About
Senior specialists.
One focus.
Full accountability for the numbers.
Why RTN exists
We built Run The Numbers to raise the standard of paid search for growing businesses. The strategy, technology and results that big enterprise accounts take for granted should be within reach of a £5k or £50k-a-month advertiser too. Closing that gap is the whole point of RTN.
Our industry has a trust problem, and we'd rather help fix it than trade on it. Plenty of agencies do good, honest work. Enough don't, hiding data, overpromising, and leaning on automation with no strategy behind it, that owners have learned to be wary. RTN is built to be the opposite, and to set the standard the industry should work to: transparent reporting, honest data, and work you can check.
Technology is the edge. The right systems and a lean specialist team mean you get the coverage, speed and tooling usually reserved for enterprise budgets, without the enterprise price tag or the layers. Building those systems is our background, which is why RTN runs this way.
In practice, senior specialists stay on your account, week in, week out. You talk to the person actually pulling the levers, by Slack or email, not an account manager relaying messages. No junior learning on your budget.
There are no long contracts. We earn next month by being useful this month, which keeps us proactive instead of going quiet until renewal. 97% of clients have stayed since launch, which says more than any contract could.
The promise is simple. We'll find enough wasted spend in the first 30 days to typically cover our fee, then put the budget where it actually returns. Every claim backed by the numbers, shown with dates and context. No cherry-picked percentages.
Meet the founder
Dean Yates
I'm Dean. I founded Run The Numbers, and I still run accounts myself. A Yorkshireman, an introvert and a father of three. I keep things plain and to the point, so what you get is straight answers and work you can check.
Before RTN, I spent years agency-side, managing Google Ads since 2014. I started as a PPC executive at one of the UK's largest independent agencies, then joined a marketing startup as its third employee and worked up to Technology Director. I built the automation behind 400+ client accounts and launched one of the UK's first agency-run CSS platforms, scaling it to 300+ ecommerce businesses in 18 months.
I built Run The Numbers to fix a pattern that's common across the industry: clients won with a senior pitch, then handed to whoever had capacity, so results swung wildly depending on who picked up the account. RTN started in a spare room and now runs from an office in Middlesbrough, with senior specialists doing the actual work start to finish.
Boutique by design. A lean, specialist operation built on tight systems, so the work stays consistent and nothing slips through the cracks. The advantage is speed and direct access to senior expertise, not layers of management billing you for meetings.
There's more on my background and how I think about paid search at deanyates.co.uk.
Credentials
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Google Partner
Certified by Google on ad spend, performance and qualifications, across ecommerce and lead-gen accounts.
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Microsoft Ads Partner
Certified Microsoft Advertising Partner with hands-on imports, shopping, and Audience Network experience.
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£12M+ in annual ad spend managed
Across ecommerce and lead-gen accounts, from £2k/month challengers to £100k/month established brands.
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Datafeedwatch certified
Feed optimisation specialist. The thing most agencies skip because it's fiddly. The thing that decides whether Shopping and PMax actually work.
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Klarna CSS
Comparison Shopping Service. We move your Google Shopping CPCs to Klarna CSS to cut click costs by up to 20%, same ads, same positions.
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74% average client growth
Average lift in sales revenue for active clients in their first 12 months. A rolling average across the book, not a one-off best case.
The legal bit
Run The Numbers® is a trading name of RTN Digital Ltd, registered in England and Wales. Company No. 16200602. Registered office: Victoria Building, Victoria Road, Middlesbrough, TS1 3AP. VAT No. GB 487 7377 24.