Question 1

How do Google Ads and Meta Ads differ, and which should I start with?

Accepted Answer

Google Ads and Meta Ads (Facebook and Instagram) work in fundamentally different ways and serve different roles in a paid media strategy. Understanding the distinction is essential to deciding where your budget should go first.

Google Ads is a search intent channel. When someone types "equine transport Suffolk" or "web design Bury St Edmunds" into Google, they are actively looking for something. Google Ads puts your business in front of those people at exactly the moment they are searching. This is why Google Ads typically generates strong conversion rates relative to other channels. You are reaching people who are already in buying mode, not interrupting people who were not thinking about your product.

The limitation of Google Ads is that it only reaches people who are actively searching. If nobody is searching for what you do, there is no search demand to capture. It is also more expensive per click in competitive markets, because you are bidding against every other business trying to capture the same searches.

Meta Ads (Facebook and Instagram) work on an interruption model. You are placing ads in front of people based on their behaviour, interests and demographics, not because they searched for something relevant. This makes Meta Ads powerful for reaching audiences that do not yet know they need your product, for building brand awareness at scale and for retargeting people who have already visited your website.

Meta Ads typically have lower cost per click than Google Ads in most markets, but also lower conversion intent because you are reaching people who were not actively looking for you. This means creative quality matters more on Meta than on Google. The ad needs to be interesting enough to make someone stop scrolling and take notice.

The most effective paid media strategies use both channels together. Google Ads captures existing demand from people actively searching. Meta Ads creates and retargets demand from people who fit your audience profile. Together they cover both the bottom of the funnel and the middle.

For a business starting out with paid ads on a sensible budget, £500 to £1,500 a month in spend for a Suffolk service business, we almost always start with Google Ads for the stronger intent, pointed at the town pages your website plan already has, and add Meta for retargeting once the Google campaigns are paying for themselves. We will tell you honestly where your budget will do the most.

Question 2

How long does it take for paid ads to start working?

Accepted Answer

Paid ads can start generating clicks and enquiries from the day they go live, which is one of their biggest advantages over organic channels like SEO. However, the path from launching a campaign to running a profitable, efficient campaign usually takes 6 to 12 weeks.

The first 2 weeks are the learning and monitoring phase. We launch the campaigns and watch daily for irrelevant search terms triggering the ads, audience behaviour we did not expect, budget pacing problems or creative that is not landing, and we make quick adjustments to protect the opening budget and gather the early signals that shape the first round of optimisation.

Weeks 3 to 6 are early optimisation. The platforms have enough data for their algorithms to work, the conversion tracking shows which campaigns and ad groups are producing enquiries, and we start making real bid, audience and creative changes based on performance rather than assumptions. By weeks 8 to 12 a well structured campaign on an appropriate budget should be running efficiently, with the cost per enquiry understood and predictable, the best performing ads identified and retargeting doing its job. From there the work shifts from fixing problems to improving performance month by month.

A few factors significantly affect how quickly campaigns reach efficiency. Budget size matters because larger budgets generate more data faster, which accelerates the learning period. Market competition affects cost per click and therefore how quickly the budget gathers meaningful conversion data. Landing page quality affects conversion rate, which directly affects how efficiently the budget turns clicks into enquiries. Creative quality on Meta and social platforms determines whether people engage at all.

We set realistic expectations from the start. If you are looking for paid ads to generate a significant volume of enquiries from month one on a small budget in a competitive market, that is unlikely and we will tell you so. But for most businesses with a sensible budget and clear service offering, paid ads start showing meaningful results within the first month and become a reliable enquiry channel within the first quarter.

Question 3

How much should I spend on ads?

Accepted Answer

Ad spend is completely separate from our management fee and is paid directly to the platforms. How much you should spend depends on your market, your service value, your conversion rate and what you need the campaigns to achieve commercially.

As a starting point we recommend £500 to £1,500 a month in ad spend for a service business in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk or Cambridgeshire. Below £500 the account rarely gathers enough clicks to learn from. Above £1,500 you should be scaling on evidence, because the campaigns have proved what an enquiry costs. Competitive trades or national targeting sit at the top of that range or beyond it, and the keyword research tells us where you sit before you sign.

