Frequently asked questions.

It is, if you already have an offer that sells and margin to pay for customer acquisition. Ads don't create demand from nothing, they accelerate what already works. If nobody buys your product organically, fix the offer first; then we add fuel with ads. Spending before that is a fast way to burn money.

It depends on your market, but the rule of thumb is simple: you need enough budget to generate at least 15-30 conversions per month, otherwise the algorithm never learns. For most UK/IE businesses that means starting between £750 and £1,500 per month per platform. Below that, results stay unstable and it's hard to draw conclusions.

If people already search for what you sell (a named service or product), start with Google, you capture people who already want to buy. If you sell something discovered by impulse or by image (fashion, hospitality, launches), start with Meta (Facebook and Instagram). When in doubt, I tell you which fits your case in the free audit.

It's almost always one of four things: the offer isn't clear enough, the audience is poorly defined, tracking is broken (so you're optimising blind), or there wasn't enough time and budget for the algorithm to learn. The good news: an audit tells you which of the four it is, with numbers, in 24 hours.

You need a page that loads fast, works well on mobile and makes clear what you do and the next step. It doesn't need to be pretty, it needs to convert. Often the problem isn't the ads, it's the page people land on after they click.

To test with a small budget and build intuition, you can and should start there. Once spend passes a thousand-plus per month, every mistake costs real money and the account gets complex: tracking, audiences, creative, optimisation. That's when it pays to have someone who does this every day.

Look at cost per acquired customer, not clicks or likes. If you know what a customer is worth to you and what you pay to get one, you know if it's paying off. If you can't answer that off the top of your head, it's the first sign tracking is missing, and it's the first thing I check in an account.

Bruno Matos is a Senior Campaign Manager at SpartAds (Portugal) since 2025. Senior paid media operator with 5+ years hands-on across Google Ads, Meta Ads and LinkedIn Ads. Master's in Marketing from IPVC. €500,000+ in ad spend managed across 22+ brands. Based in Barcelos, Portugal.

Yes. I work directly with businesses in Portugal (Google, Meta and LinkedIn Ads management, audits, monthly retainers) and with international clients (UK/IE focus) on freelance, advisory and fractional paid media leadership engagements. Start with a free audit at obruno.pt/auditoria-gratis or email info@obruno.pt.

B2C with validated product: 2-4 weeks to healthy ROAS. B2B or long sales cycles: 6-10 weeks. Google and Meta algorithms need clean conversion data to optimise, which requires minimum volume and time. Switching strategy weekly is what kills most accounts.

European Portuguese (native), English B2 (working proficiency), Spanish B2 (working proficiency). Remote-first since 2021. Managed accounts in PT, ES, Iceland and multi-market.

Search, Performance Max, Shopping (e-commerce), YouTube, Demand Gen, Display, App. For most accounts in 2026, the working mix is: Search brand + Search non-brand + Performance Max + Standard Shopping where applicable.

Performance Max is a Google Ads campaign type where the algorithm allocates spend across Search, Display, YouTube, Discover and Gmail simultaneously. Works well with a clean feed, strong Audience Signals, segmented asset groups and proper exclusions. Misconfigured, it burns budget on irrelevant audiences.

≥£1,000/month for Search and PMax to gather enough optimisation signal. In competitive verticals (health, legal, finance) ≥£2,500-5,000/month. Below £1,000/month the algorithm produces erratic results.

Monthly retainer £1,000-£3,500 depending on spend volume and account complexity; percentage of spend 10-15%; or hybrid models (base fee + performance bonus). For one-off audits the model differs, typically fixed-price or free as a lead magnet.

Enhanced Conversions is a Google Ads feature that sends hashed first-party data (email, phone) of converters to Google. Recovers signal lost to ITP, ad blockers and cookieless tracking, improving attribution and algorithm ML. In 2026 it's essential for any serious account.

Meta Conversions API is a way to send conversion events directly from your server to Meta, in parallel with the client-side Pixel. It recovers signal lost to iOS 14+, ITP and ad blockers. Properly configured with Event Match Quality (EMQ) ≥8, it's the 2026 standard for any serious Meta account.

EMQ (Event Match Quality) is a 1-10 score Meta assigns to each CAPI event, based on user_data quality. To raise EMQ above 8: send hashed email, hashed phone, fbp cookie, fbc parameter, IP, user-agent and demographic data when available. SHA256 hashing is mandatory.

Yes, for e-commerce with clean product feed, sufficient creative volume and internal audience exclusions (current customers). Misconfigured, it burns budget on overlapping audiences. It's the biggest efficiency lever for e-commerce Meta in 2026, but requires careful technical setup.

Monitor frequency per audience (target <3 for cold, 5-7 for retargeting), CTR drop in 3/7/14-day windows, systematic creative refresh (2-4 weeks), kill rules for creatives below 1% CTR in 3 days. Without continuous refresh, any Meta account decays.

≥£1,500/month for Advantage+ to learn. £1,000/month minimum for regular campaigns with decent optimisation. For premium B2B or tight retargeting, can be less. For effective Advantage+ Shopping, ideally £3,000+/month.

When you sell high-value B2B (ACV £5k+), have a well-defined buyer persona (job titles, companies, seniority), and the sales cycle justifies high CPC (£8-30+). LinkedIn is expensive but brutal for premium B2B when done right.

