How to Be a Great Media Buyer (or Find One for Yourself)
People ask me all the time – how have I created such a great team of media buyers on the market where every SECOND person brags about someone else’s results?
Finding a trustworthy freelancer nowadays is indeed a tricky task…
Finding one who would deliver great results is even harder…
Imagine a situation – you give a well-performing account to a media buyer with an ENORMOUS portfolio of proven records…
They come -> take the payment upfront -> Shut the account down -> never get back to you…(unreal? well…)
On the other hand, it’s better than a media buyer who burns money with the speed of light…
That’s why me and my HR team have created this 5-skill set that is OBLIGATORY for a media buyer to be considered by me.
1. Technical adaptability – love to numbers, new tech features, and data analysis.
You need to be able to and want to learn new things that come up every day.
– Facebook changes its policies
– Market fluctuations make some audiences work poorly
– New analysis tools and apps for Shopify
The question I ask first on the interview might sound strange to you:
“What online channels of information do you follow?”
Yes, that’s right! I don’t need robots who blindly follow “gurus” and their “methods”…
I need a person who knows where to get the info from, analyse this info, and implement it based on specific conditions.
We don’t work with checklists much, really…To me, critical thinking is skill #1!
There is no way that ALWAYS works. You just find the concept -> test it yourself -> find a proof or reject -> continue testing.
*PRO Tip: don’t look for a person who spent 300 bucks with a 50x ROAS.
Look for one who spent $100K with 2x CONSISTENTLY.
2. Willingness to analyze the data and dig deeper – all metrics might be important. Not only ROAS shows you the performance.
Second question I ask:
“Show me your Facebook ads manager layout”
If a person just works on the default layout, I stop the interview – they don’t even know KPIs…
NOT ONLY my media buyer needs to know all major and minor KPIs, they ALSO NEED to use them in various combinations for statistical analysis.
– CTR vs. CR – balance these 2 and you’ll boost your revenue easily
– CPC vs. CPM – is this my ads or targeting that is not working right?
– Cost/VC, Cost/ATC, Cost/ICH – where on the website am I losing users?
Noticed? I never mentioned ROAS or CPA…
Well, they will be high if other KPIs are high, right?
Some typical mistakes that differentiate an unskilled media buyer from the one I hire include:
– Thinking of the end results only instead of checking the whole funnel and its performance; finding the root of the problem…
(Give them your website 1 day before an interview – let them find 3 main problems there)
– Getting stuck on one KPI instead of trying to improve all of them (improving CTR, yet not improving CR)
(Again, there is interconnection ALWAYS – check your KPIs daily)
– No flexibility to be able to turn raw data into information
(Heard about the DIKW pyramid? Well, that’s one of those ACTUALLY USEFUL things they teach in college)
3. Humility – do not overestimate your knowledge. Learn and ask for feedback.
Be humble and be ready to admit your mistakes. Once you stop learning, your toolset becomes limited and later on – outdated.
My third question on an interview:
“Imagine you messed up BIG TIME. You did everything as always; you used proven methods; you worked hard and tried your best. But you failed. What will you do?”
“I’m gonna sit and think about what I can improve and whom I can ask for help” – that’s what I want to hear from my media buyer.
Lack of this SO UNDERESTIMATED trait leads to:
– Boringness -> inattentional blindness -> burning money on wrong assets
– Overestimation of methods -> too high budgets -> loss of profit
4. Flexibility – different budgets of clients require a different approach
(e.g., $100/day vs. $10k.day).
Try to test something when you have a $100/day budget. Try to do the same on a large scale…The more you spend – the more difficult it is to scale.
Here’s what happens when you ask an unskilled media buyer to scale up an ad account:
Month 1 (before):
Month 2 (after):
Scaled by JUST $8k; ROAS almost 2 times lower…
Overall, those who implement the same thing on every account because someone on Youtube said that it works – cannot call themselves professional media buyers (100 $5/day ad sets that are heavily advertised can destroy your account’s data learning).
My fourth question on the interview:
“Whose methods of ads scaling do you use in your work?”
And the perfect answer for me is “No one’s – but I’ve tested many of them!”
Remember these 4 truths about doing Facebook ads:
– Every ad account is unique
– Every method has limitations
– There is too much obsolete knowledge about Facebook ads – avoid that
– There is no “right” or “wrong” – there is “proven” or “rejected”
5. Emotional sustainability:
– patience to test things that seem to not be working at the beginning
– working with clients that are either irresponsive or too demanding
– ability to overcome hard failures
Facebook ads is SO MUCH about patience!
That’s why my fifth question is:
“What was your biggest failure in online business and how did you overcome it?”
Look, no one’s perfect! One of my senior media buyers worked with his first client for one month and spent ~$18k with a 0.74 ROAS…
The client was FURIOUS; asked for a refund (which I provided, of course). This was my VERY long term client whom I lost…
We had a LOOONG conversation with that media buyer…He didn’t blame lack of experience, client’s bad website, or anything…He told me WHAT he’s done wrong, WHERE he can improve, and HOW he’ll do that…
Since then, this media buyer ahs closed dozens of great clients for us!
So, to wrap things up
If you don’t have these 5 traits…
1. Technical adaptability
2. Willingness to analyze data
3. Humility
4. Flexibility
5. Emotional sustainability
…then you probably won’t become my media buyer 🙂
What you can do is:
Find such a person to manage ads for you -> Find even more people like this -> Grow your business -> Succeed
Every month I choose a few entrepreneurs to personally help them scale their Facebook ads and businesses.
Watch the free training and apply here: https://www.ecommercescalingsecrets.com/home