Meta comes second for most of our clients, once the Google campaigns are paying for themselves, and its budget sits inside the same overall range rather than on top of it. It needs enough spend to run retargeting properly and to give the algorithm something to learn from, and a starved Meta campaign tends to find cheap, wrong audiences, so we would rather run 1 platform well than 2 badly.

The right budget is ultimately a function of your target cost per enquiry and the volume of enquiries you need to hit your revenue goals. If your average project or sale value is £2,000 and your website converts 5% of visitors into enquiries, you need roughly 20 clicks to generate one enquiry. If a click costs £2 on average, you need £40 in ad spend to generate one enquiry. If you want 10 enquiries per month, you need £400 in ad spend. This is simplified, but the principle holds.

During the discovery session, we go through this exercise for your specific business to arrive at a recommended monthly ad spend that makes commercial sense. We will not recommend a budget that is too small to generate meaningful results, and we will not recommend a budget larger than your business can realistically absorb in terms of new enquiries and projects.

As campaigns mature and we understand what generates the best return on ad spend, budgets can be scaled with confidence. Starting conservatively and scaling based on data is always the safer approach than committing to a large budget before the campaigns are proven to work.

Question 4

Do you manage Google Ads, Meta Ads, TikTok and LinkedIn?

Accepted Answer

Yes. We manage paid ad campaigns across Google Ads, Meta Ads (Facebook and Instagram), TikTok and LinkedIn, as well as Google Display and YouTube where appropriate for the business.

Each platform has a different role and requires a different approach. Our platform recommendations are based on what we know about your business, your audience and your goals, not on which platforms we happen to prefer or which ones generate higher ad spend volumes.

There are no tiers or packages. Every engagement is quoted from a clear fixed quote based on the platforms, the budget and the work involved, agreed in writing before anything runs. Most clients start with Google Ads alone, add Meta for retargeting once Google is paying for itself, and add TikTok or LinkedIn only where the research says the audience is there.

LinkedIn Ads are particularly relevant for B2B businesses targeting specific job titles, company sizes or industries. Cost per click on LinkedIn is significantly higher than other platforms, typically £5 to £15 compared to £1 to £5 on Google, but the precision of targeting and the quality of the B2B audience can justify the cost for businesses selling higher value services. We will give you an honest assessment of whether LinkedIn Ads make commercial sense for your business before recommending them.

TikTok Ads work best for businesses targeting 18 to 35 year old demographics with creative that feels native to the platform. Unlike Google and Meta, TikTok audiences respond poorly to obviously commercial ads. Content needs to feel organic, entertaining and platform appropriate to perform. We produce and direct TikTok ad creative alongside campaign management.

If you are not sure which platforms are right for your business, tell us about your customers and your goals during the discovery session and we will make a clear recommendation with reasoning.

Question 5

What results can I expect from paid ads?

Accepted Answer

Realistic expectations for paid ads depend on your market, budget, offer and the quality of the landing page experience. We will always give you honest projections rather than inflated promises designed to win the business.

For Google Ads in local service markets across Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, a well managed campaign on a sensible budget typically produces enquiries somewhere between £15 and £80 each, depending on how competitive the search terms are. A tap repair in Sudbury sits at the cheap end. A solicitor in Cambridge sits at the expensive end. The keyword research gives you the forecast for your trade and your towns before you commit to spending.

For Meta Ads, cost per lead varies more widely because the channel is better suited to building awareness and retargeting warm audiences than capturing immediate purchase intent. Lead costs of £10 to £40 are achievable for local service businesses with well structured campaigns and strong creative.

Conversion rate on the landing page is often the biggest variable. A Google Ads campaign sending traffic to a poorly structured website with unclear calls to action might convert 1 to 2% of clicks into enquiries. The same campaign with a properly optimised landing page might convert 5 to 8%. The difference in enquiry cost is significant. We review and recommend landing page improvements as part of every campaign setup because the ads and the landing page work as a system.

