Solved: Market Expansion in Belfast (The LTV Secret)

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

Happy to give you some initial thoughts on expanding into Belfast. Tbh, your question is a common one, but I think the premise is a bit off. The challenge isn't really the "local online landscape" of Belfast, or any city for that matter. Focusing on the geography is a mistake that leads to wasted ad spend and generic campaigns that dont connect with anyone.

The real question, the one that unlocks profitable growth, is how to find and connect with your ideal customer, regardless of where they live. The principles of good advertising are universal. If you get the core strategy right, you can expand into Belfast, Dublin, Manchester, or anywhere else with confidence. Get it wrong, and you'll just burn money faster in a new city.

So, let's put the map away for a minute and talk about what really matters: your customer.

We'll need to look at your customer's nightmare, not their postcode...

Most businesses build an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) that looks something like this: "Companies in the legal sector, based in Belfast, with 10-50 employees." It sounds specific, but it tells you absolutely nothing of value. It's a sterile demographic that leads to sterile, ineffective advertising. You end up targeting a massive group of people, most of whom have no need for what you sell.

To stop burning cash, you have to define your customer by their *pain*. Their specific, urgent, and expensive nightmare. This is the single most important piece of work you can do before you even think about launching a campaign.

Your Head of Sales client isn't just a job title; she's a manager terrified of missing her quarterly target and facing the board. For a logistics company, the nightmare isn't 'needing better routing software'; it's 'a critical shipment being delayed, costing a key client millions and destroying a decade-long relationship.' Your ICP isn't a person or a company; it's a *problem state*. You are selling a solution to a nightmare.

Once you've isolated that nightmare, everything else becomes clear. Where do people experiencing this pain go for information? What podcasts do they listen to on their commute? What industry newsletters do they actually open and read? What software tools do they already pay for? Are they members of specific LinkedIn groups? This intelligence is the foundation of your entire targeting strategy. Without it, you're just guessing.

Think of it like this:

Do this work first, and you'll have a campaign that works in Belfast because it's built on a deep human insight, not a shallow geographical one. Your competitors are probably targeting "business owners in Belfast." You'll be targeting the Head of Engineering in Belfast who's terrified of her team falling behind schedule. See the difference? One is a guess, the other is a strategy.

I'd say you need to know what a customer is actually worth...

Right, so once you know *who* you're talking to and what their problem is, the next question is how much you can afford to spend to get their attention. So many businesses are obsessed with getting the lowest possible Cost Per Lead (CPL). This is a trap. It forces you into a race to the bottom, optimising for cheap clicks from low-quality audiences rather than valuable connections with your ideal customers.

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 its counterpart: Lifetime Value (LTV).

LTV tells you the total profit you can expect to make from a single customer over the entire duration of their relationship with you. Once you know this number, you can make much smarter decisions about your ad budget. It's the most liberating metric in marketing.

Here's how you calculate it:

• Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What do you make per customer, per month/year?
• Gross Margin %: What's your profit margin on that revenue after deducting the cost of goods sold (COGS)?
• Monthly Churn Rate %: What percentage of customers do you lose each month? (If you measure churn annually, just divide by 12 for a rough monthly figure).

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

Let's run an example. Say you're a SaaS business:

• ARPA: £200/month
• Gross Margin: 85%
• Monthly Churn: 5%

LTV = (£200 * 0.85) / 0.05 = £170 / 0.05 = £3,400

In this case, each customer is worth £3,400 in gross margin to your business. A healthy rule of thumb is a 3:1 LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio. This means you can comfortably afford to spend up to £1,133 (£3,400 / 3) 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 £113 per qualified lead.

Suddenly that £50 lead from LinkedIn doesn't seem so expensive, does it? It looks like a bargain. This is the math that unlocks aggressive, intelligent growth. Use the calculator below to figure out your own numbers. This is non-negotiable; don't spend a penny until you've done this.

You probably should find them where they're already looking...

Armed with your customer's nightmare and their LTV, you can now decide where to actually run your ads. The choice of platform isn't about which one is "best," but which one aligns with your customer's mindset.

