UK Ad Consultant: The Complete Vetting Guide

Finding a decent paid ads consultant in the UK feels like a proper nightmare, doesn't it? The market is flooded with 'gurus' and agencies who show you a fancy website and some flashy numbers but go quiet when you ask them to explain how they'll actually make your business money. They talk about clicks and impressions, but when it comes to real ROI, it all gets a bit vague. The truth is, most businesses I see are burning cash on ads not because the platform is wrong, but because the person running them doesn't understand their business.

The problem is you're probably looking for the wrong thing. You're looking for an advertising expert. What you actually need is a business growth expert who uses paid advertising as their tool. It's a subtle difference, but it changes everything. This isn't about finding someone who knows the Meta ads manager inside out; it's about finding someone who can look at your entire sales process, from the ad right through to the customer lifetime value, and spot the blockages. Let's walk through how you can actually do that and stop wasting your money.

So, who are you actually hiring?

First things first, you need to understand the different types of help you can get. People throw around terms like agency, consultant, and freelancer like they're the same thing. They're not. Choosing the wrong one for your stage of business is the first way you can go wrong. It's not about which is 'best', but which is right for you right now.

• Agency: This is a full team. You'll get an account manager, specialists for different platforms, maybe a copywriter or designer. The upside is they have a lot of resources and can handle big, complex accounts. The downside? You're often paying for their big London office and the person actually doing the day-to-day work on your account might be a junior who's just following a template. They are often better suited for larger companies with significant ad spends (£10k+ a month) who need a lot of hands-on implementation.
• Freelancer: A one-person-band. They are the one doing the work. This can be great because you get direct access to the expert. They're usually cheaper than an agency because they have less overheads. The risk is that they are a single point of failure. If they get sick, go on holiday, or get hit by a bus, your ads grind to a halt. They are often best for smaller businesses who need someone to execute a pre-defined strategy.
• Consultant: This is usually a senior-level expert who focuses more on strategy than the day-to-day button pushing. They'll work with you (or your team) to build the overall plan, figure out your positioning, fix your offer, and help you understand your numbers. They might not actually build the ads themselves. This is for businesses who feel lost, who know they need to advertise but aren't sure what to say, who to say it to, or how to measure it. They help you build the machine; you might need someone else to run it.

Making the wrong choice can be costly. If you hire an agency when you really need a consultant, you'll pay a fortune for junior staff to run a broken strategy. If you hire a freelancer when you have no strategy, they'll just execute bad ideas more efficiently. The key is to be honest about what you actually need help with: the big-picture thinking, or the hands-on doing?

To help you decide, here's a simple flowchart. Be honest with your answers.

How to properly interrogate their case studies

Every single consultant or agency website you visit will have a "case studies" page. Most of them are useless. They're designed to impress you with big, out-of-context numbers. A "1000% Return On Ad Spend" sounds incredible, right? But when you find out it was for a subscription box client with a high repeat purchase rate, you realise it's not easily repeatable for your high-ticket B2B software. I remember one campaign we worked on for a subscription box client where we achieved that, but I'd be the first to tell you that it's not a typical result for every business.

You need to learn how to read between the lines. Don't be impressed by the result; be impressed by the thinking that got the result. Here's what you should be asking:

1. Was this a similar business to mine? Not just the industry, but the business model. Selling a £20 t-shirt is a world away from selling a £20,000 piece of industrial equipment. An expert should be able to show you experience with a similar sales cycle, price point, or customer type. I remember one B2B client selling high-ticket environmental controls. We couldn't measure ROAS directly because the sales cycle was 6+ months. So we focused on reducing their cost per qualified lead, which we cut by 84%. That was the metric that mattered *for them*.
2. What was the actual problem they solved? Was it just about running ads? Or did they fix the landing page, change the offer, or identify a new target audience? A great consultant will often tell you the ads weren't the main problem. The real value is in their ability to diagnose the entire funnel. For example, with a medical job matching SaaS client, we reduced their CPA from £100 to £7. A huge part of that wasn't just ad tweaks; it was about refining the messaging on the landing page to speak directly to the frustrations of locum doctors.
3. Can they explain the 'why' behind the strategy? Don't just accept "we ran Meta ads". Ask *why* they chose Meta. Why that audience? Why that creative approach? If they can't give you a clear, logical reason that's rooted in customer psychology and business objectives, they were probably just lucky. You're not hiring them for their past luck; you're hiring them for their future process. You need to get past the fluff and find an expert who can actually articulate a clear plan. For a clear vetting framework, read our guide to vetting UK PPC agencies.
4. Are the results in Pounds (£)? This is a small but telling detail. If you're looking for a UK consultant, you want to see that they have experience in the UK market. Seeing results quoted only in dollars might mean their experience is primarily US-based, which can have different costs, competition, and consumer behaviour.

The goal of reviewing case studies isn't to find an exact clone of your business. It's to find evidence of a repeatable, strategic process. It's to find a thinker, not just a doer.

The single most important number they should ask you about

If you get on a "free consultation" call with a consultant and within the first 15 minutes they haven't asked you about your customer lifetime value (LTV) and your profit margins, hang up. I'm not joking. It's the biggest red flag there is. It proves they are an ad manager, not a business growth partner.

Why? Because without knowing what a customer is worth to you, it's completely impossible to know how much you can afford to spend to acquire one. They can't possibly give you strategic advice without this information. They're just guessing. Anyone who starts talking about target Cost Per Click (CPC) or Cost Per Lead (CPL) without first understanding your LTV is an amateur.

