Solved: Finding a Meta Ads Expert (Unlock Growth Secrets)

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out! I understand the frustration of trying to find the right person to handle your Meta ads, especially when you're looking for someone local in Cardiff. It can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack.

I'm happy to give you some of my initial thoughts and guidance on this. The truth is, the most effective way to find a truly qualified strategist might involve looking beyond your immediate postcode. The key isn't about finding someone you can have a coffee with; it's about finding someone with the proven expertise to understand your business and deliver results, regardless of where they're based. Let's explore what that actually looks like.

We'll need to look at what really matters when hiring... and it's not their location

I know it feels reassuring to look for someone local. There's a sense of accountability and accessibility that comes with hiring someone in Cardiff. But for a service as digital as Meta advertising, geography is probably the least important factor on your list. The algorithms, tools, and strategies are the same whether you're in Cardiff, London, or Manchester. What isn't the same is the level of expertise, niche experience, and a track record of tangible success.

Think about it this way: would you rather hire an average strategist based a few miles away, or an exceptional one who is a few hundred miles away but has a portfolio of case studies showing they've successfully scaled five businesses exactly like yours? The second option is always going to be the better investment. The right expertise is what drives results, not proximity. A good agency or consultant will be perfectly set up for remote communication through video calls, shared dashboards, and regular reports. In many ways, it's a more efficient way of working.

Your primary focus should be on evidence of their skill. Take a really good look at their case studies. Are they vague and full of fluffy metrics like 'increased reach'? Or do they show hard numbers: cost per acquisition (CPA), return on ad spend (ROAS), revenue generated? For instance, we make sure our case studies are incredibly detailed. We don't just say we got results; we show them. I remember one campaign where we generated £107k in revenue at 618% ROAS for a client, and another where we achieved a 1000% return for a subscription box company. That's the level of proof you should be looking for. It shows they've been in the trenches and have solved real business problems.

You've got to be realistic with results, of course. Your niche might be more competitive or have different market dynamics. But if a potential partner has solid case studies and can clearly articulate how they acheived those results, it's a massive green flag. It demonstrates they have a process and a strategic mind, not just a knack for clicking the 'boost post' button.

I'd say you need to focus on proof, not promises

Once you've found someone whose case studies look promising, the next step is to get on a call with them. This is your chance to really vet their expertise. A reputable consultant or agency should offer some form of free initial consultation or account review. This isn't just a sales call; it should be a genuinely helpful session where they give you a taste of the value they can provide. For example, we offer a free review where we'll look at a potential client's existing strategy or ad account and provide immediate, actionable feedback. This does two things: it helps the business owner straight away, and it demonstrates our capability without any risk on their part.

During this call, ask them tough questions. What's their approach to audience targeting? How do they handle creative testing? What's their opinion on your current website and offer? Their answers should be specific and tailored to your business, not generic marketing fluff. If they sound like they know what they're doing and aren't just promising you the world, that's a great sign. Tbh, in paid advertising, you can't really promise anything. The market is too unpredictable. Anyone who guarantees a '4x ROAS' is selling snake oil. What a true expert promises is a rigorous, data-driven process designed to find what works and scale it.

Reviews are another piece of the puzzle. Look at what past clients are saying. Are the reviews detailed? Do they mention specific results or praise the strategist's communication and strategic input? Strong reviews are a good indicator, but they should be backed up by the case studies and your impression from the consultation call. If you've reviewed their detailed case studies, gotten valuable advice on a free call, and seen positive reviews, you have a solid basis for trust. If after all that, you still feel the need to ask for references to call one of their clients, it might be a signal that there's a fundamental lack of trust. For us, that can sometimes be a red flag that we're not a good fit, because that underlying doubt can make for a difficult working relationship down the line.

