Sound familiar?
- Job board costs keep rising and the same candidates apply everywhere
- Blue-collar and care roles get few applicants from LinkedIn
- Your Meta job ads were rejected or delivered to a narrow audience
- Candidate drop-off is high on your application form
- Clients only hear from you when a consultant cold-calls
- You cannot tell which channel produced the candidates who were placed
Key facts
- Paid social and Google Ads management from £150 a month + VAT each, plus ad spend paid to the platform
- Conduct Regulations 2003, regulation 27: agency ads must give the agency's full name and say whether the role is permanent or temporary
- Where an agency ad states pay, it must also state the nature of the work, location and minimum experience or qualifications, according to the REC
- The Equality Act 2010 treats job adverts as part of recruitment arrangements; wording like 'young' or 'recent graduate' can found an age discrimination claim
- Meta's Special Ad Category for employment restricts age, gender and some location targeting where it applies
- LinkedIn targets by job title, skills, seniority, industry and company size
- Monthly, cancel with notice
What a recruitment ad must say
Agencies and employment businesses in Great Britain are covered by the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003. Regulation 27 governs advertising. According to REC guidance on the rule, every advertisement must include the agency's full name and state whether each position is temporary or permanent. If the ad mentions pay, it must also state the nature of the work, the location and the minimum experience, training or qualifications needed to earn that rate. You must also hold real information about the vacancy and authority from the hirer before advertising it. Government reviewed the regulation and decided to keep it in place.
Paid social ads are short, so we put the essentials in the ad and the full detail on the landing page. Pay rates should be real ranges, not the top of a range nobody earns.
Avoiding discriminatory wording and targeting
Under the Equality Act 2010, adverts are part of an employer's arrangements for deciding who to offer work to. EHRC good-practice guidance, as summarised by employment lawyers, advises avoiding words that imply a restriction on who may apply, such as 'young', and Citizens Advice lists 'recent graduate' requirements as a possible sign of age discrimination. Agencies can be liable for following a client's discriminatory instruction. We write ads around the job, skills and pay, and include an equal opportunities line.
Targeting raises the same issue. Meta's Special Ad Category for employment, where it applies, fixes age at 18 to 65+, includes all genders and limits detailed targeting, and Google restricts personalised targeting of employment ads in some markets. Even where a platform allows narrower targeting, excluding an age group or gender from seeing a job ad carries discrimination risk. We target by location, interests related to the work, and job titles on LinkedIn.
Candidate attraction by channel
- Facebook and Instagram: best for volume roles such as drivers, warehouse, care, hospitality, cleaning and trades. Short video and simple forms work; many candidates do not have an up-to-date CV.
- LinkedIn: professional, technical and management roles, where job title and skill targeting justify the higher click costs.
- Google Search: people actively searching '[role] jobs [town]'. Useful for hard-to-fill local roles, though you compete with job boards.
- TikTok: younger candidates for retail, hospitality and apprenticeships.
We track every application through to your ATS where it allows, so you can compare cost per application and cost per placement across channels, and stop paying for those that look busy but never place.
Winning clients, not just candidates
Agencies need a pipeline of hiring managers too. LinkedIn ads let you reach HR directors, operations managers and business owners in the sectors and regions you cover, with a salary guide, market report or vacancy trends as the offer. Under PECR, emails to limited companies and LLPs do not need prior consent if you identify yourself and offer an opt-out, so a monthly market update to client contacts is a straightforward win. Content such as salary guides is available from £45 per piece + VAT, and email marketing from £95 a month + VAT.
Reducing drop-off and measuring placements
Paid traffic is wasted if the application process loses people. Many candidates apply on a phone during a break, and a long ATS form that asks them to register, upload a CV and retype it will lose most of them. We test short forms (name, phone, role, postcode, right to work), Meta or LinkedIn instant forms, and a call-back option, then pass applicants into your ATS. We record applications as conversions, and where your ATS can export outcomes, we feed back which applicants were interviewed and placed. That lets the platforms favour the candidates you actually place and shows your directors cost per placement by channel.
What you get
- Candidate campaigns on Meta, LinkedIn and Google Search by role and location
- Job ad copy checked against regulation 27 of the Conduct Regulations and the Equality Act
- Short mobile application forms or Lead Gen Forms with CV upload where needed
- Client acquisition campaigns on LinkedIn and Google aimed at hiring managers
- Candidate and client email: job alerts, market updates and salary guides
- Tracking from application to placement, by channel, where your ATS allows
How it works and what it costs
Google Ads management from £150 a month, social media management from £125 a month and email marketing from £95 a month, all + VAT. Ad spend is separate and paid to the platform. No long contracts.
Free review
We look at your current ads, social, email and analytics, or your plans if you are starting out, and tell you plainly what we would change.
Plan and price
You get a written plan with targets, budgets and a fixed monthly fee before anything starts.
Set up properly
Tracking and consent first, then campaigns, audiences, content calendars or email flows, all in accounts you own.
Run and improve
We manage it every week: search terms, bids, creative, posts and tests, cutting what does not pay and doing more of what does.
Report in plain English
A monthly report on leads, sales and cost per result, not vanity numbers, with what we will do next.
Frequently asked questions
What must an agency job ad include?
Under regulation 27 of the Conduct Regulations, REC guidance says the ad must give the agency's full name and say whether the role is permanent or temporary. If pay is stated, it must also give the nature of the work, location and minimum experience or qualifications needed.
Why are our Facebook job ads limited in targeting?
Meta classes job ads as employment, one of its Special Ad Categories. Where that applies, age is fixed at 18 to 65+, all genders are included and some detailed targeting is unavailable. We work within it using location, creative and the wording of the role.
Can we target ads at younger candidates for apprenticeships?
Be careful. Excluding age groups from seeing job ads risks an age discrimination claim under the Equality Act 2010, and platform rules may block it anyway. We reach younger audiences through the platforms and creative they use, such as TikTok and Instagram, rather than age exclusions.
Is LinkedIn worth it for blue-collar roles?
Usually not. Drivers, warehouse, care and hospitality candidates respond better to Facebook, Instagram and Google Search, with short mobile forms. LinkedIn suits professional, technical and management roles, where higher click costs are justified by fees.
How much does recruitment advertising cost?
Our paid social and Google Ads management is from £150 a month + VAT each, plus ad spend paid directly to Meta, LinkedIn or Google. We help you set a budget per role or per month based on how many applicants you need.
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