B2B advertising agency UK · a buyer’s guide · paid LinkedIn
B2B advertising agency what to know before you brief one
This is the guide to read before you brief a B2B advertising agency: where UK advertising money actually goes, what the platforms really cost, what the rules let you claim, and how to write a brief an agency can price.
GTM Quest runs one part of it: paid LinkedIn to the accounts you want, as part of our ABM agency UK and demand generation work.
For TV, out-of-home, programmatic or large search budgets, we name the specialists.
Reviewed by Dan Keegan, GTM Quest · 28 September 2026 · 20 sources linked below
Paid LinkedIn we runwhat we undertake
- 01First accounts, team posts outDAY 1COMPANIES · ORGANIC
- 02ICP, creative and messageWEEKS 1 TO 2ONE IDEA · EVIDENCE
- 03Paid campaigns joinWEEKS 2 TO 3LIFETIME BUDGETS
- 04Engaged accounts to salesWEEKLYSIGNALS · OUTREACH
Media spendYour account
01/ our advertising work
Paid LinkedIn to your accounts what we run, and what we don’t
We are a go-to-market agency, not a media agency.
We run paid social where it serves pipeline: aimed at named accounts and the people who buy, and joined to what sales does next.
01
Account-list campaigns
Your target accounts and ICP uploaded or built in Campaign Manager, with roles and seniority layered on, so spend reaches the buying group, not everyone with a job title.
02
Thought-leader and document ads
Ads from the founder's and team's own posts, and useful documents, so the account recognises the name before anyone gets in touch.
03
Creative with an evidence file
Short, clear creative with one idea each, and the documentary evidence for every claim held before it runs.
04
Engagement into outreach
Accounts that engage go to outbound and sales, with context.
We report engaged accounts, meetings and pipeline, not just clicks.
not us
What we don't buy
TV, out-of-home, audio, programmatic display and large paid-search accounts.
For those, see specialists.
Media spend runs through your own ad account and card, so you see every penny and keep the history.
Our fee is scoped and quoted in writing after the discovery call.
02/ the category
What a B2B advertising agency actually does three trades, one label
Three trades get called "advertising agency", and they do different work.
Knowing which one you are hiring is most of the value of this page.
Creative agency
Makes the thing: the idea, the copy, the film, the campaign platform.
Judged on whether it is noticed and remembered.
Media agency
Buys the space: planning, negotiation, programmatic execution, verification.
Judged on cost per reach and whether the money landed where it said it would.
Full-service B2B agency
Does both, usually alongside demand generation and content.
What most UK B2B agencies actually are.
See the UK B2B agencies, where paid media is one service line among several.
The UK has few B2B media-buying pure plays.
If you want someone whose only job is buying paid media for a business audience, you are shopping in a thin market, and most firms that pitch will be full-service agencies with a paid team inside them.
03/ the money
Where UK advertising money goes by channel, 2025
UK advertising investment reached £46.7bn in 2025, up 6.4%, according to the Advertising Association and WARC's April 2026 report.
Search takes the biggest share by far.
Search and social together account for nearly two-thirds of UK advertising.
That concentration is why a B2B media plan tends to look narrow: it is where the audience and the auction are.
The April 2026 refresh broke out retail and social media as standalone channels for the first time, so compare with earlier years carefully.
The latest quarter is on the Advertising Association's spend page.
04/ the uncomfortable bit
Reach beats precision and B2B keeps refusing to believe it
The instinct in B2B is to narrow: name the accounts, name the titles, spend only on them.
It feels responsible.
For the brand-building half of the budget it is usually wrong, and the reason is arithmetic.
Most businesses that will buy from you are not buying today.
John Dawes of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute works it through: if companies change a supplier about once every five years, only 20% are in the market over a year, and something like 5% in a quarter.
He is explicit that "the 95% figure is not meant to be a precise rule".
An ad seen only by people in-market now reaches a small fraction of your future customers.
Practically: precision targeting is right for activation, where you harvest people already looking.
It is the wrong instrument for brand, where the job is to be remembered by the people who will be looking next year.
We run both: tight account lists for activation, broader ICP audiences for recognition.
