How To Hire a Media Buyer

To maximize marketing efforts, businesses often look into paid advertising opportunities. And in the age where there are so many options for where to market a business, you need a media buyer who can help you make the right decisions about where to allocate your time, effort, and budget.

In 2022, ad spending on social media reached over $173 billion, and most of these social media ads only reached 5% of their target audience. Now that seems like a lot of money is going down the drain.

Enter media buyers. But before you look for one, let’s discuss everything you need to know to find the best fit for your needs.

Why Do You Need To Hire Media Buyers?

Advertising options are vast—your options are almost limitless. But that doesn’t mean you can just choose any platform to market your brand. Some platforms will work better than others, depending on the unique needs of your business and where your audience is.

To ensure you’re getting the most out of your efforts, you need to know where best to spend your time, budget, and other resources. 

That’s where a media buyer comes in. As an expert in selecting the most viable advertising platforms, placements, and times to run ads, media buyers can help you find your brand’s most effective ad space to reach your target audience.

They can help you throughout the entire process of setting up your advertising space and yield the most favorable results for achieving your goals. 

Where To Find the Best Media Buyers?

Your journey to finding the perfect ad space starts with your search for the best media buyers in the business. There are a lot of platforms you can look into, from online job boards and social networks to referrals. 

And if you’re looking to hire media buyers to work remotely, Near can help you source the best candidates from Latin America (LatAm). 

Online job boards 

The easiest way to find talent is to advertise it where candidates are looking. And nowadays, that’s in online job boards. Find the most popular job listing platforms in the market today and post a clear and comprehensive description of what you’re looking for. You’ll likely receive a lot of applications from viable candidates—more on how you can pick the right candidate later.

Professional social networks

From LinkedIn to Facebook Jobs, there are platforms out there that can help connect you to a media buyer. Let your professional networks know about your search to increase the visibility of your post and potentially help you find the best candidate. 

Referrals

Chances are your network will know some media buyers they can introduce to you, so don’t be afraid to ask. If you don’t know other business owners who engage in media buying services, there are plenty of online groups that can connect you to agencies that know a media buyer or two. 

Characteristics of the Best Media Buyers

Once you’ve found several candidates for the role, your job is to find the talent that best suits your needs and is most qualified to take on the position. To help you select the right media buyer to hire, here are the characteristics that you should be looking for: 

Strategic thinker

A media buyer is tasked with planning, negotiating, and buying advertising space for a business. They will need to collaborate with different people, determine the best placement for a brand’s ads, discuss terms, and monitor the campaign’s effectiveness. 

Hence, a media buyer must be a strategic thinker. The best candidates are not afraid of data. They can analyze it and develop the most creative and practical solutions to maximize your advertising budget. They should also be capable of handling different campaigns simultaneously to ensure that all your efforts are executed well. 

Good negotiator

A media buyer’s day-to-day activities will involve speaking to representatives from different media platforms and negotiating the terms and cost of the advertisement with them. Therefore, the candidate you choose should have good negotiation skills that will allow them to get the best deals to maximize your budget. 

Strong communicator

Your media buyer will speak to and coordinate with multiple people during the project—from clients and media outlets to you and your team members. Your media buyer needs to communicate effectively in all of these conversations, especially in negotiations with media outlets. In addition to oral negotiating skills, your media buyer must also be able to communicate effectively in writing. Look for flawless written English skills.

Data-driven

Your media buyer is going to need to study and analyze data to find you the best advertising opportunities. You should look for data-driven individuals who know how to scrutinize numbers and use them to your advantage. 

Results-oriented

Media buyers must be results-oriented, doing everything possible to deliver the best results. Whether your goals are to drive traffic, generate leads, or increase sales, your media buyer must be focused on helping you achieve them. 

How To Hire Media Buyers

Finding the best media buyers to hire is all dependent on the process you undertake. To ensure that your process yields the best results, here are the steps to take in your hiring process: 

1. Come up with an effective job post

The search for the best media buyers all starts with your job post. It’s what your candidates will look at to help them decide whether or not they’re a good fit for your company and vice versa. A well-written and compelling job post can motivate top talent to submit applications. 

So, what makes a good job post? Here are some factors to take into account: 

• Include complete information. Add in all the necessary information about the position. This includes the duties and responsibilities associated with the role, the qualifications you’re looking for, and the job schedule and expectations. 
• Have an enthusiastic tone. You want to make your job post as attractive as possible for your potential hires. Speak engagingly and enthusiastically in a way that displays your company culture. 
• Proofread. The last thing you want is for your job post to have typos or grammatical errors. It’s the first thing your candidates will see, and you want to give them a good impression. 

2. Look for relevant experience

Media buying involves some skills that can’t be taught but are learned over time. Hence, experience matters in this line of work. Look for candidates with credible and sufficient experience in the role or a similar field.

Someone who’s worked in the media buying industry for a while is bound to be familiar with the tools, people, and processes required to execute the job effectively. Of course, first and foremost, they should be familiar with digital marketing and digital campaigns. 

While experience is essential, you should also look for someone with a good attitude toward learning. No one could have experienced everything there is to the job, especially when it comes to new trends. You want a candidate who is willing to keep learning and growing professionally. 

3. Conduct the best and least amount of interviews

The worst thing for a potential hire is going through a long and tedious process and waiting months before they get the results. They’re likely to get bored and move on to another company with faster hiring procedures—and you don’t want that. 

Before scheduling an interview with potential hires, prepare the whole process and try to make it as concise and enjoyable as possible. Don’t have them go through a series of five interviews if you can get what you need in one. 

4. Have a test case/project/take-home challenge

One of the best ways to see what your candidates can do is through a test. Prepare a little activity for them to do that’s related to media buying. When crafting the test, think of what you’ll likely need them to do and then develop a scenario that will help you determine how qualified they are for the role. 

Best Questions To Ask Media Buyer Candidates

You must ask effective questions during the interview to ensure that you find and hire the best media buyer for your needs. Here are a couple of things to get answers to: 

What experience do you have in media buying, and how has that experience prepared you for this role?

Get to know them better by asking this question. You can learn about their past and gain a good understanding of their growth throughout their career.

Can you walk me through a successful media buying campaign you have managed in the past, including the strategy, budget, and results?

This will give you an idea of their work process.

How do you stay up-to-date with advertising trends and changes in advertising platforms?

This question will let you gauge their passion and interest in their line of work. As a bonus, you can also find out what topics are important to them.

How do you prioritize and manage your workload when working on multiple campaigns at once?

As mentioned earlier, they will likely handle multiple projects simultaneously. You need to be assured they can deal with the workload.

Do you consider yourself lucky?

Media buyers must maintain a positive outlook and focus on the factors within their control to succeed, and considering themselves unlucky might not be conducive to this approach.

What’s something you never want to do again in your job?

Answers to this question can reveal aspects of their work ethic. They shouldn’t say anything that’s included in the job description. 

Ask technical questions to dive deeper into their ads experience.

Add relevant technical questions depending on your needs and the latest trends in the industry. 

Final Thoughts

Having a media buyer in your arsenal is going to help your business get in front of your target audience. Ultimately, that translates to stronger brand awareness, increased trust and profit, and a larger customer base. To reap all these benefits, however, you need to make sure you’re finding and hiring the right talent. 

Take our tips and pave the way to hiring the best media buyer for your business. If you’re ready to start your search, consider looking for media buyers based in LatAm with the help of Near. We can help you find top talent at rates 30–70% below US-based talent, and we usually can have you set up with the ideal candidate in under 21 days. Fill in this simple form to get a list of candidates you can interview for free.