Two Manchester-based D2C ecommerce performance agencies are merging to form Social Paradigm Group, with ambitions to be “the biggest” in the ecommerce world.
The move brings together Social Nucleus, founded by Will Tickle in 2016, and Paradigm Media, launched by Charlie Williams in 2022, creating a Manchester-headquartered group combining paid social, creative, email services and two proprietary SaaS tools under one roof.
The newly formed group will remain in Manchester with 45 full-time staff, although the business will operate remotely with one office day in the city each month. Collectively, the group says it works with a range of clients, including Sinners Attire, Treatbox, and Capo, and now manages £50M in annual ad spend across its portfolio.
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The big ambition is to become a Northern challenger to take on some of the bigger players in London, with the merger giving both founders the opportunity to achieve their “potential” and scale faster by combining their strengths.
“We’re most excited about getting 50% of our time back so we can narrow our gaze and do that one thing really, really well, and achieve our potential. I think that can scale us to a whole new level across both sales, performance and operations,” Charlie Williams, co-CEO of newly formed Social Paradigm Group, tells Prolific North.
“By our estimations, we are now going to be one of the biggest DTC ecommerce-focused agencies in the UK.
“We have 65 ecommerce brands on board now under one group, so we’ll definitely be up there with the biggest, which means we can compete with some of the bigger names down in London.”
The story so far and how Social Paradigm Group came to be
The deal behind Social Paradigm Group has been years in the making. Back in 2022, Charlie Williams was working as a paid social specialist at a Manchester marketing agency while building up Paradigm Media initially as a “side hustle”.
“In those early days, it fluctuated a lot. It’s very up and down. I started reaching out to other agencies to try and generate some reliable white-label opportunities.”
That was when he first met Will Tickle, who at the time was looking for an extra pair of hands within his paid social team over at Social Nucleus. From there, Williams began freelancing for the agency and the duo quickly built up a “really good relationship”.
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Then one day over a coffee in Manchester, Williams was candid about his longer term ambitions for Paradigm Media.
“I told him I wanted to scale it into a D2C-focused marketing agency, similar to what he had with Social Nucleus. I’m good at service and delivery, and I’m a very good paid social specialist, but I’d never had to do the sales and ops side of things.”
Although they had already become firm friends, he asked Tickle if he would come on board as a consultant to help him grow the business through weekly strategy calls.
Tickle was “more than happy to help” and supported Williams with Paradigm Media from December 2022 through to mid-2023, helping to build out the agency’s infrastructure and hiring processes.
“We then paused the consultancy relationship as Paradigm was then growing really quickly,” explains Williams.
“2023 was a big year for the company, we went from just me at the start of the year and it being a lifestyle hobby business to having 15 clients, so we needed to hire a number of full-time team members.”
The pair stayed in regular contact and often discussed a potential merger, but Williams said the timing only became right more recently.
“Now, the agencies are a very similar size in terms of clients, in terms of personnel and team. So it’s a lot easier to get a deal like this done when you’re coming in even and equal.
“The door has always been open, the conversations have always been on-going, and now it just feels like the right time.”
As part of the new group structure, Williams will lead sales and growth, while Tickle will oversee performance. Both will share co-CEO titles.
“My main focus and responsibility is going to be on growing business, because that’s what has enabled Paradigm to grow really aggressively,” says Williams.
All clients will now sit under the Social Paradigm Group umbrella, with the company adopting a remote-first model designed to “open the net” and tap into talent right across the UK and beyond.
“You hire the best person for the role that’s going to deliver the best service to our clients whether that person is in Wales, Scotland, Manchester, or if they’re on the moon,” he teases. “A lot of agencies nowadays are leaning towards that since Covid.”
On the group’s plans, Will Tickle adds: “If you’re a DTC brand scaling on paid media in the UK, you’ve been choosing between agencies that talk a good game and agencies that actually build the tools and systems to back it up.
“This group gives you both — vertical expertise across the categories that matter, proprietary technology embedded in every engagement, and an operating model built from unit economics up. We didn’t merge to get bigger. We merged to offer something that doesn’t exist yet.”
For Williams, the merger also addresses a common challenge faced by founder-led agencies.
“As a solo founder in an agency, you spin so many plates. It’s difficult to scale past a certain point as you manage so many things from sales to performance. Post merger, me and Will [Tickle] will focus on the things we both do really well together. That’s why it can work so well having a co-founder.”
Technology and growth plans
A key part of the new group’s “USP” is its in-house technology. The business has developed two tools: AdSynth, a ‘mass creative builder’, and eCompass, a profit intelligence platform covering benchmarking, diagnostics and planning, with both embedded into client delivery.
“12 months ago pre-merger, we both had the idea to invest in and build tools that our agencies could use. It’s ironic now that we’re merging, but these tools have given us massive leverage over competitors. AdSynth, for instance, means we can build hundreds of ads into Meta at the click of a button.
“eCompass is essentially a benchmarking tool, where we can look across all clients under the Social Paradigm Group umbrella and benchmark a business and its metrics. Clients don’t pay extra for it, they get it as part of their service.”
And with the arrival of AI, Williams explains the technology is accelerating the need for agencies to adapt and “evolve fast”.
“This proprietary tech we’ve built separates us from the rest of the industry.”
Paradigm Media also runs its own “internal ecommerce brand”, which Williams says is being used as a live testing ground for paid social strategy.
“We’re not just talking the talk, we’re also walking the walk. We’re not just another cookie-cutter agency that’s good at spending other people’s money.”
The future vision
Looking ahead, Williams said the group has “exciting plans” and expanding into the US market is a major priority. Social Nucleus already has a Florida presence, while around seven of the combined group’s 65 clients are based in the US.
“The main focus for us at Social Paradigm Group is going to be building out the US arm of the business. Those [US clients] have come inbound from our case studies, without marketing in the US, so it shows that there’s a big market and appetite over there.
“Having a presence in the US is part of the plan for the next six to 12 months. I’m going to spend a bit of time out there to build the US arm, go to events and things like that.”
But ultimately, the long-term ambition is to “build the next generation of ecommerce brands”.
“We want to keep building this and scaling it up. We want to build the next generation of ecommerce brands.”
