The Ultimate Guide to Hiring a Meta Ads Expert

I see this question a lot. Founders and marketing managers get stuck in a loop, searching for a "Meta ads strategist in London" or a "Facebook ads expert in Manchester." The thinking is understandable: you want someone you can meet, someone who 'gets' the local market. But let's be brutally honest, this is a massive mistake and it's probably why you're struggling to find the right person. You're looking for the wrong thing.

The success of your Meta ads has absolutely nothing to do with whether your strategist can meet you for a coffee in Covent Garden. It has everything to do with their deep, proven expertise in driving results for businesses like yours, on a platform that operates globally. The best strategist for a SaaS company in Bristol is likely not the person down the road who runs ads for the local bakery. Their skills are not transferable in the way you think. This guide is about breaking that local mindset and showing you how to find and vet a genuinely world-class strategist, regardless of where they are.

The "Local Strategist" Myth: Why Your Postcode is the Last Thing That Matters

Let's tackle this head-on. Why do people insist on hiring locally? It usually boils down to two things: the desire for face-to-face meetings and a belief they need someone with 'local market knowledge'. Both of these are complete red herrings in the world of digital advertising.

Firstly, face-to-face meetings are a colossal waste of time. A productive relationship with an ads strategist is built on clear communication, regular reporting, and tangible results—all of which are handled far more efficiently through scheduled video calls and shared dashboards. An hour spent commuting to an office is an hour they're not optimising your campaigns. We work with clients across the globe, from the US to Australia, and the success of those relationships is built on performance, not proximity.

Secondly, the 'local market knowledge' argument falls apart under scrutiny for 99% of businesses. Meta's targeting tools are incredibly sophisticated. You don't need someone who lives in Birmingham to know how to target people in Birmingham. You need someone who knows how to use the platform to target users based on their behaviours, interests, life events, and purchase history. Is your ideal customer defined by the city they live in, or by the fact they're a new parent interested in sustainable baby products? Is it their location, or the fact they're a CTO at a 100-person tech company? The latter is what drives results, and that expertise is not bound by geography.

Hiring locally massively restricts your talent pool. You're choosing from a handful of local options when you could be working with the absolute best person for your specific niche, who might be based hundreds of miles away. You wouldn't pick a mediocre local surgeon over a world-class specialist in another city for a critical operation, would you? Applying a different logic to the financial health of your business makes no sense at all. To find the right person, you need to understand what they actually do, so you can evaluate them on the right criteria.

What Does a Great Meta Ads Strategist *Actually* Do?

So many people think a strategist's job is just to set up a campaign, choose an audience, and let it run. That's the technical work of a junior media buyer. A true strategist operates on a much higher level. Their work is about engineering a system to predictably acquire customers at a profitable cost. It breaks down into a few core pillars.

1. They Become Experts in Your Customer's Nightmare.
Before they even think about an ad, a top strategist obsesses over your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). But they go deeper than basic demographics. They don't care that your customer is "a 35-year-old woman named Sarah." They want to know her specific, urgent, expensive problem. Is she the Head of HR who's terrified of losing top talent because of a clunky onboarding process? Is she a new mum who feels overwhelmed and guilty about not using eco-friendly products? A great strategist defines the customer by their pain. They figure out what podcasts they listen to, what newsletters they read, what influencers they follow. This isn't just data; it's the entire foundation of the targeting and messaging strategy.

2. They Engineer an Irresistible Offer.
The number one reason campaigns fail isn't the ad creative or the targeting; it's the offer. A weak offer to the right audience will always fail. A strategist's job is to analyse your offer and, if necessary, help you refine it for the cold traffic environment of social media. "Request a Demo" is a terrible offer. It’s high friction and low value. A great strategist helps you build a better 'bridge'. For a SaaS client, this might mean pushing for a completely free trial with no card details. For a service business, it could be a free, automated audit tool or a valuable checklist. I remember one B2B software client selling accounting systems; their ads were failing miserably. The problem wasn't the ads, it was the offer. They had no free trial. We pushed them to offer one, and it completly changed their results. A strategist connects the audience's pain to a low-risk, high-value first step.

