Alternative Futures Group

Alternative Futures Group (AFG) is a health and social care charity that supports people with a learning disability or a mental health condition. Matthew Clarke founded it in Liverpool in 1992 to help people with complex needs live in the community rather than in hospital settings. Today it supports around 900 people in more than 300 locations across the North West, through supported living, community outreach and six independent mental health hospitals (AFG).

All of that runs on people. AFG employs more than 2,000 staff, and 1,800 of them work directly in support roles. Keeping those rotas full is the job this campaign exists to do.

AFG needed a steady flow of people applying for support worker jobs, at a cost a charity could defend, and it needed to be able to see that flow. Before the account was rebuilt, it had paid for 1,648 clicks across September and October 2025 and recorded no completed applications at all. Money was going out. Nobody could say what was coming back.

The sector doesn’t make recruitment easy. Skills for Care puts the adult social care vacancy rate at 6.2% for 2025/26, the lowest in a decade but still around 96,000 vacancies on any given day and roughly three times the rate in the wider economy. Posts filled by British workers fell by 40,000 over the year, and new international recruits dropped to 30,000, the lowest in four years (LocalGov, reporting Skills for Care). Every application from someone already living in the North West counts.

Since the relaunch, the Google Ads account counts a conversion only when someone finishes an application on AFG’s careers site. Not a click, not a visit to a vacancy page: a completed application.

Calls from ads were counted too in January and February, 138 of them. From March, completed applications are the only conversion in the account. That’s the number AFG’s recruitment team actually works with, and it’s the number Google’s bidding has chased ever since.

In January a Demand Gen campaign ran alongside Search. It bought 14,077 clicks for £500, about 3.5p each, and produced no applications. Search produced 59 in the same month.

Cheap clicks look lovely on a report and fill no shifts. Someone scrolling YouTube or Discover isn’t looking for a job, and a support worker application asks for real time and effort. The Demand Gen campaign was paused, and since February the account has run on Search alone.

The main campaign targets the searches people make when they want this kind of work: support worker jobs in Liverpool, Manchester, Bolton, St Helens and Wigan, care jobs near me, supported living jobs. Over the 12 months, “support worker jobs Liverpool” alone brought in 58 completed applications at about £6.27 each. “Support worker jobs Manchester” brought in 28 at £5.62, and “support worker jobs near me” 23 at £5.52.

The ads answer the worries a first-time applicant has before they’ve asked them: “No Experience Needed”, “Full Training From Day One”, “Join A Values-Led Charity”, “Great With People? Apply”. It’s the recruitment version of a sign on the door saying walk-ins welcome.

When the search and the ad line up exactly, the numbers get a bit silly. People searching “support worker jobs Liverpool no experience” clicked 40 times and sent in 7 applications, at £2.24 each.

Plenty of people already know AFG. The single biggest source of applications in the account is people searching the charity’s own name, and “afg careers”, “afg jobs” and “afg vacancies” all sit near the top of the list. Someone who types a charity’s name is already halfway to applying.

In July 2026 Castle gave those searches a campaign of their own. It’s now the cheapest source of applications in the account: 361 in the last 90 days at £3.69 each.

The fair challenge is whether those people would have applied anyway. Some would. But at under £4 an application, it’s cheap insurance that they land on the careers site rather than wherever else the results take them. Splitting brand out also means the main campaign can be judged on people who had never heard of AFG, which is the number that tells you whether the advertising is finding anyone new.

Some vacancies are harder to fill: specialist and complex care roles with set hours, and posts where a driving licence is essential. In September 2026 Castle launched a campaign just for these, with each ad going straight to the vacancy it describes.

The headlines are pinned so the deal-breakers always show: “Specialist Support Worker Role”, “36 Hours Per Week”, “Drivers Only”, with the salary (£27,986 a year for one role) in the copy. A non-driver sees “Drivers Only” before they click, which saves AFG paying for the visit and saves the recruitment team reading an application that was never going to work.

Since 21 September the campaign has brought in 35 applications at about £21 each. That’s around three times the cost of a general support worker application, which is about what you’d expect from a much smaller pool of people who can do the job.

Applications per month went from 59 in January to 303 in October, more than five times as many. Every month since March has produced between 218 and 316, and September was the best month so far: 316 completed applications at £4.92 each.

Over the 12 months to 4 November 2026, the account produced 2,341 completed applications from £16,343 of spend. That’s £6.98 per application, counting every pound, including the January test that produced none. From March onwards, once tracking and campaign structure had settled, the figure is £6.08.

The last 90 days, against the 90 days before:

• 833 completed applications, up 14% from 729;
• 12,034 clicks, up 22%;
• average cost per click down 5%, to 43p;
• cost per application at £6.28, against £6.18, while spend rose 16%.

That last line is the hard bit. Extra budget usually buys worse clicks, so holding cost per application nearly flat while spending more suggests the account still has room to grow. The ads earn their clicks too: 14.6% of ad impressions in the last 90 days turned into a click.

It’s the same thinking behind our Next Gen Charge work: judge the campaign on the outcome the business needs, not on the cheapest click. These are completed applications, not hires, and what happens after an application depends on AFG’s own interview and vetting process.

• Count applications, not clicks. If the account can’t see completed applications, the bidding can’t find more of them.
• Pay for people who are looking. A Demand Gen campaign bought 14,077 clicks and no applications. Search bought 59 in the same month.
• Answer the applicant’s worry in the ad. “No experience needed” met “no experience” searches at £2.24 an application.
• Put the deal-breakers in the headline. “Drivers Only” filters people out before you pay for the click.
• Split brand from non-brand. It keeps your own name cheap to protect and shows whether the advertising is reaching anyone new. More on how we approach this is on our lead generation page.

2,341 completed applications in the 12 months to 4 November 2026, from £16,343 of spend. In the last 90 days the account produced 833, up 14% on the 90 days before.

£6.98 across the full 12 months, including a January test that produced none. From March onwards it averaged £6.08, with brand searches at £3.69 and specialist roles at about £21.

For AFG, Search. A Demand Gen campaign bought 14,077 clicks in January and no applications, while Search brought in every application in the account. Role and location searches such as “support worker jobs Liverpool” do the heavy lifting.

Completed applications on AFG’s careers site. What happens next depends on AFG’s own interview and vetting process, which sits outside Google Ads.