UK Guide: Find a Paid Ads Expert (Not Just Local)

Right, so you're looking for a paid ads consultant in Canterbury. It's a sensible thought. You want someone local, someone you can maybe meet for a coffee, someone who 'gets' the area. But honestly, it's probably the wrong way to look at it, and it's a mistake I see a lot of business owners make.

The success of your paid advertising has almost nothing to do with your consultant's proximity to Canterbury Cathedral. It has everything to do with their specific, deep experience in your industry, with your type of customer, on the platforms where your audience spends their time. A specialist who's scaled a SaaS company from London is going to be infinitely more valuable to your Kent-based tech startup than a local jack-of-all-trades who mostly runs ads for restaurants on the high street.

So let's reframe the question. Instead of "Who is the best paid ads consultant in Canterbury?", let's ask, "How do I find the right paid ads consultant for my business, who understands the UK market?" That's the question that'll actually get you a return on your investment.

So if not local, what should I actually be looking for?

This is where you need to put your business hat on and do some proper due diligence. It's not about geography, it's about evidence. When we bring on a new client, they've already seen the proof. You should demand the same from anyone you consider hiring.

First thing to look at is their case studies. And I don't mean a fancy logo on their website. I mean proper, detailed walkthroughs of what they did, why they did it, and what the results were. For example, I remember we worked with a UK-based cleaning products e-commerce brand and generated a 633% return for them on Meta Ads. Another one, a women's apparel store, we hit a 691% return. These are real numbers, attached to real businesses. If a consultant can't show you this level of detail for a business that looks a bit like yours, that's a massive red flag. They should be able to talk you through the strategy. You gotta be realistic results wise, of course, as your niche might be more difficult. But if they've got solid case studies, it shows they have the right kind of experience.

Next, get them on a call. This is your chance to test their expertise. Don't let them just give you a sales pitch. Ask them hard questions about your business. What platform would they start with and why? What would their initial testing budget be? What audiences would they target? If their answers are vague ("we'll target people interested in your product"), they're winging it. A real expert will have immediate, specific ideas. They'll talk about funnels, targeting layers, and creative angles. We offer a free initial consultation where we actually go through a potential client's ad account with them. By the end of that call, they have a clear idea of our expertise and we have a clear idea if we can actually help them. Look for that level of transparency. Tbh if they just promise you the world, that's another red flag. No one can promise results in paid ads. It's impossible to predict exactly how things will perform.

Finally, look at reviews, but read between the lines. Are clients talking about results, or just how nice the person was to deal with? You're not hiring a friend, you're hiring a specialist to grow your buisness. It's all about the outcomes.

This whole process of finding the right person can feel like a minefield, but having a clear framework for vetting makes it a lot easier. If you want to go deeper on this, we've put together a full guide on how UK founders should be vetting and hiring paid media agencies.

What sort of costs and results should a Canterbury business actually expect?

This is the million-dollar question, or hopefully, the million-pound question for you. The answer is, it depends. A campaign for a local electrician in Kent targeting homeowners is a completely different beast to a national e-commerce campaign selling handcrafted jewellery.

Let's talk specifics based on campaigns we've run for UK businesses. For local services, where you're trying to get someone to pick up the phone or fill out a form, you're usually looking at Google Ads. For something like a home cleaning company, we've seen costs as low as £5 per lead. For a more competitive trade, like an HVAC engineer, that could go up to around $60 per lead, especially in a more crowded market. For a childcare service, we saw signups for about $10 each. The key is that the value of the customer has to justify the cost.

For e-commerce, it's a different game. You're usually on Meta (Facebook & Instagram) or Google Shopping. The metric you care about isn't cost per lead, it's Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). I recall one subscription box client that hit a 1000% ROAS, meaning for every £1 they spent, they got £10 back in sales. That's exceptional. A more typical good result might be the 633% we got for the cleaning products company I mentioned earlier. If you're selling your own products online, a 400% (4x) ROAS is often a good target to aim for to be comfortably profitable.

Here's a rough idea of what you might expect for different business types common in Kent:

The real question isn't how low your cost per lead can go, it's how much you can afford to pay to get a new customer. If you don't know your numbers, you're flying blind. You need to understand your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). Once you know what a customer is worth, you know what you can spend to get one. I've built a simple calculator below to help you figure this out.

How to spot a bad fit and avoid getting ripped off

There are a lot of people out there who will happily take your money and deliver very little. As a business owner, whether you're in Canterbury or Carlisle, you need to be able to spot them a mile off. The good news is, they tend to give themselves away quite easily if you know what to look for.