05/ the one number that matters
Brand versus activation and why B2B is the other way round
Everyone in marketing knows the 60:40 rule: the IPA's work with Les Binet and Peter Field found an optimum of 60:40 brand to activation in 2013, refined to 62:38 in 2018.
Fewer know that the B2B number is different.
Binet and Field's B2B report for LinkedIn's B2B Institute, drawing on the IPA Effectiveness Databank, headlines a 50/50 principle.
The analysis underneath finds efficiency is maximised with around 46% of the budget on brand and around 54% on activation.
That is more activation than B2C, because rational messages come a bit more to the fore.
The authors call it a rough estimate from a small sample.
Treat it as a direction, not a target.
Most B2B teams we meet spend far more on activation than that, and wonder why demand costs more every year.
The IPA keeps its B2B effectiveness resources in one place.
06/ the platform
What LinkedIn advertising costs to run in LinkedIn’s own words
Most B2B advertising money that is not in search ends up on LinkedIn, and most pitches describe it badly.
These are LinkedIn's own rules, not a summary of agency blogs.
The entry price is low
"The minimum daily budget amount required to start on LinkedIn is $10, for any ad format.
The minimum lifetime budget amount for new, inactive campaigns is $100." LinkedIn suggests $25 a day for new advertisers.
- ✓ Minimums are in US dollars
- ✓ The agency fee is the bigger cost
Daily spend can run 50% over
On a daily budget, actual spend on a given day might be up to 50% higher than the amount entered.
But on a continuous schedule a week never exceeds seven times the daily budget.
- ✓ Budget your ceiling as a lifetime figure
Lifetime budgets are the real cap
With a lifetime budget, daily spend varies with inventory, but "total spend will never exceed the lifetime budget".
A lifetime budget also lets you set a custom schedule.
- ✓ Set start and end dates
- ✓ Review weekly
Three bidding strategies
Maximum delivery (automated), cost cap and manual bidding are all available (LinkedIn Help).
An agency that only ever runs maximum delivery is defaulting, not optimising.
- ✓ Test cost caps on proven audiences
Location is required; the rest is choice
Every audience needs a location; then company, job experience, demographics, interests and your own Matched Audiences (LinkedIn Help).
Company Connections targeting only works for companies with more than 500 employees.
- ✓ Upload your account list
- ✓ Layer seniority and function
LinkedIn publishes no CPC or CPM benchmarks; any you have been shown come from agency blogs, not the platform.
We don't print one either.
07/ the constraint nobody briefs
What you may not say the CAP Code applies to B2B
B2B advertisers often assume the advertising rules are a consumer concern.
The CAP Code closes that door in its own definitions: a consumer is "anyone who is likely to see a given marketing communication, whether in the course of business or not".
There is a second route most people have not heard of.
The Code's Appendix 1 says "business-to-business marketing communications that breach the CAP Code may be referred to Trading Standards" under the Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008, which also set the conditions for comparative advertising.
08/ claim checker
Which rule governs your claim? pick the claim you are about to make
Each answer is quoted or summarised from CAP Code section 3.
General information, not legal advice.
What does your ad say?
Superiority
An unqualified superlative is a comparison with everyone
The ASA treats unqualified superlatives as comparative claims against all competing products.
Superiority claims need evidence unless they are obvious puffery, and must make clear what aspect is superior.
- ✓ Say what you lead on, and by what measure
- ✓ Hold the evidence first (rule 3.7)
Rules 3.32 to 3.35
Allowed, within limits
The comparison must not mislead about either product, must compare products meeting the same needs, and must objectively compare features that are "material, relevant, verifiable and representative".
- ✓ Representative is where feature grids fail
- ✓ Rule 3.37 applies the same idea to unnamed rivals
Rules 3.7 and 3.11
Evidence, and no exaggeration
You must hold documentary evidence before publishing, and must not exaggerate the capability or performance of the product.
An "up to" figure is only as good as the evidence that customers get it.
- ✓ Test on representative conditions
- ✓ Show the typical result too
Rules 3.44 to 3.50
Reviews have their own rules now
No fake reviews; incentivised reviews must be made clear; negative reviews must not be hidden or buried.
Testimonials need evidence they are genuine and permission to use.
