A Manchester e-commerce brand in Ancoats had been running the same Google Ads campaign for two years.

Their cost-per-click was rising 18% year on year and their conversion rate had halved. The account had 340 active keywords, most of which had never generated a single conversion. Budget was being spent on searchers who were nowhere near ready to buy.

Within 90 days of a full account restructure, a tighter keyword list, and a rewritten landing page, their cost per acquisition dropped 41% and their ROAS climbed from 1.8x to 3.2x. The same budget was generating more than twice the return.

CPA down 41%. ROAS from 1.8x to 3.2x in 90 days. Same budget.
10,000+
Digital businesses in Greater Manchester
Tech Nation 2024
£5bn
Value of Manchester's digital ecosystem
GMCA 2024
64%
Manchester tech leaders positive about growth in 2025
Manchester Tech Survey 2024
Plain English

What social media advertising actually is, explained simply

Word of mouth used to be the most powerful marketing in the world. One happy customer would tell three friends. Social media advertising is word of mouth at scale: except instead of telling three friends, one piece of well-placed content can reach three thousand people who look just like your best customers. The catch is that you have to earn the right to be there. Nobody forwards an advert. They share something that taught them something, made them laugh, or made them think. The skill is making content that does one of those things AND sells.

Permission marketing is the privilege of delivering anticipated, personal, and relevant messages to people who actually want to receive them.

Seth Godin
Permission Marketing (1999)
Godin's insight, written before social media existed, predicted exactly how it would work. Interrupting people with irrelevant ads builds resentment. Earning permission by being genuinely useful, entertaining, or interesting builds the kind of audience that actually buys. The brands winning on social media in 2024 have permission. The ones losing are still interrupting.
NEWS
10,000+ digital businesses in Greater Manchester. Manchester named UK's top digital tech city for the third year running. The city's digital businesses now compete in the most crowded search landscape outside London.
Source: Tech Nation Report 2024
The social media reach funnel
How audiences move from unaware to customer
Awareness reached by content
Consideration engaged with post or ad
Intent visited your website
Conversion contacted or purchased

Retargeting is the mechanism that moves people from Consideration to Conversion. It shows ads to people who already know you, at the moment they are closest to deciding.

Why Manchester businesses are investing in social media advertising now

10,000+
Digital businesses in Greater Manchester
Tech Nation 2024
£5bn
Value of Manchester's digital ecosystem
GMCA 2024
64%
Manchester tech leaders positive about growth in 2025
Manchester Tech Survey 2024

Manchester has cemented its position as the UK's top digital tech city. For businesses outside the tech sector, this means one thing: your competitors are already investing in digital marketing. Visibility in Manchester requires more than a website. It requires consistent, data-driven investment in the channels where your customers actually spend their time.

Industries we serve in Manchester

E-commerce brands (AO World, N Brown, Boohoo) Financial and professional services MediaCity media, broadcast, and creative agencies Hospitality, food, and leisure

Social Media Advertising services
for Manchester businesses

Paid social campaigns that target the right audience with creative that stops the scroll. Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn advertising managed end-to-end.

Audience strategy and targeting

Audiences built from your actual customer data: demographics, interests, lookalikes from your best customers, and retargeting lists of people who have already visited your site. We target people likely to buy, not just people who loosely fit a category.

Creative development

Ad creative that earns attention. Images, carousels, and short-form video scripts. We brief, produce, and test multiple variations. Most accounts run one creative for months without testing. We test systematically to find what actually converts.

Meta advertising (Facebook and Instagram)

Full Meta campaign management across feed, Stories, Reels, and Messenger. Every placement and bidding decision is made against your actual conversion data, not default settings.

LinkedIn advertising

LinkedIn lets you target by job title, seniority, company size, and industry. Higher cost per click than Meta, but for B2B businesses with high-value clients, the lead quality is in a different category. We manage the full setup and optimisation.

Retargeting campaigns

Ads shown to people who have already visited your site or engaged with your content. Retargeting consistently delivers the highest ROAS of any paid social format because the audience already knows who you are.

Performance reporting

Cost per result, ROAS, reach, and frequency reported monthly with analysis of what is working and what we are changing. We do not dress up weak results with impressive-looking reach numbers.

Questions from Manchester businesses

Is Facebook advertising still effective in 2024?
Yes, for the right business types and with the right creative. The mistake most businesses make is treating Facebook ads like print ads: a static image with a logo and a phone number. The ads that work in 2024 look like content, not ads. We build creative that fits the feed, not creative that interrupts it.
Should we use Meta or LinkedIn for B2B advertising?
It depends on who you are trying to reach. LinkedIn gives you more precise job title and company targeting, which is valuable for reaching specific decision-makers. Meta has far larger reach and lower CPCs, which works for B2B businesses with a broad target audience. Most B2B businesses benefit from both, used for different objectives.
How much of our budget goes to Asquare AI versus to the platforms?
We charge a management fee for running your campaigns. Your ad spend goes directly to Meta or Google. We will explain the split clearly in our proposal. Our management fees are structured to scale with what you are spending, so they represent a smaller percentage as budgets grow.
Does a Manchester business need a local agency or does location not matter?
Location matters for local search and market knowledge, not for campaign execution. We understand Manchester's competitive landscape, its dominant industries, and how local customers search. We also work with national businesses from our Manchester base.
How competitive is Manchester for digital marketing?
Very. With 10,000+ digital businesses and a £5bn ecosystem, Manchester's advertising landscape is the most competitive in the UK outside London. The businesses winning are investing consistently, not making one-off attempts.

Ready to grow your Manchester business?

Get a free social media advertising audit for your Manchester business. We will identify your biggest opportunities and tell you exactly what we would do first.