We set projected KPIs based on your specific market and budget during the discovery session. These projections are informed by platform data, competitor benchmarks and historical campaign performance across similar businesses. We track actual performance against these projections in every monthly report and adjust the approach when campaigns are not performing to target.

What we never do is promise a specific number of leads or a specific return on ad spend before we have run the campaigns. Anyone who guarantees a fixed number of leads from paid ads before running them either does not understand the channel or is telling you what you want to hear.

Question 6

Do you write the ad copy or do I need to provide it?

Accepted Answer

We write all ad copy for every campaign we manage as part of the service. You do not need to provide copy and you do not need to have a background in marketing or advertising to work with us effectively.

We write multiple variations of headlines and descriptions for every ad group or campaign. Testing multiple versions simultaneously is one of the most important principles of effective paid advertising. Different people respond to different messages and the only way to know which messages work best is to run them against each other and let the data decide. We establish an A/B testing framework from the start of every campaign.For Google Ads, we write responsive search ad copy with multiple headline variations (up to 15) and description variations (up to 4) that Google assembles into different combinations. The algorithm then optimises toward the combinations that generate the best results.

For Meta, TikTok and LinkedIn Ads, copy is written specifically for the platform and the placement. Facebook feed ads need strong opening lines that stop the scroll. Instagram stories need text that works with or without sound. LinkedIn Ads need professional tone and direct value propositions. We adapt the copy approach for every platform and placement.

For image and video creative, we can work with what you already have, or produce it from a clear fixed quote. A social content shoot is often the most useful starting point: the Starter Shoot is £545 for 2 hours, 3 reels and 15 images, and the Full Day is £995 for 7 hours, 10 reels and 30 images, all shot with the adverts in mind rather than cut from whatever is on your phone.

If you have strong views on messaging, existing campaign copy you like or brand voice guidelines, we incorporate that into the creative brief. If you are starting from scratch with no existing assets, we work through the messaging strategy as part of the discovery session and develop everything from there.

Question 7

Do you work with businesses that have never run paid ads before?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and some of our most successful client campaigns started from a standing position with no previous paid ads history. Starting fresh is in some ways advantageous because there are no legacy account issues, poor historical data or bad quality scores to work around.

For businesses new to paid advertising, the onboarding process is slightly longer because we spend more time explaining the strategy, the platforms and what to expect before anything goes live. We would rather you fully understand what we are doing and why than have you wonder each month what your management fee is actually covering.

We set up the accounts correctly from scratch rather than inheriting a messy account structure from a previous attempt. Clean campaign architecture, correct conversion tracking implementation, verified pixel setup and properly structured ad groups from day one means campaigns reach efficiency faster than taking over poorly built accounts.

For businesses in Bury St Edmunds and Suffolk running paid ads for the first time, we typically recommend a Google Ads first approach. Search intent targeting is more straightforward to explain and the results are more directly attributable than Meta Ads. Once the Google campaigns are running efficiently and you can see the direct relationship between ad spend and enquiries, adding a Meta Ads retargeting campaign is a natural and low risk expansion.

If you have tried Google Ads before and found it did not work, that is worth discussing during the discovery session. In most cases we find that the previous attempt either had structural problems in the account setup, insufficient budget to generate meaningful data, poor landing page alignment or unrealistic expectations about the timeline to results. All of these are fixable.

Question 8

Can I run paid ads and SEO at the same time?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and we recommend it for most businesses. Paid ads and SEO serve different roles in a digital marketing strategy and are far more powerful together than either is individually.

SEO builds visibility that keeps paying after the work is done. Once your town pages rank in Bury St Edmunds, Newmarket and the villages between, they bring enquiries month after month without a click being bought, which is why ongoing SEO is included in every website plan rather than sold separately. The limitation is time: it takes months, not days. Paid ads are the opposite. From the day the campaign goes live you are at the top of Google for the searches you chose, and the moment the budget stops, so does the traffic.

Running both together is the model we recommend. The ads are the fast lane while the included SEO catches up, and because the ads land on the same town pages the SEO is pushing, every click teaches us something about the page. As a page reaches page 1 for its search, usually over 3 to 6 months, the ranking report shows it and we ease the spend off that term and move it to the next town or service still waiting.