Lead Gen Forms are native LinkedIn forms pre-filled with user profile data, never leaving the platform. Reduce friction dramatically (CVR 3-5x higher than external landing pages). Always use for B2B lead gen where capturing email/company/role is the goal.

Thought Leader Ads (TLA) is a LinkedIn feature launched in 2024 where a brand can promote organic posts from employees or influencers (with permission). CTR and engagement typically 2-3x higher than corporate posts. Excellent for top-funnel B2B awareness.

≥£1,500/month as a starting point for B2B. Below that, impression volume is insufficient for the algorithm to optimise. For ABM with a very small target list, it can be less, but generally makes sense from £3,000/month.

When your audience is on TikTok (not just teens: the 25-44 bracket is now strong in UK/IE) and you can produce native creative, vertical video that doesn't look like an ad. TikTok is a discovery platform: it works well for products with visual appeal, impulse or demonstration (fashion, beauty, home, e-commerce, apps). For niche B2B or very high tickets, it's rarely the first channel.

Spark Ads are TikTok ads that promote real organic posts (yours or creators', with permission) instead of videos uploaded purely for advertising. They keep the original post's likes, comments and shares, so they feel native and tend to have higher CTR and trust than traditional ads. They're the baseline format for any serious TikTok account today.

Smart+ is TikTok's automated campaign type, the equivalent of Meta's Advantage+ or Google's Performance Max. You provide creative, budget and objective, and the algorithm handles targeting, bidding and delivery. It works well with creative volume and clean tracking via the Events API; misconfigured, it spends fast without learning. I use it alongside manual campaigns to control what scales.

With the TikTok Pixel on the site plus the Events API (the server-side path, equivalent to Meta's CAPI) sending events in parallel. The Events API recovers conversions the browser loses to ad blockers and ITP, and improves algorithm optimisation. Without server-side, you're optimising blind and paying more per result. It's the first thing I validate before scaling.

TikTok asks for roughly £20/day per ad group and £50/day for a campaign-budget (CBO) campaign. In practice, for a minimum structure with enough signal, budget £1,000-£1,500/month. Below that the algorithm never leaves the learning phase and results stay unstable.

Yes. Reusing your Meta ad as-is usually fails. On TikTok what works is vertical video (9:16), sound on, fast pace, a hook in the first 2 seconds and a native tone, closer to content than to advertising. It's the platform where creative weighs most on the result, so it's always worth testing several angles in volume.

GA4 replaced Universal Analytics in 2023. Key differences: GA4 is event-based (not session-based), cross-device native, BigQuery integration built-in, data-driven attribution as standard, limited data retention (14 months default, 50 months max). No automatic migration, needs to be implemented from scratch.

Client-side GTM runs tags in the user's browser (faster to implement, more vulnerable to ad blockers and ITP). Server-side GTM runs tags on a server (Cloud Run, Stape), more robust, recovers lost signal, higher EMQ in Meta CAPI. In 2026, server-side is the standard for accounts with significant ad spend.

Consent Mode v2 is Google's framework for managing tags according to user GDPR consent. Since March 2024, without Consent Mode v2 Google stops accepting data from EU users in audiences and conversions. Mandatory for any site serving EU users.

Yes, for any account with ad spend ≥€2,000/month or that relies on Meta CAPI. Benefits: EMQ +2-3 points in Meta, more accurate attribution in Google, ad-blocker resistance, data residency control (GDPR). Cost: €49/month via Stape, or €20-80/month self-hosted on Cloud Run.

Five modalities: 1) Free written audit (PDF in 24h); 2) Hourly advisory (£80-150/h); 3) Monthly management (£1,000-£3,000 fixed); 4) 3-6 month contracts (fractional paid media leadership for international clients); 5) Senior full-time roles UK/IE/remote-EU. Does NOT take Portugal-based retainers or performance-only/rev-share deals.

1) You write with business context; 2) I respond within 24 business hours with initial diagnosis or a 'no' if not a fit; 3) 20-min call to validate; 4) Written proposal with scope, timeline, price; 5) Monthly contract, no lock-in. No unnecessary meetings.

Lisbon (UTC+0 winter, UTC+1 summer). 100% timezone overlap with UK, IE, ES, FR, DE, IT. 5h overlap with US East Coast, 8h with US West. Remote-first since 2021, async tooling (Slack, Loom, Linear, Notion).

Yes. Default is mutual NDA for any audit or proposal that requires account access. Sign client-side NDAs without objection. Account data stays confidential; aggregate learnings shared publicly only with explicit approval.

Yes. I work with Portuguese businesses directly: audits, campaign builds and monthly management for Google and Meta Ads, with clear monthly reporting. I keep a small client roster so every account gets real attention.

24 business hours from the moment I have read-only access to the account. Send Friday 6pm, receive Monday afternoon. For accounts with 50+ active campaigns, may take 48h and I'll flag in advance.

Yes. No mandatory call afterwards, no upsell, no fine print. If you want to work with me later, we talk. If not, you keep the written audit and nothing else.

No. Read-only access is enough. I'll email exact instructions to create a user in Google Ads MCC or Meta Business Manager with Read-only permissions. Access can be revoked anytime.

Google Ads, Meta Ads (Facebook + Instagram), LinkedIn Ads. Accounts with monthly spend ≥€1,500. Below that, I recommend investing in SEO or organic content first, auditing small accounts doesn't justify the time on either side.