- ✓ Keep the source of every badge
- ✓ Disclose incentives
Rules 3.17 to 3.22
Price statements must not mislead
Prices must include non-optional fees.
VAT-exclusive prices may be given if everyone the ad is clearly addressed to pays no VAT or can recover it, with a prominent statement of the VAT payable.
- ✓ State the commitment needed for the price
- ✓ "From" and "up to" must not exaggerate what buyers get (rule 3.22)
Rules 3.1 and 11.1
The basis must be clear
The Shell Energy LinkedIn ruling turned on this: the ASA found the basis of the claims clear because the ad read as a case study of work for one client.
- ✓ Say what, for whom, measured how
Rules quoted from CAP Code section 3, which the ASA applies to B2B ads as well as consumer ones.
09/ the ruling that changes the brief
LinkedIn targeting is not a B2B exemption the Shell Energy case
In October 2025 the ASA ruled on a paid LinkedIn ad from Shell Energy UK.
The advertiser's defence was the one every B2B marketer would make: our targeting meant a sophisticated business audience saw it.
The ASA rejected that.
LinkedIn was accessible to consumers and business readers, and it found the tags and interest-based targeting meant "the targeting remained relatively wide and the ad was seen by a general consumer and business audience" rather than a business-only one.
Then it did not uphold the complaint anyway, based on the content.
The ad featured Shell Energy's name, and its content was about business services not available to consumers, so it read as a B2B communication and the basis of its environmental claims was clear.
Both halves matter: you get no audience exemption from Campaign Manager; you are judged on whether the ad itself reads as business communication.
10/ what changed
What changed for UK advertisers in 2025 and 2026 pricing, reviews and search
Total prices. Section 230 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 treats an invitation to purchase as omitting material information if it leaves out the total price, which includes "any fees, taxes, charges or other payments that the consumer will necessarily incur".
It applies to consumers, but many B2B products are bought by sole traders and small firms too.
Reviews. The CAP Code now carries rules against fake and undisclosed incentivised reviews (rules 3.44 to 3.46).
This bites on the review-site badges B2B marketing leans on.
Search. On 10 October 2025 the CMA designated Google with strategic market status in general search and search advertising, noting more than 90% of UK searches take place on its platform.
AI Overviews and AI Mode are in scope.
Designation is not a finding of wrongdoing and brings no immediate requirements by itself.
11/ who to hire
Advertising agency, media agency or us? match the agency to the job
→ A strong creative platform makes our LinkedIn work better. If you need the platform first, brief a creative agency.
→ For large search and programmatic budgets, a media specialist will do better. We will tell you where that line is.
→ Many teams run LinkedIn in-house once the audiences and creative are proven. We document everything so you can.
12/ what to hand them
The brief five questions to answer first
A brief is a focusing device, not a document.
Most B2B briefs fail because they ask for everything, which forces the agency to guess what matters and price the guess.
01
Who, exactly?
The accounts or ICP, the roles in the buying group, and the market you want to be known in next year.
02
Brand, activation or both?
Which job this budget has.
If both, the split, and how long you will wait for the brand half to work.
03
What may we claim?
The claims you want to make and the evidence you already hold.
Missing evidence is a finding, not a delay.
04
What is the budget?
Media and fees separately, as lifetime figures.
An agency cannot plan against "we'll see".
05
What happens after a click?
Who follows up engaged accounts, how fast, and how you will know whether it became pipeline.
Answer these five and every agency you approach is quoting for the same thing.
That is the only way to compare them.
Then take it to the UK B2B agencies, or to us.
13/ specialists
Advertising specialists worth knowing for the media and creative we don’t do
B2B agencies whose own sites list advertising, paid media or campaign creative as core work, checked on 28 September 2026.
Not a ranking; nobody paid to appear.
More UK B2B agencies are in the B2B marketing agency UK guide.
15 minutes · video or phone
Book 15 minutes on your paid media
Tell us who you sell to and what you spend today. We come back with how we would run LinkedIn to your account list, or which kind of media or creative agency to brief for the rest.
