Most fintechs in London burn through their ad spend on Meta because they make one fundamental mistake, and it's got nothing to do with fancy videos or bidding strategies. They're trying to sell a product. The truth is, nobody wakes up wanting to buy a financial product. They wake up with a problem, a worry, a proper nightmare that keeps them up at night. If you're not speaking directly to that nightmare, you're just shouting into the void with everyone else.
You can have the slickest app in the world, backed by the brightest minds from the City, but if your ads talk about 'seamless user interfaces' and 'innovative financial solutions', you've already lost. Your potential customer doesn't care. They care about whether they'll have enough money to retire, if they can get a mortgage on their own, or why their startup is bleeding cash on international transaction fees. Your entire advertising aproach needs to be rebuilt around solving a very specific, very urgent, and very expensive problem. Until you do that, you might as well be setting fire to your marketing budget in the middle of Canary Wharf.
So, why are my fintech ads in London flopping?
It's almost never the reason you think. Founders and marketing managers come to us blaming the Meta algorithm, the high CPCs in London, or the creative not being 'engaging' enough. Tbh, that's usually just noise. The real issue is almost always deeper and has two parts: your offer is weak and your targeting is lazy.
Let's be blunt. The financial services space is built on distrust. People are naturally sceptical. Add to that the fact you're dealing with long decision-making cycles, especially in B2B fintech, and you have a tough hill to climb. You can't just run an ad saying "Sign Up Now" and expect a flood of qualified leads. It just won't happen. People need to be convinced, and your ad's first job isn't to sell, but to earn a tiny bit of trust by showing you understand their world.
This is where most go wrong. They define their Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) with sterile demographics. "James, 32, lives in Clapham, earns £80k, works in tech." It's completely useless. That tells you nothing of value. It leads to generic ads that speak to no one.
You need to forget the demographic and find the nightmare. Your customer isn't a job title; she's a Head of Finance terrified of a messy audit because her team's expense reporting is a disaster of spreadsheets and lost receipts. Your B2C customer isn't 'a millennial'; he's a freelancer who panics every time he thinks about his tax bill because he has no system to track his income and expenses. Your ICP isn't a person, it's a problem state. Once you've figured that out, you have a real foundation to build a campaign on. Without it, you're just guessing, and guessing is a very expensive way to do marketing.
Right, so how do I find my *actual* customers on Meta?
First, you need to do the hard work of identifying that pain point we just talked about. Get specific. What is the one thing that would make them feel a huge sense of relief? Once you know that, you can start thinking about how to find them on a platform like Meta.
Instead of just targeting broad interests like "Finance" or "Investing" – which is a complete waste of money – you need to think like your customer. What niche publications do they read? For a sophisticated B2B audience, maybe it's the Financial Times or The Economist. What software do they already use? For a startup founder, maybe they use tools like HubSpot or Slack. What communities are they in? Are there specific Facebook Groups for accountants in the UK, or for small business owners?
This is the inteligence that builds a powerful targeting strategy. You're not just throwing a wide net; you're placing your message in the exact digital streams your ideal customer is already swimming in. The goal is for your ad to feel less like an interruption and more like a genuinely helpful suggestion that happens to appear at the right time.
When you start running ads, you need a methodical way to test these audiences. I always prioritise audiences based on how close they are to making a decision. This is how you can think about structuring it for a fintech business, moving from the coldest audiences to your warmest prospects.
A Better Way to Prioritise Your Meta Audiences for Fintech
| Funnel Stage | Audience Type | Example for a B2C Investment App |
|---|---|---|
| Top of Funnel (ToFu) - Cold | Detailed Targeting & Lookalikes | Interests: MoneySavingExpert, The Financial Times, competitor apps. Lookalikes of existing customers. |
| Middle of Funnel (MoFu) - Warm | Engagement Retargeting | People who watched 50% of your video ad, visited your website, or engaged with your Instagram page. |
| Bottom of Funnel (BoFu) - Hot | High-Intent Retargeting | People who visited the signup page, initiated the application, or added the app to their basket but didn't complete. |
| Retention - Existing | Customer Lists | Upload a list of your existing customers to upsell new features or encourage referrals. |
You start at the top to gather data and feed the pixel. As soon as you have enough data (you need at least 100 people for a custom audience, but realistically you want more), you build out your MoFu and BoFu campaigns. These retargeting audiences are almost always your most profitable. Too many businesses spend all their money at the top and never properly follow up with the people who showed some initial interest. That's a massive, and very common, mistake.
