How Advertising Works — A Plain-English Guide
How businesses pay for advertising, how platforms target audiences, and how results are measured — explained without jargon for UK business owners.
What's on the site
Guides, tools and reference pages for anyone planning to advertise in the UK, from a first Google Ads campaign to a national OOH run.
UK Advertising Rules — What the ASA Requires
What the ASA and CAP Code require before you run an ad in the UK — substantiation, health claims, comparisons, and endorsements explained plainly.
How Digital Ad Auctions Work
How Google, Meta, and programmatic platforms price ad inventory through real-time auctions — explained for UK advertisers who want to understand what they are bidding on.
Advertising on a Small Budget in the UK
How to advertise a UK business on £500–£2,000 a month — which channels work, what to expect, and where not to waste money.
How Your Data Is Used in Advertising
How platforms collect, match, and use personal data to target ads — explained plainly for UK business owners and the consumers seeing those ads.
Understanding A/B Test Significance Calculator
A practical guide to A/B Test Significance Calculator: what it means, how it works, and how to use the interactive a/b test significance calculator.
Understanding Ad Budget Calculator
A practical guide to Ad Budget Calculator: what it means, how it works, and how to use the interactive ad budget calculator.
Understanding CPM / CPC Benchmark Comparator
A practical guide to CPM / CPC Benchmark Comparator: what it means, how it works, and how to use the interactive cpm / cpc benchmark comparator.
Start wherever your question is
Advertising touches strategy, budget, and regulation all at once. These are the places most readers start.
Guides for every channel
Explanations of how each advertising channel works, written for people who haven't bought media before.
Explore the guides →The channels directory
A working list of UK advertising channels, from paid social to out-of-home (OOH), to compare against your budget.
Browse the directory →Ad budget calculator
Turns your budget and goals into a rough channel split, though it can be wrong, so treat it as a starting point.
Calculate a budget →UK regulation at a glance
A map of who regulates what in UK advertising, from the ASA's CAP Code to sector-specific rules.
See the regulation map →Plain-English glossary
Definitions of the terms you'll meet while buying advertising, from CPM to programmatic, without the jargon left unexplained.
Look up a term →UK ad spend benchmarks
Reference tables showing how spend is distributed across UK advertising channels, for checking your own budget against the market.
Check the reference tables →UK advertising news
What's changing in ASA rulings, platform pricing and media spend, explained plainly and without the padding.
Put a number on your next decision
Reading about advertising only gets you so far. These tools take your own figures and give you something to work from, though like any calculator they're only as good as what you put in.