Most business owners don't even know their LTV. A great consultant will not only ask for it but will be able to help you calculate it. It's the foundation of any succesful paid advertising campaign. Here's the basic formula:

LTV = (Average Revenue Per Customer Per Month * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Customer Churn Rate

Let's break that down. If an average customer pays you £200 a month, your gross margin is 70%, and you lose 5% of your customers each month, your LTV is (£200 * 0.70) / 0.05 = £2,800.

This number is your superpower. It means for every customer you acquire, you can expect to make £2,800 in gross profit over their lifetime. A healthy business model usually aims for a 3:1 LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio. This means you can afford to spend up to £933 (£2,800 / 3) to acquire a single customer and still have a very profitable business.

Suddenly, that £50 lead from LinkedIn doesn't look so expensive, does it? This is the maths that separates businesses that scale from those that run out of money. Before you spend a single penny more on ads or hire anyone, you need to understand this. Use the calculator below to get a rough idea of your own LTV.

How to use the "free consultation" to your advantage

That initial call is your single best opportunity to vet a consultant. Don't let it become a sales pitch where they just talk at you for 30 minutes. You need to take control and turn it into an interview. Your goal is to figure out how they think. Here are the questions you should be asking:

• "Based on a quick look at my website, what's your initial impression of my offer and my customer journey?" - A good consultant will have done their homework. They should be able to give you immediate, specific feedback that goes beyond "it looks nice". They should be challenging your assumptions. If they just say "yeah it looks great, let's get some ads running," they're not a strategist.
• "What's the first thing you'd do if we started working together?" - Look for a process-driven answer. It should sound something like: "First, we'd do a deep dive into your analytics and customer data. Then we'd define your ideal customer profile based on their pain points. After that, we'd map out the entire funnel and calculate your unit economics. Only then would we start building campaigns." If the answer is "I'd start testing some ad copy," run away.
• "Tell me about a campaign that failed. What went wrong and what did you learn?" - This is my personal favourite. It tests for honesty and humility. Everyone has campaigns that fail. The amateurs will blame the platform or the client. The pros will take ownership and tell you about the flawed assumption they made and how they corrected it. This shows they have a process for learning and improving, which is what you're paying for.
• "What do you need from me to be successful?" - This is a brilliant question. It flips the script. A poor consultant will say "just your credit card details and access to your ad account". A great consultant will give you a list of things: "I need access to your sales team to understand lead quality, I need you to be open to testing new offers, and I need a commitment to a weekly check-in call to review the numbers." This shows they see it as a partnership, not just a transaction. Deciding between different types of experts can be tough, and our guide on choosing between a consultant, agency, or in-house team in the UK can provide more clarity.

Remember, you're not just buying their time; you're buying their brain. The consultation is your only chance to get a look inside it for free. Don't waste it.

The UK Market: What's different here?

Advertising isn't a one-size-fits-all game. A strategy that works in the US won't neccessarily work here in the UK. The competition is different, the costs are different, and the culture is different. A consultant who doesn't understand these nuances will waste your money.

For example, competition in London for financial services keywords on Google Ads is insane. You'll pay a fortune per click. A good UK-based consultant would know this and might suggest a more nuanced strategy, perhaps focusing on LinkedIn Ads to target specific job titles at finance firms in Canary Wharf, or using highly specific long-tail keywords. I've worked with numerous UK businesses and the landscape is unique. The cost per lead can vary wildly depending on the industry and location. Someone promising a "$10 CPL" without knowing your niche is pulling a number out of thin air.

Here’s a rough idea of what you might expect for Cost Per Lead (CPL) in the UK. Based on campaigns we've run, the costs can range from as low as £5 per lead for a local service like a home cleaning company, to over £50 for a highly qualified B2B lead on LinkedIn. It all depends on the industry, offer, and competition. The chart below gives a ballpark idea for a few common sectors, but remember, your own results will vary.

When you're vetting a consultant, ask them about their experience with UK-specific campaigns. Ask them how they adjust their strategies for the British audience. Do they understand the importance of using '£' symbols, UK spellings (like 'organise' instead of 'organize'), and culturally relevant creative? These small details signal that they are not just applying a generic, global playbook to your account. Finding the right local expertise is crucial, and if you're a founder, you may find our founder's vetting guide for UK ad consultants particularly useful.

Your Actionable Vetting Checklist

Alright, that was a lot of information. Let's boil it down into a simple, actionable plan. When you're looking for a paid ads consultant, you're not just buying a service; you're entering a partnership that could define your company's growth trajectory. Don't rush it. Be methodical. Be sceptical. Be thorough.

I've put together a summary of my main recommendations in the table below. Think of this as your checklist. Go through it step-by-step for every single person you consider hiring. It will force you to look past the sales pitch and focus on what actually matters: their process, their strategic thinking, and their understanding of your business.

So why bother with an expert at all?

After reading all this, you might be thinking it's easier to just try and do it yourself. And you could. But you'll likely make all the expensive mistakes that your competitors have already paid to learn from. You'll waste months and thousands of pounds testing things that a real expert already knows don't work.

Hiring the right consultant isn't a cost. It's an investment in speed and efficiency. You're buying their experience. You're buying their process. You're buying their ability to look at your business with a fresh pair of expert eyes and see the opportunities you're too close to notice. A good ad expert can be the difference between stagnating and scaling rapidly. To learn more about how to make the right choice, check out our UK guide on finding an ad expert that drives ROI.

The key is finding the *right* one. Don't be sold a dream. Use the framework I've laid out here to find a genuine partner who is as invested in your business's success as you are. They are out there, but you have to be deliberate in how you look for them.

If you're tired of guessing and want a no-nonsense look at your current advertising strategy, we offer a free, 20-minute consultation. We'll review your campaigns and give you actionable advice you can implement immediately, whether you decide to work with us or not. There's no hard sell, just straightforward, expert advice. Feel free to get in touch if you think that would be helpful.