Leeds (21 Queen Street, LS1), with offices in London (Dean Street, Soho, W1D) and Manchester
Best for: Retailers that want paid search, Shopping and paid social tied to stock, margin pressure and customer value rather than revenue alone
An agency that describes its approach as connecting brand and performance, with retail and ecommerce among its sectors. Its retail work covers paid media, SEO, content, social and PR, and its published Barker & Stonehouse case shows paid media aligned with stock levels and audiences segmented by lifetime value.
- Connective3 won Best Use of Search – Retail/Ecommerce (PPC): Large at the 2025 UK Search Awards with Barker and Stonehouse, and took silver for the same work in Retail Campaign of the Year at the 2026 UK Paid Media Awards, where judges praised its disciplined spend control.[6][8]
- It was named Large Paid Media Agency of the Year at the 2025 UK Paid Media Awards, and its Instaloft entry, titled around cutting acquisition costs by 71%, took silver for Paid Social Media Campaign of the Year.[7]
- Its own case study says it segmented Barker & Stonehouse's audiences by lifetime value and promotion sensitivity, fed the most valuable past customers to ad platforms to find similar buyers, and re-engaged customers lapsed for over a year (self-reported).[11]
- Its retail page describes work for boutique and larger ecommerce retailers across beauty, fashion and tech, and lists offices at 21 Queen Street, Leeds, and Dean Street, Soho, London.[10]
London, with teams in Dubai and Auckland
Best for: Retailers with stores and ecommerce that want CAC, payback and contribution-margin LTV rebuilt from source data before more is spent on demand
A growth marketing agency founded in 2022 with a London team. For retail it says it rebuilds fully burdened CAC, payback and contribution-margin LTV from source data, measures contribution by category and customer cohort before buying more demand, and in retail also checks new customers, category contribution, returns and repeat purchase. All of this is self-reported.
- MxD Digital was founded in 2022 and has teams in London, Dubai and Auckland.[1][2]
- Its retail CAC and LTV page describes a unit economics audit that rebuilds CAC, payback and contribution-margin LTV from source data, separating blended, paid, organic, new, returning and expansion revenue, then tests each change against a clear cohort, baseline and cost measure and rechecks the cohort result as volume grows.[3]
- It says it reports new-customer CAC, contribution, payback and realised lifetime value with the assumptions visible, and that in retail it also checks new customers, category contribution, returns and repeat purchase.[3]
- Its retail page says it runs holdouts across networks, counts only incremental revenue, and reports on contribution margin after returns.[4]
- It describes its engagement pricing as published in the proposal, fixed for the duration, and quoted against scope.[5]
Manchester (2nd Floor, 127 Portland Street, M1)
Best for: Retailers that want Shopping and paid search run with margin control and product coverage, from a team with back-to-back retail paid media awards
A full-service digital marketing agency in Manchester covering SEO, PPC, paid social, CRO, measurement strategy and analytics. It lists Homebase and The Range among its clients, and its ecommerce PPC guidance argues for balancing new-customer acquisition against remarketing to existing buyers.
- Embryo won Retail Campaign of the Year at the UK Paid Media Awards in 2025 with Dowsing & Reynolds and in 2026 with Homebase, where judges singled out its structured approach to product coverage and margin control.[6][7]
- It also won Shopping Ads Campaign of the Year at the 2026 UK Paid Media Awards with Holloways of Ludlow, with judges noting its dynamic budget modelling and product feed enrichment.[6]
- Its website gives its address as 127 Portland Street, Manchester, and shows Homebase and The Range among its clients (self-reported).[12]
- Its ecommerce PPC page warns that relying only on revenue-focused campaigns and existing customers can stall growth, and describes balancing new-customer acquisition with retention (self-reported).[13]
Nottingham (Fothergill House, 16 King Street, NG1), with a London office (Borough High Street, SE1)
Best for: Retailers that want paid media, retail media and CRM data connected so acquisition cost and customer lifetime value are reported together
A performance marketing and technology agency with offices in Nottingham and London. It lists retail and ecommerce among its sectors, offers retail media and ecommerce PPC, and its CRM service connects customer data to attribution so that true acquisition costs and lifetime ROI can be reported.
- Impression was named Best Large PPC Agency at the 2025 UK Search Awards and took silver for Best Large Integrated Search Agency.[8]
- Its CRM page says it connects CRM data with performance marketing so clients can report true acquisition costs and measure the lifetime ROI of customers and advertising (self-reported).[15]
- Its website lists offices at Fothergill House, 16 King St, Nottingham, and The Typewriter Building, 140 Borough High St, London, alongside retail, retail media and ecommerce services.[14]
London (103 Farringdon Road, EC1R)
Best for: Ecommerce retailers whose LTV gap is retention: email, SMS and lifecycle flows built on Klaviyo with cohort-based segmentation
An email marketing and retention agency in London that builds CRM strategy, automated lifecycle flows, SMS and WhatsApp programmes and cohort-based retention systems, and is a Klaviyo partner. Its Klaviyo profile names Virgin Experience Days, Simba Sleep, Oh Polly and Chilly's among its clients.
- Klaviyo named Underground Ecom one of its three Agency Partners of the Year for EMEA in its 2025 K:Partners Awards.[18]
- Its Klaviyo partner directory profile lists it at the Elite Master tier, with retail (apparel and beauty, food and drink, home and electronics) as its stated industry focus and brands from $1M to over $500M in annual revenue.[17]
- Its website describes CRM strategy aimed at retention and LTV, and advanced retention systems using cohort analysis and predictive insights, and gives its address as 103 Farringdon Road, London EC1R (self-reported).[16]
London (10 Devonshire Square, EC2)
Best for: Premium fashion and lifestyle retailers that want paid media judged on new-customer revenue alongside ecommerce consultancy
An ecommerce and paid media consultancy in London, founded in 2017, with 60+ staff and 70+ clients. It covers ecommerce strategy and auditing, replatforming, performance marketing, affiliates and creative, and reports new-customer revenue in its published client results.
- Vervaunt won Best Large PPC Agency at the 2024 UK Search Awards.[9]
- Its website reports a 65% increase in new-customer revenue for Astrid & Miyu, which it describes as a contemporary jewellery brand, from paid media it manages across the UK, EU and US (self-reported).[19]
- It describes itself as an ecommerce and paid media consultancy founded in September 2017, with over 60 employees and over 70 clients, at WeWork, 10 Devonshire Square, London.[20]
