Derick Turner
Founder of ADdictive Digital
Since starting in digital marketing in 2015, I have observed that many agencies fall short simply because they lack sufficient understanding of their clients' businesses.
At ADdictive we take a different approach. We invest the time needed to understand your business, your objectives and the unique challenges you face, so we can help you navigate them effectively and achieve lasting results.
- Role
- Paid media consultant
- Experience
- Since 2015
- Based
- Spinningfields, Manchester
- Core sectors
- Finance, utilities, telecoms
- Education
- Master of Business Administration (MBA), NWU Business School, North-West University, South Africa
What I do
Founder, and the person actually in your account
I founded ADdictive Digital because I kept meeting businesses who were being told their advertising was working while their sales team said the opposite. Both were reading real numbers. Only one set of numbers mattered.
We manage Google Ads and Meta Ads for businesses across the UK from an office in Spinningfields, Manchester. Most clients come to us either spending seriously on paid media without much confidence in the return, or spending well and wanting to spend more without the economics falling apart.
I started working in digital marketing in 2015 and consulting through ADdictive in January 2020. ADDICTIVE DIGITAL LTD was incorporated on 13 September 2024. These are different stages of my career and the business.
Before founding the agency I spent the first half of my career agency side, then moved in-house and managed a digital marketing team in finance for five years, including time at Bridgewater Finance Group. Financial services is a useful place to learn paid media. Lead quality is everything, the compliance bar is high, and the gap between a form fill and a customer is wide enough that you cannot pretend the first one is the second.
How I think about paid media
Three positions that most of my work and writing comes back to.
The platform is not the scoreboard
Google Ads will tell you a campaign produced 200 conversions at £50. That is a real number and it may still be worthless. If 30% of those leads answer the phone and 5% buy, the campaign that looks expensive is often the one making you money.
Automation needs better instructions
Automation needs useful conversion signals and enough visibility to judge the business result. I currently favour standard Google Search rather than Performance Max. Placement quality and the ability to diagnose what is working are central to that choice.
An agency that cannot say what is wrong is not much use
Sometimes the honest answer is that the ads are fine, and the landing page, the offer or the follow-up speed is the reason the account is not converting.
A PPC agency's job is not to make Google Ads look good. It is to make the money you spend on Google Ads work harder.
What I work on
Paid search, paid social, and the measurement that makes both accountable.
- Google Ads
- Google Search
- Shopping
- Microsoft Ads
- Meta Ads
- LinkedIn Ads
- Conversion tracking
- Offline conversion imports
- GA4
- Lead quality
- Account audits
- Budget allocation
Love Energy Savings
Paid social across the group, building a channel that had not previously worked for them.
Zen Internet
LinkedIn and Meta campaigns supporting acquisition and brand awareness.
Hillview Finance
Paid media focused on lead generation and measurable return on spend.
Most of my work is with ambitious small and mid-sized businesses, and most of it is lead generation rather than ecommerce. The channel matters less than whether the leads coming out of it turn into business.
Writing
I write most of the Knowledge Hub myself. Where the money goes, how to choose and manage an agency, and how to measure paid media against sales rather than conversions. None of it is gated.
What a £50k per month paid media account should actually look like
What good looks like once the budget is large enough to justify a team.
Read the articleHow much do PPC agencies charge?
Pricing models, typical fee bands and what should be included before you sign.
Read the articleWhat is PPC management?
What the work actually involves, and what should sit inside a retainer.
Read the articleGoogle Ads vs Facebook Ads
Which is better for your business, and why that is usually the wrong question.
Read the article
Featured in PPC Hero
I have contributed practical paid-media articles to PPC Hero. The links below lead to the original publications under my byline.
- How to choose a PPC agency August 2025. Why the standard advice on choosing an agency mostly misses the point.
- Manual bidding strategies are still important to PPC July 2025. Performance Max and Advantage Plus are not the answer to every account.
- How Google and Meta campaign support is undermining PPC agencies June 2025. What happens when the platform reps start talking directly to your clients.
Listed by Digital Reference
ADdictive Digital is named in Digital Reference's list of the best marketing consulting services in the UK.
The feature introduces our paid-media work and links to my professional profile. The listing is independent coverage; it is not an audit or guarantee of client results.
Want me to look at your account?
I audit Google Ads and Meta accounts myself rather than handing them to someone else. You will hear what I find, including when the answer is that your setup is fine and the problem sits somewhere else.