Online advertising UK
Explore the digital advertising channels available to UK businesses and how to choose the right mix.
In this guide
What is online advertising?
Online advertising uses paid placements across search engines, social platforms, websites and apps to reach potential customers.
The right mix depends on your audience and goals. Search ads can capture existing demand, while display, video and social campaigns can introduce your brand and encourage people to consider it.
Below, we explain the main advertising options and related digital marketing services, including SEO and email marketing.
Types of online advertising
Each channel plays a different role. Search ads help you reach people looking for a solution. Display, video, and social campaigns can introduce your brand, build consideration, or bring people back. The right mix depends on your audience, goals, and budget.
Paid search advertising
Paid search advertising places ads in search results based on what someone is looking for. It can help you reach people who are already researching a product, service, or problem.
Google Ads offers search campaigns for businesses and Shopping ads for retailers. Cost per click (CPC) is a common buying model: you pay when someone clicks your ad.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Search engine optimisation (SEO) helps people discover your website in organic search results. It involves technical improvements, useful content, and building your site’s authority.
Where it helps:
- Reaching people searching for relevant products, services, and information.
- Building a source of qualified traffic over time.
What to plan for:
- Results take time, so SEO is rarely a quick solution for a short campaign.
- Content and technical improvements require ongoing work.
- Search results and ranking systems change, so progress needs regular review.
Display Advertising
Display advertising uses visual ads on websites and in apps. Formats include static images, animated banners, and video.
Networks such as the Google Display Network, accessed through Google Ads, let advertisers reach audiences across many publishers. Display campaigns can support awareness, product consideration, and remarketing.
Video Advertising
Video advertising uses paid video placements to introduce a brand, explain an offer, or encourage action.
Placements are available on platforms such as YouTube and Instagram, as well as other websites and apps. The format and length should fit the message, audience, and viewing experience.
Paid social advertising
Paid social advertising, also called social PPC, uses paid placements on social platforms to reach selected audiences. Campaigns can support awareness, engagement, lead generation, and sales.
Choose platforms based on your customers and goals. Options include Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, and TikTok.
Native and content recommendation ads
These placements typically pair a headline with an image on news, information, or entertainment sites. They can introduce content or products to people browsing related material.
Cost per click is a common buying model. Evaluate the quality of the traffic and subsequent conversions, rather than choosing placements based only on a low click price.
Email Marketing
Email marketing helps you stay in touch with subscribers and customers through useful information, product updates, and relevant offers.
It can support customer retention, repeat purchases, and longer sales cycles. Results depend on list quality, consent, relevance, and consistent testing.
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing rewards partners for a referred sale, lead, or other agreed action. Compensation can be a fixed amount or a percentage of the transaction.
You can build your own affiliate programme or work through a network. Either approach requires reliable tracking, clear payment terms, and checks for traffic quality and fraud. Setting the commission is only one part of making the programme profitable.
Other digital marketing channels
Depending on your audience and goals, your marketing mix may also include:
- Mobile marketing and app store optimisation (ASO).
- Google Maps and other local listings.
- Industry directories.
- Marketplaces, comparison shopping sites, and classified listings.
- In-game and livestream advertising.
- Digital audio advertising.
Digital PR
Digital PR helps build relationships and trust through online channels. Activities can include:
- Working with online publications and industry media.
- Partnering with relevant influencers.
- Participating in online communities.
- Monitoring brand mentions.
- Managing search visibility, reviews, and reputation.
- Publishing useful content through social media, blogs, and newsletters.
Choose your campaign goals
Your goals shape the channels, creative, budget, and measurement plan. Three common approaches are performance marketing, brand advertising, and a combination of both.
Performance Marketing
Performance marketing focuses on measurable actions: leads, calls, orders, purchases, app installs, or other outcomes that matter to your business.
Brand Advertising
Brand advertising helps people recognise your brand, understand its value, and consider it when they are ready to buy.
Brandformance Marketing
Brandformance combines brand building with performance goals. The work includes allocating budget between the two and evaluating how they contribute to overall business results.
Benefits of online advertising
- Choose channels and formats for different business goals.
- Set budgets around the size of your test or campaign.
- Track performance and adjust campaigns as data comes in.
- Connect ads directly to landing pages, lead forms, or purchases.
What makes a campaign work?
Assign someone on your team to own the marketing goals and coordinate decisions. Give your agency access to the business context it needs, including sales priorities and performance data.
Choose partners who keep learning, test their assumptions, and explain results clearly. Digital platforms change, and your campaigns need to adapt with them.
Online advertising - Price
Online advertising costs depend on your market, audience, competition and campaign objectives. There is no single cost per click or impression that applies to every UK business.
We estimate a working media budget using current platform forecasts and your commercial targets, then refine it as campaign data becomes available. Media spend, creative production and agency fees are considered separately.
Start with your goals, target market, and preferred channels. We can then estimate the media budget and the work needed to plan, launch, and manage the campaign.
Contact us to discuss a budget for your business.
Google advertising costs depend on the auction, audience, competition, and campaign type.
For search advertising, we review relevant keywords and estimated click costs. For display advertising and YouTube campaigns, we consider the audience, formats, and delivery goals.
Contact UAMASTER, a Google Partner, for an estimate based on your market and objectives.
The cost per click is the price of one visit; the media budget is the total you plan to spend. A starting estimate is the expected number of clicks multiplied by the estimated cost per click.
We also consider conversion rates, customer value and target acquisition costs to assess whether the budget supports your goals. Contact us for an estimate based on your campaign.
Display ad costs depend on the publisher or network, audience, format, and buying model. We help you choose placements and estimate the budget based on the reach or conversions you want to achieve.
Paid social costs vary by platform, target market, audience, objective, and creative. A budget that works for one business may not produce the same results for another.
Contact UAMASTER to discuss your goals and a budget for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, or X. We use available account data and campaign tests to refine the estimate.
Instagram budgets depend on the size of your audience, campaign objective, and the results you need. We estimate the media spend and creative work separately, then review actual click, impression, and conversion costs as the campaign runs.
Why choose us
Since 2004, we have worked with businesses in automotive, ecommerce, hospitality, consumer goods, retail, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, construction, real estate, B2B and B2C services, esports, energy, and financial services, as well as nonprofits.
Our financial sector experience includes banking, insurance, asset management, lending, blockchain, and payments. Ask us for case studies relevant to your industry.
We plan around your business goals. Before launch, we define the account structure, prepare creative, and check landing pages and analytics.
Preparation can take a few days to several weeks for a large ecommerce project. After launch, we test and optimise as the platforms gather data. In our experience, initial optimisation often takes one to two months for routine projects and three to six months for complex ones. We scale when the results support it.
Contact us for a campaign roadmap tailored to your business.
We calculate agency fees based on the time our specialists spend on your project. Your media budget is planned separately around your goals.
Depending on the scope and pricing model being compared, this approach can reduce agency fees by 30–50%. We explain the estimate before work begins.
You can add analytics, design, email marketing, UX, or SEO support as needed. Contact us for a proposed scope and budget.
How we work
Getting to know your business and goals
We assess your current marketing and competitors.
We develop your campaign plan.
Web analytics check. Campaign setup.
Campaign optimisation and reporting
Use our experience
22
years
65
countries
965
clients
9500
projects
