or generically targeting 'Liverpool'. But as you can probably tell, it takes work and expertise to get right. The difference between a campaign that breaks even and one that delivers a 5x or 10x return often comes down to hundreds of small optimisations in targeting, copy, creative, and landing page design.

This is where expert help can make a huge difference, especialy when entering a new market. It short-circuits the expensive trial-and-error phase and gets you to profitability much faster. If you'd like to go through your specific business and goals in more detail, we offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation where we can give you a more tailored strategy.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh