PPC & PERFORMANCE MARKETING AGENCY FOR LONDON, UK

UK agencies charge anything from fixed fees of around £300 a month for simple accounts to 10 to 20% of ad spend, with some guides putting entry-level management at about £1,500 and mid-market at £2,500 to £6,000 a month. Your ad spend comes on top.

Those figures come from agency guides and forum discussions, so treat them as bands. One UK business owner on Reddit described a common structure as a few hundred pounds plus 20% of spend. Another asked whether 15% on £30,000 a month was reasonable. The spread is huge because the work ranges from basic campaign upkeep to full tracking, creative and testing programmes.

The question behind the price is what you’re paying for each month. Ask for the scope in writing: tracking and consent setup, account structure, creative, testing cadence, reporting. Ask whether the ad spend is billed to your card, so there’s no hidden markup. And ask what number the agency will be judged on.

For transparency, we scope every engagement after an audit, agree a fixed retainer in writing, and keep ad spend on your own card.

My rule: if the fee grows with spend, make sure results are what’s growing it.

It can be, at modest budgets. At larger budgets a percentage often becomes expensive for the same work, and it always gives the agency a reason to prefer higher spend.

The classic forum example: someone spending about £30,000 a month on Google Ads asks whether a 15% fee is reasonable. That’s £4,500 a month, and it rises automatically if spend rises, even though managing £40,000 rarely takes a third more work than managing £30,000. That’s the core problem with percentages at scale.

Percentages do have a logic. Spend is a rough proxy for complexity, and at small budgets a percentage keeps the fee affordable. Some agencies use a hybrid, such as a fixed base plus a smaller percentage, or tiers that drop as spend grows.

What to watch for: fees hidden in the media invoice, contracts with minimum spends that suit the agency, and reports that celebrate spend growth instead of profit. Your ad account should bill your card directly, and the agency should invoice its fee separately.

My rule: below a few thousand pounds of monthly spend, a percentage can be fine. Above that, ask for a fixed or tiered fee tied to an agreed result.

Users who decline cookies stop sending full conversion data, and if Consent Mode isn’t running in advanced mode, Google sees fewer conversions and can’t model the missing ones. The sales may still be happening. The platform just can’t see them.

This is one of the most common UK threads I see: someone implements Consent Mode v2, adds a cookie banner, and watches reported conversions fall. It matters because automated bidding learns from those conversions. Fewer signals means weaker optimisation, which can turn a reporting problem into a real performance problem.

Here’s what I check. Is Consent Mode running in advanced mode, so Google receives cookieless pings and can model conversions for users who decline? Is the banner set up correctly, with consent states passed before tags fire? Are enhanced conversions on, sending hashed first-party data where you have consent? Is server-side tagging worth it at your volume? And does your CRM or shop still show the sales, so you know how big the gap really is?

The UK’s new data law relaxes consent for some analytics cookies, but advertising cookies still need consent, so this doesn’t go away.

My rule: compare platform conversions with your own sales every week, and fix the setup before you touch the bidding.

Generally, yes. UK businesses are usually invoiced with VAT on Google Ads, or account for it through the reverse charge if billed from outside the UK, depending on how the account is set up. VAT-registered businesses can normally reclaim it.

I’m not your accountant, so treat this as the practical part. Check who your account is billed by and whether your VAT number is on it. If it isn’t, you may be paying VAT you could have recovered, or missing a reverse charge entry your accountant needs. Meta works in a similar way, so check those invoices too.

The bigger practical issue is budgeting. Decide whether your budget means spend before VAT or total cost, and make sure your agency plans the same way. And make sure the ad accounts bill your company card directly, so the VAT invoices come to you, not to an agency that re-invoices you with a markup.

An agency’s own fee carries its own VAT treatment. For an agency outside the UK billing a UK business, that’s usually reverse charge too. Your accountant will want both invoices.

My rule: put your VAT number on every ad account before you spend, and let your accountant confirm the treatment once.

It can be, if you pick your battles. Generic London searches are expensive and crowded, so small businesses win with tight targeting, high-intent terms and good tracking, not by outspending bigger rivals.

The worry is real. One London IT support business described generic terms like “IT support london” as overcrowded, and the same is true across many service categories. Bid on the broadest phrases with a small budget and you’ll pay a lot for clicks from people who were never going to buy from a business your size.

What works instead is specific services, specific areas and specific intent. Target the boroughs or postcodes you actually serve. Bid on phrases that signal readiness, like a particular service plus “near me” or “quote”. Use call and location assets. Send traffic to pages that match the search exactly. And track calls and forms properly, so you know what each enquiry costs.

Give it enough budget to learn, and judge it on cost per real enquiry over a couple of months.

With a very small budget, managing it yourself carefully may beat paying an agency fee, and I’ll say so if that’s where you are.

My rule: in London, win narrow before you try to win broad.

Ads have to be obviously identifiable as ads, claims have to be backed up, and the ASA expects a clear “Ad” label up front on social content you pay for. That includes creator and influencer posts.

The CAP Code requires marketing to be obviously identifiable, and the ASA’s guidance on social media says a prominent label like “Ad” at the start works best. Terms like “sponsored”, “spon”, “gifted” or a mention buried in a bio are likely not enough. If you pay a creator, give them products with expectations attached, or control the message, it’s an ad.

Beyond labelling, the standard rules apply. Claims need evidence. Prices must be clear. Comparisons must be fair. Some categories, like financial services, health, alcohol and gambling, carry extra restrictions, and finance advertisers also need Google’s verification, which in the UK relies on FCA authorisation.

The mistake I see is businesses treating creator content as organic and skipping the label, or letting creators make claims the brand couldn’t substantiate. The ASA publishes its rulings, so the reputational cost can outweigh the reach.

My rule: if you paid for it or controlled it, label it, and never let anyone say something on your behalf that you couldn’t prove.

Stop fighting for the broadest phrases and compete where intent is high and competition is thinner: specific services, specific areas, your own brand, and audiences you’ve already earned.

London is one of the most competitive ad markets anywhere, and the price of a generic click reflects that. Advertisers in crowded categories describe the same frustration: phrases like “IT support london” attract every competitor, including national players with big budgets.

Here’s how I approach it. Break the generic term into the specific problems buyers search for, and bid on those. Narrow the geography to the boroughs or postcodes you really serve. Use exact and phrase match on proven terms, and let broad match run only with strong conversion data behind it. Protect your brand terms. Build remarketing and customer lists, within consent rules, so you can reach warm audiences more cheaply. And improve the landing page, because a better conversion rate lowers your cost per lead without touching the bid.

Look beyond search too. LinkedIn for B2B decision-makers, or Meta for local consumer services, can bring cheaper qualified leads than the most contested Google terms.

My rule: in an expensive auction, the cheapest win is a better conversion rate.

A short initial term with a clear notice period is fair. Long lock-ins with no exit protect the agency, not you.

UK agencies sell on both sides of this. Some advertise “zero contracts”, which tells you how many businesses have felt trapped. Others ask for six or twelve months, arguing that paid media needs time to learn. Both have a point. A single month is rarely enough to judge a new account properly, but a year with no way out is too much.

What I’d look for is a first term long enough to fix tracking, restructure and run real tests, often around three months, then a rolling arrangement with a notice period of about a month. Get it in writing that the ad accounts, pixels, analytics, creative and data are yours, and that access stays with you if you leave. Check for minimum spend clauses and what happens to any prepaid fees.

Then agree how you’ll judge the work: one number, measured from your own data, reviewed monthly.

For what it’s worth, I’d rather keep a client because the results earn it than because a contract says so.

My rule: commit long enough to judge it, never so long you can’t leave.