You probably should define your customer's nightmare first

A massive mistake I see businesses make is thinking about their target audience in sterile, demographic terms. A good Meta ads strategist won't let you get away with "we're targeting women aged 30-50 in South Wales." That tells you absolutely nothing of value and leads to generic, ineffective ads that get ignored. To stop burning cash, you have to define your customer not by who they are, but by the problem they have. You need to become an expert in their specific, urgent, and expensive nightmare.

Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn't a person; it's a problem state. A great strategist helps you uncover this. For instance, if you sell high-end kitchen installations, your customer's nightmare isn't 'needing a new kitchen'. It's the deep-seated embarrassment they feel when friends come over to their dated, cramped kitchen. It's the frustration of not having enough space to cook for the family. It's the fear of being taken for a ride by unreliable tradesmen. Your service doesn't just provide cabinets and countertops; it solves that embarrassment and frustration. It delivers a sense of pride and a space where family memories can be made.

Once you've defined that nightmare, your ad messaging becomes incredibly powerful. You can deploy a framework like Problem-Agitate-Solve.

Problem: "Tired of feeling embarrassed by your dated kitchen every time you have guests?"
Agitate: "Are you constantly shuffling things around just to find a bit of counter space, dreaming of a kitchen that actually works for your family?"
Solve: "We design and install beautiful, functional kitchens in Cardiff that become the heart of your home. See our transformations and book a free design consultation today."

This approach speaks directly to the customer's pain and emotion, which is far more effective than just showing a picture of a nice kitchen and saying "Kitchens for sale." A top-tier strategist understands this. They'll push you to identify that core pain point because they know it's the foundation of all effective advertising. This is how an expert truly "understands your specific business needs"—by first understanding your customers' needs on a deep level.

You'll need to understand the numbers that unlock growth

So many business owners get fixated on the wrong metrics. They ask, "How low can my cost per lead (CPL) go?" while that's not a bad question, it's the wrong one to start with. The real question you should be asking is, "How high a CPL can I afford to acquire a truly great customer?" The answer to that lies in a metric that most small businesses never bother to calculate: Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).

LTV tells you the total profit your business can expect to make from a single customer over the entire period of their relationship with you. Once you know this number, everything about your advertising strategy changes. You're no longer chasing cheap leads; you're making calculated investments to acquire profitable long-term customers.

The calculation is simpler than it sounds. You need three pieces of information:

1. Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What do you make from a typical customer each month or year?
2. Gross Margin %: What's your profit margin on that revenue after deducting the direct costs of providing the product or service?
3. Monthly Churn Rate %: What percentage of your customers do you lose each month?

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

Let's take a hypothetical example for a service business in Cardiff. Say you run a subscription-based cleaning service.

• ARPA: £150 per month
• Gross Margin: 60% (after paying for staff and supplies)
• Monthly Churn Rate: 5% (you lose 5 out of every 100 customers each month)

In this example, each new customer is worth £1,800 in gross profit to your business. Now, a healthy benchmark for growing businesses is a 3:1 ratio of LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). This means you can afford to spend up to £600 (£1,800 / 3) to acquire a single new customer and still have a very profitable model. Suddenly, a £50 or even £100 cost per lead from your Meta ads doesn't seem so expensive, does it? It looks like an absolute bargain.

This is the math that unlocks intelligent, aggressive growth. It frees you from the tyranny of cheap, low-quality leads and allows you to confidently invest in campaigns that attract your ideal, high-value customers. Any strategist worth their salt will have this conversation with you. If they just talk about clicks and impressions, they're missing the bigger picture.

To help you with this, I've built a simple interactive calculator below. Play around with the sliders to see how small changes in your business model can dramatically affect how much you can afford to spend on ads.

Then you can start thinking about the actual ads

Once you have a crystal clear picture of your customer's pain point and you know your numbers, only then should you start thinking about the specifics of your Meta ads campaigns. This is where a methodical, structured approach is so important. A lot of people just throw a few audiences into an ad set and hope for the best. A professional will build a proper funnel structure, testing audiences logically and scaling what works.

