Marketing & growth
Paid media & performance advertising
Spend that can be judged: every campaign runs to a cost-per-acquisition ceiling you set, with the creative plan, audience exclusions and attribution window written down before a penny goes live.
The short version
Most ad accounts are not held back by bidding. They are held back by too few creative concepts in the market and a measurement setup that flatters the platform reporting it. We start from your margin, work out what an acquisition can honestly cost, then run creative in a queue against that ceiling. If the ceiling cannot be met, we would rather tell you in month one than keep the budget running.
What is included
- A break-even model built from your own margin and average order value, producing the cost-per-acquisition ceiling every campaign is then judged against.
- Conversion tracking fixed before spend starts: events deduplicated, Meta Conversions API and Google enhanced conversions sending server-side events with values attached, UTM tagging consistent across platforms.
- Account structure built for the platform rather than copied between them, with search terms and negative keyword lists reviewed weekly on the Google side.
- A creative testing queue with an agreed number of new concepts each month, every one isolating a single variable and carrying a written kill rule.
- Audience architecture with the exclusions spelled out — existing customers, recent purchasers, current subscribers and your own staff kept out of prospecting.
- A weekly one-page summary and a monthly review that sets platform-reported cost per acquisition against a blended figure from your own revenue, so you can see the gap.
How we work
Our approach
The stages this work runs through, in order. Every one of them ends in something you can see or sign off.
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Step 01
Work out the break-even
Before we open the account we need your numbers: average order value or first-year contract value, gross margin, and how much repeat business a customer typically brings. That produces a cost per acquisition you can actually afford, and it becomes the ceiling every campaign gets judged against. Without it, the same CPA is either excellent or ruinous and nobody in the room can say which. We write the figure into the plan so pausing decisions become arithmetic rather than argument.
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Step 02
Instrument before you spend
Tracking gets fixed before budget goes live, because you cannot optimise against a number that is wrong. That means conversion events deduplicated, the Meta Conversions API and Google enhanced conversions sending server-side events with values attached, and UTM tagging consistent across every platform. We also agree the attribution window in writing, usually 7-day click and 1-day view, so nobody compares a 7-day number this month against a 28-day one next month and calls it growth.
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Step 03
Test creative in a queue
Creative is the main lever on Meta and increasingly on Google, so we treat it as a production schedule rather than a mood. A set number of new concepts goes live each month, each isolating one variable: hook, format, offer framing or proof. Every test gets a minimum spend before anyone judges it, roughly three times your target CPA, plus a kill rule agreed up front. Losing concepts get retired without ceremony and the reason goes in the log.
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Step 04
Scale only what clears
Budget increases follow rules, not enthusiasm. When a campaign holds under the CPA ceiling across a full week we step spend up in increments rather than doubling it and resetting the learning phase. We also check that platform-reported conversions are not simply taking credit for demand you already had, using a blended figure from your own revenue and, where volume allows, a geographic holdout. Audience exclusions stay maintained so you are not paying to reach existing customers.
Before you ask
Questions we get asked first
How long before we see anything?
The first 2 to 3 weeks go on instrumentation, account structure and getting the first creative batch live, so treat month one as building a baseline rather than proving a case. Meta ad sets need roughly 50 conversions a week to leave the learning phase and behave predictably, which for a low-volume account means optimising towards an earlier event instead. Realistically you need 6 to 8 weeks before a decision about the channel has enough data underneath it. We will say at the six-week mark whether the maths is working.
How is it priced?
A fixed monthly management fee in pounds against a defined scope: which platforms, how many campaigns, how many new creative concepts a month, and what reporting you get. Media budget is paid by you straight to Meta, Google or LinkedIn, so it never passes through us and carries no markup. We do not charge a percentage of ad spend, because that pays us to spend more of your money rather than to hit your CPA. If the scope changes we requote before starting.
What do you need from us?
Admin access to your own ad accounts and Business Manager, which stay in your name so nothing is held hostage if we part ways. Your margin and average order value, because without them there is no CPA ceiling. Raw material for creative — product footage, customer photos, screen recordings. Anything shot on a phone is usually more useful than a polished brand film. A product feed if you sell online, and one person who can approve claims quickly, since ad review turns on wording.
How will we know whether it worked?
Against the CPA ceiling set on day one, read three ways. Platform-reported cost per acquisition, which is optimistic. A blended figure of your own revenue divided by total spend, which is pessimistic but honest. And where volume allows, a holdout test to check the spend is buying demand you would not have had anyway. You get a weekly one-page summary and a monthly review that names what we are stopping as clearly as what we are scaling.
Want this scoped for your situation?
Tell us the goal and the deadline. You get an honest read on whether this is the right service, a fixed price if it is, and a straight no if it isn't.
Or email [email protected] directly. We reply within one working day.