Broadly, there are two types of platforms:

1. Search Intent Platforms (e.g., Google Ads): People here are actively looking for a solution. They have a problem, they know it, and they're typing it into a search bar. This is high-intent, "pull" marketing. You're not creating demand; you're capturing it.
2. Discovery Platforms (e.g., Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok): People here are scrolling, consuming content, and connecting with others. They are not actively looking for your product. You have to interrupt them with a compelling message that makes them realise they have a problem you can solve. This is lower-intent, "push" marketing.

When you're entering a new market like Belfast, I would almost always recommend starting with search intent platforms first. Why? Because it's the path of least resistance. You're targeting people who have already done the hard work of identifying their own pain. You just need to show up with a credible solution.

For a service business, you'd target keywords like "accountant in belfast," "emergency plumber belfast," or "b2b marketing agency northern ireland." The traffic will be more expensive per click, but the leads are usually far more qualified because they're actively seeking help. I remember one campaign we worked on for an HVAC company in a competitive area; they were seeing costs of around $60/lead, but these were people with a broken boiler who needed help *now*. The conversion rate to a paying job was high, making it very profitable.

Only once you've maximised the opportunity on search platforms should you generally move to discovery platforms. On Meta or LinkedIn, you're trying to make someone stop scrolling. It's a much harder job and often requires a more sophisticated funnel with lead magnets, retargeting, and longer sales cycles. That's not to say it can't work wonders—we've scaled software companies to thousands of trials using Meta Ads—but it's usually not the best place to start when testing a new market.

Here’s a simple way to think about it:

You'll need a message they can't ignore...

Once you've chosen your platform, you need to craft an ad that actually works. This means speaking directly to the nightmare you identified earlier. Generic, feature-led copy gets ignored. Pain-led copy gets clicks.

Here are a couple of proven frameworks:

1. Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS): This is perfect for service businesses or anyone selling to a deep-seated frustration.

• Problem: State the customer's pain point directly. "Are your cash flow projections just a shot in the dark?"
• Agitate: Pour salt on the wound. Make the problem feel more real and more urgent. "Are you one bad month away from a payroll crisis while your competitors are confidently raising their next round?"
• Solve: Introduce your solution as the clear, obvious way out. "Get expert financial strategy for a fraction of a full-time hire. We build dashboards that turn uncertainty into predictable growth."

2. Before-After-Bridge (BAB): This works brilliantly for SaaS products or anything that creates a clear transformation.

• Before: Paint a picture of their current, frustrating world. "Your AWS bill just arrived. It’s 30% higher than last month, and your engineers have no idea why. Another fire to put out."
• After: Describe the new reality your product creates. "Imagine opening your cloud bill and smiling. You see where every dollar is going and waste is automatically eliminated."
• Bridge: Position your product as the bridge that gets them from Before to After. "Our platform is the bridge that gets you there. Start a free trial and find your first £1,000 in savings today."

Notice how neither of these frameworks talks about features. They talk about outcomes, feelings, and the resolution of pain. This is what people buy. They don't buy "cloud cost optimisation software"; they buy the feeling of opening their AWS bill and smiling. They don't buy "fractional CFO services"; they buy a good night's sleep.

And an offer that does the selling for you...

This is probably the most common failure point I see in B2B advertising. You can have the perfect targeting and the perfect ad copy, but if your offer is weak, your campaign will fail. And the weakest, most arrogant offer in the world is the "Request a Demo" button.

Think about it from your prospect's perspective. They are a busy, important person. Your ad has interrupted them. Now you're asking them to commit their valuable time to a meeting where they know they will be sold to. It's a high-friction, low-value proposition. It instantly positions you as a commodity.

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. It must solve a small, real problem for free to earn you the right to solve their whole problem for money.

What does a great offer look like?

• For SaaS: A truly free trial or a freemium plan. No credit card required. Let them use the actual product and experience the transformation. When the product itself proves its value, the sale becomes a formality. This is how you generate Product Qualified Leads (PQLs), which are infinitely more valuable than Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs).
• For Agencies/Consultants: Bottle your expertise into a high-value asset. This could be a free, automated website audit that identifies their top 3 SEO opportunities. It could be a 20-minute strategy session where you review their existing ad campaigns and give them actionable advice (this is what we do, and it works). You need to give them a taste of the result before asking for the commitment.
• For Service Businesses: A free, no-obligation quote or a free initial inspection. Make it easy and risk-free for them to take the first step.

