UK Care Guide

Saq Hussain, Director

Manchester, UK

2024

UK Care Guide is making vital late-in-life financial information widely accessible

For years, finding information about retirement, pensions, and late-in-life financial planning wasn’t easy. UK Care Guide aims to make that information accessible — and with ads, the site is able to continue providing content that helps thousands of people in the UK.

Building a central hub of information

As you get older, there are quite a few financial and legal details to sort out — from figuring out your pension to writing up a will. Oftentimes, people hit middle age and realize they aren’t educated on these later-in-late issues and don’t even know where to begin.

That’s where UK Care Guide comes in. The site is dedicated to providing the resources and education needed for the second half of your life. Covering money, legal, and lifestyle issues, UK Care Guide aims to be a central hub of knowledge, consolidating everything you need to know and putting it in one accessible place.

“We understand that people often put off these tasks and try not to think about them,” says Saq Hussain, the site’s director. “But eventually you have to face them. Maybe your parents are getting older and you need to find care for them. For a while, there wasn’t one resource that helped people when they found themselves in that tricky later-in-life situation — but UK Care Guide fixes that.”

Saq and his team realized they couldn’t put this vital information behind a paywall. But at the same time, they had to cover the costs of creating this content, which took time and resources to complete. Saq decided to start an ad-supported model to bring in more revenue — while keeping the site free.

Finding a powerful ad partner

UK Care Guide turned to Google Ad Manager to help them with their ad strategy. But given his long list of daily responsibilities, Saq couldn’t handle the ad strategy himself. That’s why he teamed up with Mediavine, a Google Certified Publishing Partner who could help him choose and place ads on the site.

“Mediavine has been brilliant,” says Saq. “They are really, really easy to work with. They choose ads that work for our audience and really resonate.”

With an older audience that is often seeking out urgent, useful information, it was important for Saq to have an ad strategy that wasn’t distracting or inappropriate.

“I like to check our ads periodically just to ensure there’s nothing on the site that might cause a challenge for our audience,” says Saq. “And I’ve never had an issue with Ad Manager or Mediavine. The ads are high-quality and fit naturally within the content already on our pages.”

Today ad revenue makes up about a third of UK Care Guide’s revenue — a crucial income source that allows the team to keep producing high-quality content their audience relies on.

“A symbiotic relationship”

Saq is grateful for ads’ ability to monetize site content that otherwise wouldn’t be monetized.

“Our site is unique,” says Saq. “This isn’t a corporate website where we’re selling a product or trying to drive subscriptions. We need to create content that attracts eyeballs — and with Google Ad Manager and Mediavine we’re able to ensure those views lead to revenue.”

Saq and his team have an elaborate ten-year plan of content they want to create. “Ads are really crucial to our strategy and allow us to do the work we do,” says Saq. The team's goals would simply not be achievable without ad revenue, which enables UK Care Guide to pay their staff, fund research, and provide these areas of educational focus that the UK population needs.

“It works for both sides,” says Saq. “Our ad partners are happy, and then we’re happy because their messaging helps fund the content on our site.”

“We need to create content that attracts eyeballs — and with Google Ad Manager and Mediavine we’re able to ensure those views lead to revenue.”

A trusted resource

Saq is gratified to know that his site is helping people who truly need it. Educational resources around finance are a key part of the site — and it’s always good to hear from users who might have been in a difficult financial situation, then used UK Care Guide to access helpful grants.

“We’re always getting emails from people in difficult circumstances who found our site helpful,” says Saq. “Our financial assessment tools offer people personalized guidance and we hear often that these resources genuinely improve people’s lives, especially during the financial hardships of the past few years.”

In fact, UK Care Guide is so respected that it’s now mentioned on the National Health Service (NHS) website. Saq knows that the NHS is very careful about the sites they endorse and highlight as references, so their recognition means a lot.

“The fact that our ad-supported model helps us continue to exist and reach people is so important,” says Saq. “At the end of the day, it’s all about knowing that we’re helping people get the information they need to live a better life.”

About the Publisher

Saq Hussain is the founder of UK Care Guide, a site dedicated to supporting people on a range of financial and legal issues as they get older, and FinancialEducation.co.uk, a site with a dedicated goal of improving the financial wellbeing of 1 million people in the UK. Saq was previously Head of DC Pensions and Benefits at PwC UK, where he worked with individuals and employers, of all sizes, and from across the globe, across a range of financial and retirement planning issues. In his new role of leading the UK Care Guide and FinancialEducation.co.uk he is now looking to share over two decades worth of financial knowledge with an online audience.