The Ultimate UK Investment App PPC Strategy Blueprint

If you're trying to scale an investment app in the UK right now, you probably feel like you're banging your head against a brick wall. The market is absolutely saturated. You've got the big legacy players, the established neo-brokers, and then a new "game-changing" app launching every other Tuesday in Shoreditch. It’s noisy.

And it's not just the competition. The costs are climbing. I remember a few years back when we could pick up a decent install for a couple of quid on Facebook. Now? If you aren't careful with your targeting, you're paying through the nose for users who install the app, look at the sign-up screen, realise they need to upload a passport photo, and immediately churn.

I’ve managed spend for quite a few apps and regulated businesses here in London, and the biggest mistake I see is treating an investment app like it's a mobile game or a productivity tool. It’s not. You are asking people for their money and their sensitive data. That requires a completely different approach to PPC, especially with the FCA breathing down your neck.

So, forget the generic "growth hacking" advice you read on generic marketing blogs. Here is the actual reality of running paid ads for investment apps in the UK market.

The Compliance Nightmare (Start Here)

Before we even talk about Google or Meta, we have to talk about compliance. In the UK, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has tightened the screws massively on financial promotions. If you ignore this, your ad account will get disabled. It's not a matter of if, it's when.

I've seen it happen. Accounts get restricted because ads make promises about returns without the necessary risk warnings. In the UK, "Capital at risk" isn't just a suggestion; it needs to be prominent.

Google has its own layer of bureaucracy. You need to be verified as a financial services advertiser in the UK. This involves proving you are authorised by the FCA or have an authorised firm approving your ads. If you mess this up, you're locked out of the biggest search inventory in the world.

It’s a bit of a minefield, honestly. You need a process where your compliance officer and your marketing team are actually talking to each other. We wrote a pretty detailed breakdown on the UK Fintech PPC Blueprint: Scale Ads & Stay Compliant that goes into the nitty-gritty of this, but the short version is: build your risk warnings into your creative templates from day one.

The Channel Mix: Where to Spend Your Budget

Not all traffic is created equal. I can get you 10,000 installs tomorrow for pennies if we target the wrong audience on a display network, but none of them will deposit money. Here is my take on the main platforms.

1. Apple Search Ads (ASA) - The Low Hanging Fruit

If you have an iOS app, this is where you start. Period.
Think about the intent. Someone goes to the App Store and types in "stocks", "ISA", or "buy bitcoin". They are literally looking to download an app right now.

We usually structure this by breaking it down into Brand, Competitor, and Generic campaigns.
Brand: Protect your own name. Competitors will bid on it.
Competitor: Bid on the likes of Trading212, Freetrade, Hargreaves Lansdown. It's expensive but the users are high quality.
Generic: Keywords like "investment app", "stock market", "ETF UK".

The conversion rates here are insane compared to social. You get what you pay for.

2. Google App Campaigns (UAC) - The Scaler

Google App Campaigns are a black box. You give them some text assets, some videos, some HTML5 images, and a budget, and the algorithm does the rest. It runs across Search, Play Store, YouTube, and Display.

The trick with Google is the optimisation event. If you tell Google to optimise for "Installs", it will find you the cheapest people on the planet who love installing apps but have zero money. You must optimise for deeper funnel events. Start with "Sign Up" if you don't have enough data, but move to "KYC Passed" or "First Deposit" as soon as you can. We discuss the mechanics of this in our Google App Ads UK: The Complete Growth Framework.

3. Meta (Facebook & Instagram) - The Discovery Engine

This is where you generate demand. People aren't scrolling Instagram looking for an investment app; they're looking for memes or updates from their mates. You have to interrupt them.

Creative is the biggest lever here. User Generated Content (UGC) works really well for fintech. A video of someone looking like a normal UK person (not a polished American actor) talking about how they use the app to save for a holiday or manage their portfolio feels authentic.

However, be careful with bans. Meta's automated systems hate crypto and anything that sounds like a "get rich quick" scheme. Check out our Meta Ad Rejections: UK FinTech Survival Guide if you're struggling to get ads approved.

Targeting: The "Whale" Problem

Most investment apps make their money from a small percentage of users with large portfolios (High Net Worth Individuals - HNWIs). The casual trader with £50 doesn't generate enough fees to cover the support costs.