Your offer for the Belfast market should be irresistible. It needs to be so good that your ideal customer feels foolish for not taking it. A weak offer will kill your expansion plans before they even begin.

You'll want to structure your campaigns properly...

Okay, let's get a bit more tactical. Assuming you've done the strategic work and you're ready to launch on a platform like Meta, you need a logical structure. A common mistake is to lump everything into one campaign and hope for the best. A better approach is to think in terms of the marketing funnel: Top of Funnel (ToFu), Middle of Funnel (MoFu), and Bottom of Funnel (BoFu).

• ToFu (Prospecting): This is where you reach new people who've never heard of you. Your targeting here will be based on the "watering holes" you identified earlier—interests, behaviours, or Lookalike Audiences based on your existing customers. The goal here isn't necessarily an immediate sale; it's to introduce your brand and your solution to the right people in Belfast.
• MoFu (Consideration): This is your retargeting campaign for people who have shown some interest but haven't taken a key action. This could be people who visited your website, watched a certain percentage of your video ad, or engaged with your social media page. Here, you might show them case studies, testimonials, or different angles on your offer to build trust and move them closer to a decision.
• BoFu (Conversion): This is for people who are on the verge of converting. They've added a product to their cart, visited the checkout page, or started filling out a lead form but didn't finish. These are your hottest leads, and the ads here should be direct, creating urgency and making it easy for them to complete the action.

For a new market entry, you'll be heavily focused on ToFu initially to build up an audience pool. But you should have your MoFu and BoFu campaigns ready to go from day one, even if the audiences are small to begin with. This ensures you don't lose the interest of the first people who respond to your ads.

What should you expect to pay...

This is always the big question. The honest answer is: it depends. Costs can vary wildly based on your industry, your targeting, your ad creative, and your offer. However, we can establish some rough benchmarks for a developed market like the UK.

For lead generation campaigns (signups, downloads, form fills), you could be looking at a Cost Per Click (CPC) anywhere from £0.50 to £1.50. Your landing page conversion rate will be the next major factor. A decent landing page might convert at 10%, while a highly optimised one could hit 30% or more.

Let's do the maths:

• Worst Case: £1.50 CPC / 10% Conversion Rate = £15 Cost Per Lead (CPL)
• Best Case: £0.50 CPC / 30% Conversion Rate = £1.67 Cost Per Lead (CPL)

So, a realistic range for a lead in Belfast could be anywhere from around £1.70 to £15. For a B2B campaign on LinkedIn, this could easily be £50-£150 per lead. Remember our LTV calculation? This is where it becomes critical. If your LTV allows for a £100 CPL, paying £15 for a high-quality lead is a fantastic deal.

I usually recommend starting with a test budget of at least £1,000-£2,000 per month. This gives you enough data to see what's working and what isn't, without betting the farm. You need to be patient. Your first month in a new market is about learning, not necessarily about immediate ROI. You're buying data that will inform your strategy for months and years to come.

This is the main advice I have for you:

To pull this all together, here is a step-by-step plan I'd recommend for your expansion into Belfast. This is the exact process we'd follow if we were doing it for a client.

As you can probably tell, a successful market expansion isn't about finding a secret "Belfast hack." It's about applying a rigorous, customer-centric strategic framework. It requires deep expertise not just in setting up ads, but in understanding business economics, customer psychology, and conversion rate optimisation.

This is a lot to take on, and getting it wrong can be an expensive mistake. This is where working with a specialist can make a significant difference. We've guided numerous businesses through this exact process, helping them avoid common pitfalls and scale profitably into new markets by focusing on the fundamentals.

If you'd like to chat through your specific situation in more detail, we offer a completely free, no-obligation 20-minute strategy session. We can take a look at your business, your offer, and help you build a more detailed and tailored plan for your expansion.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh