Advertise.co.uk explains how UK advertising actually works

What Advertise.co.uk is

Advertise.co.uk is a resource for people who need to make decisions about advertising in the UK and want to understand the mechanics before they spend anything. The site explains how channels such as paid social, programmatic display, and out-of-home advertising (OOH) actually work, what they tend to cost, and what the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) expects from anyone running a campaign. It does not plan or buy media on a reader's behalf and does not act as an agency; the guides, tools, and directory here are built to help a business owner or marketing manager brief one, or run a smaller campaign directly, with a clearer sense of what they're buying.

Why the explanations start from scratch

Most people looking into advertising already know roughly what they want to achieve and roughly what they can spend, but the terminology gets in the way. A cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) figure quoted by one platform means nothing next to a cost-per-click (CPC) figure quoted by another unless someone explains what each is actually measuring. So every term on this site is defined the first time it appears, with a UK-relevant example attached rather than a global average that may not hold here.

Who reads this

The people who use this site tend to be running a business or a marketing function without an agency behind them, sizing up a channel they haven't used before, or checking what a rule actually requires. Some arrive with a firm budget and want to know where it goes furthest; others are still working out whether they need a specialist at all. For anyone spending at a scale where the choices get complicated, the guides here point toward getting specialist advice.

How the site is built

• Guides that walk through a single question, such as setting a first budget or reading the CAP Code, in enough depth to act on without needing to look elsewhere.
• Tools that return a personal answer, such as a budget split or an A/B test result.
• A directory of UK advertising channels and agencies, with paid and editorially selected listings marked as such.
• A glossary that explains each term once, consistently, so the same word means the same thing wherever it turns up on the site.

Figures and benchmarks are attributed to their source, whether that's IAB UK, Ofcom, or a platform's own published numbers, and are noted against the date they were last reported. Where a tool returns a calculation, such as the ad budget calculator, it's working from the numbers given to it and can produce the wrong answer if those numbers are off. It's a starting point for a conversation, not a substitute for one.

Anyone with a question the site doesn't answer, or a correction to something it gets wrong, can get in touch at advertise@contactforsales.com.