Targeting these people is hard since privacy changes (iOS14) removed a lot of detailed targeting options. You can't just select "Rich People" in Facebook Ads Manager anymore (not that you really could before, but it's harder now).

My suggestion? Go broad with your targeting but use your creative to filter the audience. If your ad talks about "getting started with £1", you attract small fish. If your ad talks about "tax-efficient wrappers for portfolios over £50k", you repel the small fish and attract the whales. We dive deeper into this specific strategy in Targeting HNWIs: The Expert's Guide to Finding Wealth.

Also, don't ignore lookalikes completely. If you have a list of your top 500 customers by deposits, upload that (hashed and compliant, obviously) and create a lookalike. It’s hit or miss these days but still worth testing.

The "ISA Season" Phenomenon

In the UK, the tax year ends on April 5th. In the world of UK investment apps, March is absolute chaos. It is our Black Friday.

Everyone is rushing to use up their £20k ISA allowance. CPMs (cost to reach 1,000 people) go through the roof because every provider is bidding.

My advice: Don't try to launch a new creative concept in the last week of March. Do your testing in January and February. By March, you want to be running your proven winners and just managing bids. If you wait until the last minute, you'll burn your budget on learning phases while your competitors are Hoovering up the leads.

Tracking and Attribution (The Boring but Critical Bit)

Since Apple introduced ATT (App Tracking Transparency), knowing where your installs came from is a nightmare.
You need a Mobile Measurement Partner (MMP) like AppsFlyer or Adjust. If you try to run app ads without one, you are flying blind.

Even with an MMP, you'll see gaps. Facebook might claim 100 installs, your backend sees 120, and the MMP sees 80. You have to get comfortable with triangulation. Look at the blended trends. If you double spend on TikTok and your total organic + paid deposits go up by 20%, TikTok is probably working, even if the direct attribution looks weak.

Calculating Your Real ROI

Stop looking at CPI (Cost Per Install). It is a vanity metric. I’ve seen teams bragging about a £2 CPI, but when you dig in, the Cost Per Funded Account is often unsustainable because the conversion rate is awful.

You need to know your LTV (Lifetime Value). How much revenue do you make from a user over 3 years? If it's £100, you can't afford a £120 CPA.

Common Pitfalls in the UK Market

Having run quite a few campaigns for regulated apps, here are the things that usually trip people up:

1. The "Onboarding" Cliff
You spend loads on ads, get the user to install, and then your app asks them for 15 different documents, a selfie video, and their grandmother's maiden name. I get it, KYC is a legal requirement. But is your UI optimised? Have you tested the flow? If your onboarding is clunky, your ad spend is wasted. Fix the product flow before scaling spend.

2. Ignoring Android
Marketing teams in Shoreditch all have iPhones. They assume everyone has an iPhone. In the UK, iOS market share is high (around 50%), but Android is huge. And guess what? Android media is usually cheaper. Don't neglect it.

3. Weak Creative Testing
People run one or two ads and let them run for months. Ad fatigue sets in fast. You need a system where you are testing new hooks every week. "Inflation is rising" was a good hook last year. Maybe this year it's "Tax-free savings". You have to keep adapting.

4. Getting Google Ads Wrong
Search intent is king. We've seen audits where clients were bidding on "loan" keywords for an investment app. Sure, it's money-related, but the intent is the opposite. One wants to borrow, one wants to invest. Keep your keywords tight. For more on this, have a look at our guide on Google Ads Guide for UK FinTech: Expert Strategies.

The "Trust" Factor

Finally, remember that you are a stranger on the internet asking for money. Trust is your currency.

Your ads should feature:
- "FCA Regulated" (if you are).
- Trustpilot scores (if they are good).
- Press logos (BBC, TechCrunch, FT).
- Security features (Bank-grade encryption).

If your landing page or App Store page looks sketchy or amateur, your conversion rate will tank. We've seen that simply adding the "FCA Regulated" badge to the bottom of the ad video can increase conversion rates significantly. It's the small things.

The Action Plan

This is a lot to take in, I know. But if you break it down, it's manageable. Here is my recommended roadmap for you:

Hope this helps you navigate the chaos of the UK market! It's tough out there, but with the right structure, you can definitely find profitable users.

If you're looking at your current campaigns and thinking "this should be performing better" or you're just about to launch and terrified of wasting your seed round, it might be worth getting a second pair of eyes on it. We offer a free consultation where we can look at your strategy and give you some honest feedback on whether you're on the right track.