The biggest red flag is a guarantee of results. "We'll get you a 10x ROAS in 90 days, guaranteed!" If you hear anything like this, run. As I said before, it's impossible to guarantee results in advertising. The market changes, platform algorithms change, competitors change their strategy. A real pro will talk about a process of testing, learning, and optimising. They'll talk about benchmarks and targets, not guarantees.

Another one is a lack of transparency. If they're cagey about their process, won't give you full access to the ad accounts, or their reporting is just a fluffy PDF with some vanity metrics like 'reach' and 'impressions', be very suspicious. You should own your ad accounts, and you should be getting regular, clear reports on the metrics that actually matter: cost per lead, cost per sale, ROAS, and so on.

And then there's the strategy itself. If you ask them for their plan and they say "we'll create some ads and run them on Facebook," that's not a strategy. A proper strategy involves defining the customer avatar, crafting the offer, building out the funnel, planning the creative, and setting up a rigorous testing schedule. It's a detailed plan of action, not a vague statement of intent. They should be talking about your ICP's nightmare, not just their demographic.

Here’s a quick flowchart to help you think through the decision. If you find yourself heading down the 'No' path too often, it's time to look elsewhere.

This all sounds complicated. What does a good process actually look like?

It can seem like a lot, but a good consultant or agency will guide you through a clear, logical process. It shouldn't feel mysterious or confusing. When you work with a professional, it should feel like you have a new, expert member on your team who is focused on one thing: growing your buisness profitably through paid channels.

It usually starts with a deep dive into your business. This is more than just a quick chat. It's about understanding your goals, your customers, your numbers, your past advertising efforts, what's worked and what hasn't. It's the foundation for everything else. This is what we do in our free initial consultation. It's not a sales pitch; it's the start of the strategy work.

From there, they should develop and present a clear strategy document. This will outline the platforms they recommend, the audiences they'll target, the messaging angles they'll use, the budget they propose, and the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) they'll use to measure success. This document should make complete sense to you. If it's full of jargon you don't understand, ask them to explain it. It's their job to make the complex simple.

Once you've agreed on the strategy, then the implementation begins. This involves setting up the campaigns, writing the ad copy, sourcing or creating the images/videos, and building any necessary landing pages. All of this should be done methodically. A good consultant doesn't just throw everything at the wall to see what sticks. They launch controlled tests to gather data and find winning combinations of audience, creative, and offer.

Then comes the ongoing management and optimisation. This is critical. Campaigns aren't 'set and forget'. They need constant monitoring and tweaking. A good consultant will be in your accounts daily, making adjustments based on performance data. They'll be scaling the bits that are working and killing the bits that aren't. And they'll be communicating with you regularly, usually with a weekly or bi-weekly report and a monthly strategy call to discuss results and plan next steps. Managing this relationship effectively is a skill in itself, and it's vital for getting the best ROI from your investment. For more on this, check out our framework for managing agencies to maximise your return.

So, here's my main advice for you in Canterbury

I've thrown a lot at you. So let's boil it down to an actionable plan. If you're a business owner in Canterbury or the surrounding Kent area and you're serious about using paid ads to grow, here is what you need to do.

Forget 'local'. Start with 'expert'. Do your research and find a handful of consultants or agencies in the UK that have demonstrable, rock-solid experience in your specific niche. Shortlist them based on their case studies, not their postcode.

So why bother with an expert at all?

You could try and do this yourself. Many business owners do. You can spend weeks watching YouTube videos, reading blog posts, and eventually piece together a campaign. And you might even get some results. But here's the brutally honest truth: you'll almost certainly spend more money and time getting to profitability than you would if you just hired an expert from day one.

The learning curve in paid advertising is expensive. Every failed ad set, every poorly targeted audience, every low-converting landing page costs you real money. An experienced consultant has already made those mistakes on someone else's dime. They bring a tested process and a deep understanding of the platform mechanics that you simply can't learn overnight.

Think of it like this: if the plumbing in your shop on The King's Mile bursts, you call a plumber. You don't start googling "how to fix a burst pipe". You hire an expert because they can solve the problem faster, better, and more reliably than you can. Paid advertising is no different. It's a specialist trade. Trying to DIY your local lead generation is often a false economy.

A good consultant isn't a cost; they are an investment in growth. They provide the strategy, the execution, and the optimisation that allows you to focus on what you do best: running your business. They turn an unpredictable marketing channel into a reliable, scalable engine for acquiring new customers.

If you're ready to stop guessing and start growing your business with a proven, data-driven approach, let's talk. We offer a completely free, no-obligation initial consultation where we'll review your business, your goals, and give you a straightforward assessment of how paid advertising could work for you. No hard sell, just honest advice from the trenches.

Hope this helps!