adhouse / Research
What 252 advertisers were really measuring.
In September 2026 we checked 252 owner-run UK businesses paying for Google or Meta adverts. We loaded their pages in a real browser, recorded every request, and read their live adverts in the public libraries.
The findings
78%
160 of 205 sites with a tap-to-call number
Nothing recording the calls
Phone calls go uncounted.
When customers ring before they buy, the call is the result. With nothing recording it, Google and Meta never learn which adverts made the phone ring, and neither does the owner.
30%
66 of 220 businesses running Meta adverts
Pages with no Meta pixel loading
Meta can’t see past the click.
The adverts still run, but Meta has nothing to learn from after someone lands. It finds more people who click, not more people who enquire.
26%
47 of 178 businesses running Google adverts
Pages where no Google Ads tag fired
Google has nothing to aim at.
A conversion can’t be counted on a page where the tag never fires, so automated bidding works from clicks alone. None of it shows as an error in the account.
How we checked.
Every business the same way, 6 to 9 September 2026, by our research engine, with the results read by a person.
| Step | What we did |
|---|---|
| Who was included | UK businesses running adverts in Google’s and Meta’s public ad libraries, mostly in home-improvement and specialist trades, each matched to a limited company or LLP on Companies House. National brands and publishers were left out. |
| Live adverts | Read from the Meta Ad Library and the Google Ads Transparency Centre, including where each advert sends people. |
| Page captures | Each site loaded in a real, headless browser with every network request recorded, including tags that load after the page opens. |
| Counting | Only complete captures were counted. Each figure uses its own base, shown beside it. |
What it doesn’t show.
- A tag not seen during our visit describes those pages at that time, not the whole site or account.
- Some businesses send results to Google or Meta from their own servers, which a browser can’t see. A business counted here may still send its results that way. It is the first thing we check inside an account.
- These are active advertisers found through the ad libraries, not every UK business.
- Percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number. The counts are exact.
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