3. They Direct the Creative, They Don't Just 'Make Ads'.
A strategist understands that creative is the single biggest lever for performance. They don't just ask for "an image and some text." They develop a creative strategy based on different messaging angles. They'll use frameworks like Problem-Agitate-Solve or Before-After-Bridge to craft compelling copy. They know that for some audiences, a polished studio video will work, while for others, a raw, user-generated-style video shot on a phone will perform ten times better. We had a SaaS client who saw incredible results once we started testing UGC videos, something their previous agency had never even suggested. The strategist's job is to create a hypothesis for *why* a certain creative will work and then build a testing plan to prove it.

4. They Are Data Scientists, Not Pundits.
Finally, a great strategist lives in the data. They aren't swayed by gut feelings or what "usually works." They use data to make every decision. They understand the entire funnel, from impression to conversion. If a campaign isn't working, they can diagnose the exact problem. Is the Click-Through Rate (CTR) low? The creative or audience is wrong. Is the CTR high but the conversion rate is low? The problem is on the landing page. They understand key metrics like Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) and, more importantly, how it relates to Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). They are focused on one thing: driving a profitable return on your investment.

The Vetting Process: How to Spot a Pro from a Pretender

Now you know what you’re looking for, how do you find it? This is the process we use and the one you should adopt. It’s about looking for evidence of expertise, not a fancy sales pitch.

Step 1: The Case Study Deep Dive
Any strategist worth their salt will have case studies. But don't just look at the headline numbers. A "10x ROAS" claim is meaningless without context. You need to dig deeper. A good case study should tell a story:

• The Problem: What specific business challenge was the client facing before they started? E.g., "The client had a high CPA of £100 and couldn't scale their user acquisition profitably."
• The Strategy: What was the actual plan? This is the most important part. Did they identify a new audience? Did they restructure the account? Did they implement a new creative testing framework? It should be specific. For one of our clients, a medical job matching SaaS, the strategy was a complete account restructure combined with a shift in creative, which is how we reduced their CPA from £100 down to just £7. That's a specific, tangible strategic shift.
• The Results: The numbers should be clear and relevant to the business goal. For an eCommerce store, this means ROAS and revenue. For a SaaS business, it's cost per trial or cost per lead. Our case study showing "5082 Software Trials at $7 cost per trial" is powerful because it's a specific, valuable outcome for that type of business.

Look for case studies in a niche similar to yours. If you're a B2B SaaS company, a case study about a local pizza delivery service is irrelevant. You want to see evidence they understand your business model.

Step 2: The Initial Consultation Call (The Interrogation)
Once you've found someone with promising case studies, book a call. This is not a sales pitch for them; it's an interview. You are in control. Your goal is to get past the fluff and hear how they think. Here are the questions you MUST ask:

• "Walk me through your process for the first 30 days." A pro will have a clear, structured onboarding and research process. A pretender will give you vague answers like "we'll get some ads live and see what happens."
• "Based on what you know about my business, what's your initial hypothesis for a winning audience and message?" They shouldn't have the perfect answer yet, but they should be able to demonstrate their thinking process. They should ask you questions about your ICP and current customers.
• "How do you approach creative testing?" Listen for a methodical answer. Do they talk about testing hooks, angles, formats (video vs. image vs. carousel)? Or do they just say "we'll try a few different ads"?
• "Tell me about a campaign that failed. Why did it fail and what did you learn?" This is the most important question. An expert who has managed millions in ad spend has had campaigns fail. It's inevitable. Their answer will reveal their honesty, their analytical skills, and their ability to learn and adapt. Someone who claims they've never had a campaign fail is either lying or dangerously inexperienced.

Step 3: Red Flags That Should Make You Run
During this process, be alert for massive red flags. These are signs of an amateur or, worse, a charlatan.

• Guaranteed Results: "We guarantee a 10x ROAS!" It is impossible to guarantee results in paid advertising. There are too many variables. An expert talks about processes and probabilities, not guarantees. This is an instant disqualification.
• Focus on Vanity Metrics: If they keep talking about "reach," "impressions," or "clicks," be wary. These metrics are secondary. The only things that matter are the metrics that drive your business: leads, sales, trials, and the cost to acquire them.
• One-Size-Fits-All Strategy: If their plan for you sounds exactly like a generic template, they haven't listened. A real strategy is tailored to your specific business, audience, and offer. There is no magic formula.
• No Questions for You: If they spend the entire call talking and don't ask you deep, probing questions about your business, your customers, and your goals, they don't have a strategic mindset. How can they develop a strategy without understanding the fundamentals? If you find yourself in this situation, it might be a sign you're hiring an agency without a clear idea of what you need, and they're taking advantage of it.