I usually prioritize audiences based on how close they are to making a purchase decision. The further down the funnel they are, the more valuable they are and the better they will usually perform. This creates a clear structure for testing and budgeting.

Here's a simplified view of how we structure this:

For a new account, you'd start at the Top of the Funnel (ToFu), testing different interests and behaviours that align with your customer's pain point. For example, if you're that kitchen installer, you wouldn't just target 'Home & Garden'. That's far too broad. You might layer interests like 'Home Renovation', people who follow pages like 'Grand Designs' or high-end appliance brands, and perhaps even demographic data like homeowners in affluent parts of Cardiff. The key is to be specific.

As soon as you have enough data (at least 100 conversions, but ideally more), you can move into retargeting (MoFu and BoFu) and building powerful Lookalike audiences. This is where the real magic happens, as you're now targeting people who have either already shown interest in you or who share characteristics with your best customers.

There's one more piece of the puzzle here that is absolutely critical: your campaign objective. This is an uncomfortable truth, but when you set your campaign objective to "Reach" or "Brand Awareness," you are telling Meta's algorithm to "find me the largest number of people for the lowest possible price." The algorithm does exactly that. It finds users who are cheap to reach because they're not in demand—they rarely click, engage, or buy anything. You are actively paying to reach the worst possible audience. For almost any small or medium business, you should be using a conversion objective, like Leads, Sales, or Appointments. This commands the algorithm to find people within your audience who are most likely to take the action that actually makes you money. Awareness is a byproduct of making sales and delighting customers, not a prerequisite for it.

And finally, you should set realistic expectations

It's important to have a realistic idea of what you can expect in terms of costs. The answer isn't a single number; it varies wildly based on your industry, your targeting, your ad creative, and the quality of your landing page. However, based on our experience running hundreds of campaigns, we can provide some ballpark figures.

For a lead generation campaign in a developed country like the UK (e.g., getting someone to fill out a contact form or sign up for a newsletter), you can generally expect the cost per click (CPC) to be in the £0.50 - £1.50 range. A decent landing page should convert between 10% and 30% of that traffic. So, the math works out to a cost per lead (CPL) of anywhere between £1.60 (£0.50 / 0.30) and £15.00 (£1.50 / 0.10). One of our best consumer services campaigns was for a home cleaning company which got a cost of £5/lead, but that's a good general range to keep in mind.

If you're selling products directly (eCommerce), the numbers change. Your conversion rate will be much lower, typically between 2-5%. This means your cost per purchase will be significantly higher. Using the same CPC range, your cost per sale could be between £10 (£0.50 / 0.05) and £75 (£1.50 / 0.02). Of course, for sales, the most important metric isn't the cost per sale, but the Return On Ad Spend (ROAS). If you're spending £50 to get a £300 sale, that's a fantastic result.

I've put together a simple chart to visualise these ranges.

If your costs are coming in at the higher end of these ranges, or even above them, it tells you that something in the system needs work. It could be your targeting, your ad creative, or, very often, your landing page or offer. This is where an experienced strategist can make a huge difference. They have the experience to quickly diagnose the bottleneck and implement a testing plan to systematically improve performance and bring those costs down.

I hope this detailed breakdown has been helpful and gives you a new framework for thinking about how to hire a Meta ads strategist and what goes into a successful campaign. It's less about their physical location and far more about their strategic approach, their understanding of business fundamentals, and their proven ability to deliver results.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:

Tackling all of this on your own can be a daunting task. It requires a deep understanding of markering psychology, data analysis, and the ever-changing Meta ads platform. This is why many business owners choose to work with a specialist. It's not just about saving time; it's about avoiding costly mistakes and leveraging a proven process to get results faster.

If you'd like to discuss your specific situation in more detail, we offer a completely free, no-obligation 20-minute strategy session. We can take a look at what you've done so far and give you some clear, actionable advice on how to move forward. Feel free to book a time that works for you.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh