130 mortgage enquiries in three months
How Step Social generated 130 mortgage and protection enquiries at £7.16 each, from £930 of ad spend.
Whole of market advice, nationwide
Fort Advice Bureau, based in Chelmsford, is a whole of market mortgage and protection brokerage. Its experienced, FCA-regulated advisers search across lenders to find the right mortgage and the right protection cover for each client.
From first-time buyers and home movers to remortgages, buy to let and later-life lending, the team wanted a steady, reliable flow of quality enquiries from homeowners and buyers right across the UK.
Trust, compliance and reach
Choosing who to trust with a mortgage is a high-consideration decision. People need to feel their adviser is credible and genuinely on their side, and they need an easy way to take the first step.
Every ad also had to stay fully FCA-compliant, risk warning included, without losing its punch, and reach homeowners and buyers across England, Wales and Scotland on a modest daily budget.
Start broad, find the winner, then sharpen
We tested three angles in month one, then used what the data told us to build out the campaign.
On-brand, compliant creative
We matched the distinctive animated illustration style Fort Advice Bureau uses across its organic content, with the FCA risk warning on every graphic.
Split the winning audiences
From month two, first-time buyers and remortgages each got their own audience and their own ads, so the budget could follow the strongest results.
Sharpen lead quality
We added extra qualifying questions to the lead form, so people had to confirm they were serious before they pressed the button.
The ad creatives
One offer and three angles in month one. Same copy, different headlines and images. Tap any ad to see it full size.
Mortgage advice you can trust
Homeowners and buyers across England, Wales and Scotland
Two audiences, built on month one
The strongest angles from month one, each given its own audience
Why we did it this way
Every decision was about reaching the right people and building trust fast.
One message, three angles
Testing three angles against the same national audience tells us which message lands hardest, so we know exactly what to scale.
On-brand from the first ad
Matching the illustration style people already knew from Fort Advice Bureau's organic content made the ads instantly recognisable.
Compliance built in
The FCA risk warning sat on every graphic and in the copy, so each ad went live fully compliant without watering down the message.
Month one shaped what came next
Once first-time buyers proved strongest, we gave them and remortgages their own audiences, so budget followed results.
Qualifying questions
Extra questions on the lead form focused people's minds, so the enquiries that came through were from people ready to talk.
Friction-free enquiries
A Meta Instant Form let people book a consultation in seconds without leaving Facebook, keeping cost per enquiry low.
The ad copy
The same primary text ran across all three month one ads, with the FCA risk warning included.
Looking for mortgage advice you can trust?
Fort Advice Bureau's experienced advisers do the hard work for you, searching across lenders to find the right mortgage and protection cover for your situation.
- Mortgage advice made simple
- First-time buyers to remortgages
- Protection cover sorted too
- Experienced, friendly advisers
Trusted mortgage and protection advice, wherever you are in the UK.
👇 Tap "Book Now" to book a consultation with an adviser.
Trust in the first line
"Mortgage advice you can trust" answers the biggest worry people have about choosing an adviser before they read any further.
Covers every situation
From first-time buyers to remortgages and protection, the ticks let every reader see that this is for them.
Compliant, not watered down
The risk warning is included in full, and the copy still lands a clear, confident call to action.
The results
The first three months of the campaign, straight from Fort Advice Bureau's Meta ad account.
33,136 people reached, 73,537 impressions and 1,039 clicks. Ad spend is paid directly to Meta and is separate from the Step Social monthly fee.
"Many thanks for what you are doing, it's certainly working! Our advisers are working on quite a few of the leads, and they're good quality too!"
"I would be interested in a quote for some organic posting too if that's ok?"
They added our organic content service a few days later.
"The questions have certainly focussed clients' minds to decide whether they wish to proceed and press the button or not!"
In summary
- Around £930 of ad spend brought in 130 mortgage and protection enquiries in three months.
- A steady 41 to 45 enquiries every month, at a consistent cost of around £7 each.
- First-time buyers were the standout audience, with 98 enquiries at £6.67 each.
- Within three weeks of launch, Fort Advice Bureau added our organic content service too, and they remain a Step Social client today.
Results vary by industry, offer, location and budget. The figures above are from this specific campaign and are not typical or guaranteed.
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Frequently asked questions
The questions people usually ask after reading a case study.
Yes. Fort Advice Bureau is a real Step Social client, and every figure on this page comes straight from their own Meta ad account, covering their first three months of ads. The ads and copy shown are the exact ones that ran.
It depends on your industry, offer, location, budget and how quickly you follow up, so rather than promising a fixed number of leads, we focus on generating consistent, cost-effective enquiries and improving performance over time. Meta ads amplify what is already working: they can speed up growth, but they cannot fix an unproven offer or slow follow-up.
Yes. You approve every ad before it goes live, so you or your compliance team can sign it off first, and we include any risk warnings or disclosures you need in the ad copy, exactly as Fort Advice Bureau did.
An offer is one thing you want to promote, delivered as three ads that test different angles on the same message, for example the problem it solves, the result it gets and a common concern. We put your budget behind the one that works best. A genuinely different service or promotion is a separate offer. That is why the plans scale by offer.
All plans include full setup, management and optimisation. The difference is how many offers we run each month: Starter runs one offer, Growth two, and Scale three, each with its own set of three ads. Fort Advice Bureau started on Starter, running one offer with three ads.
We suggest a set daily amount per offer, paid directly to Meta rather than to us, so the more offers on your plan, the higher the suggested budget. The suggested figure for each plan is on our Meta Lead Ads page, along with a calculator that shows how many customers the ads need to bring in to cover their cost. You stay in full control of your budget and can change it at any time.
Yes. Ads are approved before launch, because they spend your ad budget. You receive your ads in a Google Sheet, where you can review each one, approve them or request changes. The sooner they are approved, the sooner your campaign goes live.
Every new lead appears instantly in your Meta Leads Center. We also set up email notifications and a live Google Sheet for easy tracking and follow-up. Prefer instant text alerts? Add our Text Notifications add-on.
You do. We generate the enquiries, and responding quickly, ideally within a few minutes, has a big impact on how many turn into customers.
We use proven targeting and ad strategies to bring in good-quality enquiries, and qualifying questions on the lead form help you prioritise. Quality can still vary with your offer, your pricing and your follow-up, so we keep improving it through testing, and your feedback on each month's leads feeds straight into the next batch.
Your ads run for 30 days at a time. At the end of every 30 days of your ads being live, we review the results, create a fresh batch of ads and make any changes. Anything still performing well keeps running alongside the new ones, and anything showing signs of fatigue is paused.
No contract. Meta Lead Ads runs month to month, and you can upgrade, downgrade or cancel through your client portal with 14 days notice before renewal, because we plan campaigns in advance. It is billed monthly only.
No. The 14-day money-back guarantee does not apply to Meta Lead Ads, its add-ons or ad spend. There is no long contract though, so nothing locks you in: you can cancel with 14 days notice before renewal.
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