There is also a data benefit to running both simultaneously. Paid ad campaigns generate rapid insights about which search terms convert and which messages resonate. These insights directly improve the SEO strategy because you know which keywords to prioritise and which content angles to develop.

There is no combined package to buy, because the SEO is already inside the website plan, from £189 a month, and the ads are quoted from a clear fixed quote on top. Same team, same research, 1 report showing paid and organic enquiries side by side, which is how the 2 actually inform each other rather than running in parallel with no connection.

Question 9

How do you report on campaign performance?

Accepted Answer

Every client receives a monthly performance report within the first week of the following month, whatever the size of the budget. It is written in plain English, with no jargon, no padding and no vanity metrics that look impressive and tell you nothing about whether the campaigns are producing work.

Reports cover the following for every campaign. Ad spend for the month broken down by campaign and platform. Impressions, clicks and click through rates showing whether the ads are getting attention. Conversions and conversion rate showing how many enquiries or actions the ads generated and how efficiently the traffic converted. Cost per conversion showing what each enquiry cost in terms of ad spend. Campaign changes made during the month and why. Performance against the KPIs agreed at the start. The plan for the following month including what we are testing, changing and prioritising.

Where it helps, we also set up a live dashboard that shows campaign performance without you needing to log into the ad platforms, and it updates automatically. If you are on a website plan the ads report sits beside the monthly ranking report, so the paid enquiries and the organic ones are read together.

Alongside the written report there is a monthly call to go through the numbers, agree what we are changing and decide what the next month's budget should do. In the first weeks of a new campaign, or when something has moved sharply, we speak more often than that, because waiting for the month end to mention a problem is not management.

We never cherry pick the metrics that make us look good. If a campaign is underperforming against agreed KPIs, we say so clearly in the report and explain what we are doing about it. The only way a client relationship built on paid advertising survives long term is if the results justify the investment month after month. Honest reporting is how we hold ourselves accountable to that.

Question 10

How do I get started with paid ads through FutureProofs?

Accepted Answer

Fill in the Start a Project form on the website, select Paid Ads from the service options and tell us a bit about your business, your goals and any campaigns you are running now. We come back within 1 working day with our first thoughts on the right platforms, what a click is likely to cost in your towns, and what we would suggest spending to begin with.

From there the process runs as follows. A free discovery call of 30 to 45 minutes covers your business, your audience, your towns and where your marketing stands now. We then put together a written strategy covering the platform mix, the campaign structure, the recommended budget and the numbers we will judge it by, together with a clear fixed quote. Once that is agreed we move into setup: account creation or audit, conversion tracking proven with test enquiries, campaign build and ad copy, with the go live date given to you in writing.

The term and the notice are written into the quote in plain words before you sign. Paid ads need a fair trial to prove themselves, so the first months are about getting the cost per enquiry understood and stable, and a campaign that does not earn its budget after that trial gets paused rather than defended. The clients who stay do so because the report keeps showing enquiries that cost less than the work they bring in.

If you are already running Google Ads or Meta Ads yourself or through another agency and are not seeing it in the enquiries, we offer a free campaign audit. We review the account structure, the search terms, the tracking and the pages the ads land on, and give you a plain assessment of what is holding it back. No obligation to move, though most people who go through the audit do.

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Built on the same keyword research as your town pages

Google first for a local service business, Meta second

Ad copy written by us, creative from a clear fixed quote

Conversion tracking wired in before a penny is spent

Campaigns that do not earn their budget get paused

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Ads work when there is a page worth landing on. The plans build those pages.

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What owners ask before they start.

How do Google Ads and Meta Ads differ, and which should I start with?

How long does it take for paid ads to start working?

How much should I spend on ads?

Do you manage Google Ads, Meta Ads, TikTok and LinkedIn?

What results can I expect from paid ads?

Do you write the ad copy or do I need to provide it?

Do you work with businesses that have never run paid ads before?

Can I run paid ads and SEO at the same time?

How do you report on campaign performance?

How do I get started with paid ads through FutureProofs?

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