Okay, I've found them. What do I actually *say* to them?
Now we get to the most common point of failure in all B2B and high-consideration B2C advertising: the offer. I want you to go to your website right now and, if you have one, delete the "Request a Demo" button. It is the most arrogant, high-friction, low-value call to action ever invented. It screams, "I expect you, a busy and important person, to give up 30 minutes of your time to let me sell to you." It positions you as a commodity, and it kills conversions.
Your offer's only job is to deliver an "aha!" moment. A moment of undeniable value that makes the prospect sell themselves on your solution. You must solve a small, real problem for them, for free, to earn the right to talk about solving their bigger problems later.
For fintechs, this is a massive opportunity. Instead of asking for a demo, give them something. For a B2B fintech that helps with business expenses, don't ask for a demo. Offer a free, instant 'Expense Waste Calculator' that shows them how much they're overpaying in fees. For a B2C budgeting app, don't just say 'Download Now'. Offer a free '5-Day Financial Health Check' email course. For a mortage advisor, a 'How much can I borrow?' calculator. You have to give value to get value.
The copy in your ad needs to reflect this problem-first aproach. Forget features. Talk about feelings. Use the Problem-Agitate-Solve framework. It's simple and it works.
Ad Copy That Actually Works for Fintech
| Fintech Type | Problem-Agitate-Solve Example |
|---|---|
| B2C Budgeting App | P: Is there always more month left at the end of your money? A: That feeling of dread when you check your balance, not knowing where it all went. It's stopping you from saving for that deposit or holiday. S: Our app makes it simple to see exactly where every pound goes. Get your free 'Financial Health Check' and find your first £50 in savings this week. |
| B2B Payments Platform | P: Tired of getting hit with hidden fees on international payments? A: You're trying to scale your business, but your bank is eating into your profit margin with every single transaction. It feels like you're being punished for growing. S: We offer transparent, low-cost international transfers. Use our free calculator to see exactly how much you could save compared to your current bank. |
| SaaS for Accountants | P: Drowning in manual data entry at month-end? A: While you're stuck reconciling reciepts, your competitors are advising their clients on strategy. You're becoming a data monkey, not a trusted advisor. S: Automate 90% of your bookkeeping tasks. Start a free trial and see how much time you get back in your first week. No credit card needed. |
This all sounds good, but what's a realistic cost per lead in the UK?
This is the million-dollar question, isn't it? The honest answer is: it varies massively. Anyone who gives you a fixed number without knowing your business is lying. It depends on your specific audience, your offer, and how competitive your corner of the market is. Fintech is definetly competitive, so you shouldn't expect dirt-cheap leads.
However, I can talk in ranges based on my experience. For general lead generation in a developed market like the UK, you might see a Cost Per Click (CPC) between £0.50 and £1.50. If your landing page is decent, you might see a conversion rate of 10-30%. So, the maths looks something like this: a cost per lead (CPL) could be anywhere from £1.60 (£0.50 / 30%) to £15 (£1.50 / 10%).
But remember, a 'lead' for a fintech can mean anything from an email signup to a full trial application. For something more involved, like a B2B software trial, the costs will be higher. I've managed campaigns that got B2B software trials for around $7 each, and I remember one campaign where we achieved 4,622 registrations for a B2B software client at just $2.38 per registration using Meta Ads. I remember one campaign for a medical job matching SaaS where we reduced their Cost Per User Acquisition from a painful £100 down to just £7 by optimising the funnel. It's possible to get great results, but you have to be realistic at the start.
The real question isn't "How low can my CPL go?" but "How high a CPL can I afford to acquire a great customer?" This is where understanding your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) is so important. It's the metric that separates amateur marketers from pros. It's the number that tells you how much you can really afford to spend to win.
Quick LTV Calculation for a B2B Fintech SaaS
Let's imagine you run a SaaS for financial advisors in the UK.
- -> Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): £200/month
- -> Gross Margin %: 85% (your profit on that revenue)
- -> Monthly Churn Rate: 3% (the percentage of customers you lose each month)
The Calculation:
LTV = (ARPA * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate
LTV = (£200 * 0.85) / 0.03
LTV = £170 / 0.03 = £5,666
What this means: Each customer is worth over £5,500 in gross margin to your business. If you aim for a healthy 3:1 LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio, you can afford to spend up to £1,888 to acquire a single new customer. If your sales proccess converts 1 in 5 qualified trials into a customer, you can afford to pay up to £377 for one qualified trial signup. Suddenly that £50 lead from Meta doesn't look so expensive, does it?