The Data Doesn't Lie: Benchmarks and Realistic Expectations

One of the biggest advantages of working with a seasoned expert is their understanding of data and benchmarks. They can give you a realistic idea of what to expect, which is far more valuable than an empty promise. The question "what should my cost per conversion be?" is complex, but an expert can break it down.

It depends hugely on your objective, your industry, and where you're targeting. For example, getting a simple lead (like an email signup) is much cheaper than getting a qualified B2B lead or a direct sale. For instance, one campaign we ran for a home cleaning company achieved a cost of just £5 per lead, while another for an HVAC client in a competitive area saw costs around $60 per lead. It's all relative to the value of that lead.

Geographic targeting is a huge factor. Costs in developed countries (US, UK, Australia) are much higher than in developing countries. A click might cost £1 in the UK but only £0.15 in the Philippines. However, the quality and purchasing power of that traffic is vastly different. A good strategist knows how to balance cost and quality. They might suggest running separate campaigns for different country tiers to manage budgets effectively.

But the most important calculation a strategist should be discussing with you is Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). This is the metric that unlocks aggressive, intelligent growth. It tells you how much a customer is worth to you over their entire relationship with your business. Once you know your LTV, you know how much you can afford to spend to acquire a customer (your Customer Acquisition Cost, or CAC).

A healthy business model typically aims for an LTV:CAC ratio of at least 3:1. This means for every £1 you spend acquiring a customer, you get £3 back in gross margin over their lifetime. This is the math that separates amateurs from pros. Amateurs chase a low CPL. Pros are comfortable with a high CPL as long as it acquires a customer with an even higher LTV.

Building the Right Campaign Structure from Day One

A clear sign of a professional strategist is the structure they build within your ad account. Amateurs often just lump everything into one or two campaigns. A pro builds a structure based on the marketing funnel, understanding that you need to treat cold audiences (Top of Funnel - ToFu), warm audiences (Middle of Funnel - MoFu), and hot audiences (Bottom of Funnel - BoFu) differently.

This is a simplified version of the structure we often implement:

• ToFu (Top of Funnel - Prospecting): This is where you target cold audiences who have never heard of you. The goal is to introduce your brand and generate initial interest. Here, you'd test various lookalike audiences and interest-based targeting groups. The messaging needs to be broad and focused on the core problem you solve.
• MoFu (Middle of Funnel - Retargeting): This campaign targets people who have shown some interest but haven't taken a key action yet. This could be people who have watched a percentage of your video ads, visited your website, or engaged with your Instagram page. The messaging here is about building trust and providing more information, maybe with testimonials or case studies.
• BoFu (Bottom of Funnel - Conversion): This is for the hottest audience—people who have visited a checkout page, added a product to their cart, or initiated a trial signup but didn't complete it. The ads here are direct and designed to overcome final objections, often using scarcity or special offers to encourage immediate action.

This structured approach allows a strategist to control the budget, tailor the messaging for each stage of the customer journey, and clearly identify where performance is strongest and weakest. If someone you're vetting can't articulate a similar, logical structure, they lack a fundamental strategic understanding of the platform.

Why You Might Need Expert Help and The Final Step

You could, of course, try to learn all of this yourself. But the learning curve is steep, and the cost of mistakes—in both wasted ad spend and missed opportunities—is incredibly high. The Meta ads platform is constantly changing. What worked six months ago might not work today. A dedicated Meta ads strategist lives and breathes this stuff. Their job is to stay on top of these changes and apply a rigorous, data-driven process to grow your business.

Hiring the right expert isn't an expense; it's an investment in a critical growth engine for your business. It's about buying back your time so you can focus on running your business, and leveraging the experience of someone who has already spent millions of pounds figuring out what works. You're not just paying for their time; you're paying for their experience, their process, and their past failures, so you don't have to repeat them.

Finding the right person is a challenge, but by abandoning the flawed idea that they must be local and instead focusing on finding true, demonstrable expertise, you radically increase your chances of success. The process I've outlined—deeply vetting case studies, asking tough questions, and understanding the core financial metrics of your own business—is the surest path to finding a partner who can truly move the needle for you.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below to put this all into action:

If you've gone through this and feel a bit overwhelmed, that's normal. This is complex stuff. If you want a professional opinion on your specific situation and to see what a data-driven strategy could look like for your business, consider booking a free, no-obligation strategy session. We can audit your existing campaigns or map out a plan from scratch, giving you a clear, actionable path forward.