- 0115 minutes, video or phone
- 02We look at your account list and current campaigns
- 03A written next step after the call
- 04Media spend stays in your own ad account
Pick a day that suits · live availability
14/ questions
B2B advertising FAQ
What UK B2B teams ask before they brief an advertising agency, and what the rules say.
Three different trades share the label: a creative agency makes the idea and assets, a media agency plans and buys the space, and a full-service B2B agency does both alongside demand generation and content.
See three trades.
A go-to-market agency is a different trade again: it runs advertising as one channel in the whole route to market.
We run paid LinkedIn to account lists and ICP audiences, with the creative, inside ABM and demand generation.
We don't buy TV, out-of-home, programmatic or large search budgets.
See what we run.
The platform floor is low: LinkedIn's minimum is $10 a day for any ad format, and it suggests $25 a day for new advertisers.
The agency fee is usually the bigger cost; we scope ours in writing after a call.
No. Search took 38.3% of UK advertising investment in 2025 against social media's 24.7%, and for B2B search is where in-market demand already is.
Search harvests people looking now; LinkedIn builds memory among people who will look later.
Binet and Field's B2B analysis found efficiency peaked at around 46% brand and 54% activation, with a headline principle of 50/50, against 60:40 or 62:38 in B2C.
They call it a rough estimate from a small sample.
Yes.
The CAP Code defines a consumer as anyone likely to see an ad "whether in the course of business or not", and B2B ads that breach it may be referred to Trading Standards under the Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008.
Not for the ASA.
In the Shell Energy ruling it found tags and interest targeting left the audience "relatively wide", including consumers.
The complaint was not upheld on the content, but the targeting defence failed.
Yes, within limits.
CAP rules 3.32 to 3.35 require comparisons not to mislead, to compare like with like, and to compare features that are "material, relevant, verifiable and representative" (CAP Code).
Yes, if everyone the price is clearly addressed to pays no VAT or can recover it, with a prominent statement of the VAT rate or amount (rule 3.18).
The ones that are remembered as the brand's, reach buyers before they are in market, and hand engaged accounts to sales.
Judge examples on whether they built recognition among future buyers, not only on clicks.
Paying per click on search or social ads aimed at business buyers.
On LinkedIn you choose a bidding strategy: maximum delivery, cost cap or manual (LinkedIn Help).
On search, you bid on the terms buyers use when they are already looking.
Total-price rules under section 230 of the DMCCA, CAP rules against fake and undisclosed incentivised reviews, and the CMA's strategic market status designation of Google search.
See what changed.
Book 15 minutes · London · UK and Europe
Bring your account list. We’ll show you who should see your ads.
A 15-minute call, a written next step, and paid LinkedIn aimed at the accounts you want, joined to what sales does next.
16/ sources
Every source on this page
Each figure above links to one of these. All were opened and checked on 28 September 2026.
- Advertising Association / WARC, Expenditure Report (April 2026)adassoc.org.uk
- LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, Campaign budgets for your LinkedIn adsbusiness.linkedin.com
- Binet & Field: The 5 Principles of Growth in B2B Marketing, LinkedIn B2B Institute (2019)business.linkedin.com
- Advertising Association, UK advertising spendadassoc.org.uk
- John Dawes, The 95:5 rule (2021)johndawes.info
- IPA, The next chapter for The Long and The Short of It (Sept 2023)ipa.co.uk
- LinkedIn B2B Institute, The 5 principles of growth in B2Bbusiness.linkedin.com
- IPA, B2B effectivenessipa.co.uk
- LinkedIn Help, Campaign and ad set budgetslinkedin.com
- LinkedIn Help, Targeting options for LinkedIn Adslinkedin.com
- CAP Code, Scope of the Codeasa.org.uk
- CAP Code: Appendix 1, the DMCCA and the BPRsasa.org.uk
- CAP Code: Section 3, Misleading advertisingasa.org.uk
- ASA ruling: Shell Energy UK Ltd, A25-1288971 (Oct 2025)asa.org.uk
- legislation.gov.uk: Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, s.230legislation.gov.uk
- CMA, Google has strategic market status in search services (Oct 2025)gov.uk
- Transmissiontransmissionagency.com
- tmptmpb2b.com
- Napiernapierb2b.com
- The Think Tankthinktank.org.uk