How should I actually structure my campaigns to test all this?
The biggest structural mistake I see is people running 'awareness' campaigns. When you tell Meta your objective is "Brand Awareness" or "Reach," you are giving it a very clear instruction: "Find me the cheapest possible eyeballs, regardless of whether they will ever click or buy." The algorithm does exactly what you ask and finds you an audience of people who are not in demand because they never convert. You are paying to reach the worst possible audience. It's madness.
Awareness is a byproduct of sales, not a prerequisite for them. You should almost always be running campaigns with a conversion objective: Leads, Sales, Signups. This tells the algorithm to find people who are likely to take the specific action you want them to take.
You need to seperate your campaigns by the funnel stages we discussed earlier. Don't lump your cold prospecting and your hot retargeting into the same campaign or ad set. They are different audiences with different needs, and they require different messages and offers.
A simple, effective structure looks like this:
Campaign 1: TOFU - Prospecting
- -> Objective: Conversions (e.g., Leads for your free tool)
- -> Ad Set 1: Lookalike Audience of your best customers (1%)
- -> Ad Set 2: Interest Targeting (e.g., Followers of MoneyWeek + Financial Conduct Authority)
- -> Ad Set 3: Broad Targeting (if you have lots of pixel data)
Campaign 2: MOFU/BOFU - Retargeting
- -> Objective: Conversions (e.g., Trial Signups)
- -> Ad Set 1: Website Visitors (Last 30 days, excluding converters)
- -> Ad Set 2: Video Viewers (Viewed 50% of ToFu ad, last 14 days)
- -> Ad Set 3: Abandoned Signups (Visited signup page but didn't complete, last 7 days)
This structure lets you control the message at each stage and move people logically from being unaware of you to becoming a paying customer. You test your audiences and creatives within this structure, turning off what doesn't work and scaling up what does. It's a system, not a lottery.
What's the main advice I should take away from this?
If you're feeling a bit overwhelmed, that's normal. There's a lot to it. But if you focus on getting the fundamentals right, you'll be ahead of 90% of other fintechs advertising in London. It all comes down to a few core ideas. Forget the quick hacks and focus on building a solid foundation.
I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:
| Recommendation | Why It Matters | Your First Action |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Define Your Customer by Their Nightmare | Generic demographic targeting leads to generic, ineffective ads. Pain-point targeting creates a powerful, immediate connection. | Write down three specific, urgent problems your ideal customer has that your product helps to solve. |
| 2. Create a Value-First Offer | "Request a Demo" is a high-friction ask. A free tool, checklist, or calculator provides instant value and builds trust. | Brainstorm one simple thing you can give away for free that solves a small piece of your customer's nightmare. |
| 3. Calculate Your LTV | It stops you from focusing on cheap, low-quality leads and allows you to confidently spend what's necessary to acquire valuable customers. | Use the formula provided above to get a rough estimate of your customer LTV. This is your new North Star metric. |
| 4. Structure Campaigns by Funnel | It lets you speak to cold, warm, and hot audiences with the right message at the right time, which dramatically improves conversion rates. | Set up two seperate campaigns: one for Prospecting (ToFu) and one for Retargeting (MoFu/BoFu), both with a conversion objective. |
| 5. Always Be Testing | Your first idea is rarely your best. Methodical testing of audiences, creatives, and offers is how you find winning combinations and scale them. | In your Prospecting campaign, create two different ad sets with two different targeting approaches to see which performs better. |
When does it make sense to get expert help?
You can absolutely implement everything I've talked about on your own. The principles are straightforward. But the execution is time-consuming, requires a lot of attention to detail, and involves a learning curve where you will inevitably spend money on mistakes.
Getting expert help isn't about admitting defeat. It's about deciding you want to get to your destination faster and with more certainty. It's for when you're ready to stop spending your own valuable time trying to become a paid ads expert and instead focus on what you do best: building your fintech product and serving your customers.
That's where a professional consultancy can make a huge difference. With years of experience running campaigns specifically for software, B2B, and other high-value lead generation clients, we can help you skip the expensive trial-and-error phase. We've already made the mistakes, so you don't have to. We can provide insights you might not have thought of and take over the entire implementation and optimisation process for you, ensuring every pound you spend is working as hard as it possibly can to grow your business.
If you've read this far and feel that your current approach isn't working, or you'd just like a second pair of expert eyes on your strategy, we offer a free, no-obligation consultation. We can have a look at what you're doing now and give you some honest, actionable advice on how to improve.
