- media buying
- freelance
- the job
Freelance media buyer: what it is, what it changes for a business
Freelance media buyer: the job, what it actually covers, how it is paid, and what to ask before handing your ad budget to somebody.
Published on · Joh · 7 min read
The term gets used a lot, and it covers very different realities depending on who is using it. Worth setting out what it means from the point of view of a business thinking of hiring one.
The job
A media buyer buys attention and turns it into enquiries, appointments or sales. In practice they run your advertising campaigns on Meta, Google, TikTok or LinkedIn: account structure, audiences, budget, conversion tracking, daily decisions.
You also come across "traffic manager". The line between the two is blurred and nobody will agree on it.
What the job does not include, in its classic definition: producing the videos and the visuals. The media buyer distributes what they are given. That separation causes a real problem, and I come back to it below.
Meta or Google, the only question that matters at the start
The two channels do not do the same work.
Google captures an intention already formed. Somebody types "boiler repair Melun": they have a problem now, and you pick them up.
Meta interrupts. Nobody goes looking for a conservatory while scrolling their feed. You are going to create the need, or wake it up in somebody who was vaguely thinking about it.
An emergency plumber is Google. A product nobody searches for spontaneously, a new offer, a brand to make known: that is Meta.
They feed each other, incidentally. A well-run Meta campaign lifts searches for your name on Google a few weeks later.
Freelance, agency or employee
Three ways to cover the need, each with a domain where it wins.
The employee becomes profitable above a large and steady volume. Below that they are underused, and you recreate the dependence on one person that freelancers get criticised for.
The agency brings a team, continuity when somebody is away, and the capacity to absorb several channels or several markets. It also bills for coordination. The question to ask is not the price but the seniority of the person actually assigned to your account, and how many accounts they handle in parallel.
The freelance generally costs less for equivalent work and decides fast. The weakness is real: one person. If they fall ill, there is nobody behind.
What reduces that risk, and what you should demand whoever you work with: an ad account in your name, which they access as a partner, never the other way round. Creatives delivered and stored with you, source files included. Documentation of the campaign structure.
A supplier who creates the ad account under their own roof, or who keeps the files, leaves you stuck the day you part ways. That is a warning sign independent of their talent.
The question of payment
Three models exist, and they do not align interests in the same way.
The monthly retainer is readable. The supplier earns the same on ten enquiries as on a hundred.
A percentage of ad spend is common in agencies. It has a structural flaw: it rewards spending, not results.
A base plus a share tied to results is what I do. A base covers the monthly work, a share depends on what the campaigns bring in, measured by conversion tracking.
None is dishonest in itself. But always ask how your supplier earns more, and you will know what they are going to optimise.
What changed recently
For years the job consisted largely of targeting well. Fine targeting has lost most of its advantage: the algorithms find the right people from broad signals, and it is now the content of the ad that determines who it is shown to.
Put another way, the creative does the targeting.
That makes the classic separation — a studio produces, a media buyer distributes — frankly disabling. When an ad does not work, another has to be produced. If that means a brief, an approval and a schedule, the delay runs in weeks. When the same person edits and distributes, it runs in days.
It is why I do both, and why I do not bill creatives one by one. A client who hesitates before asking for a new video ends up running the one they have for too long, and an ad that wears out costs more and more to distribute.
Six questions to ask before signing
- Who actually works on my account, and how many accounts does that person handle?
- Is the ad account in my name?
- Who produces the creatives, how often are they renewed, and at what cost?
- What do we measure the result on: clicks, forms, or sales?
- How are you paid, and in what case do you earn more?
- What do I keep if we stop?
The answers to those six say more than a portfolio.
Further reading: Agency, freelance or in-house and Why your ads cost more and more. And for hiring: in-house, freelance or agency.
Looking for somebody to run your campaigns? . If it is not the right moment for you, I will say so.