How to choose a media buyer for your online store

Start with what your store needs before you meet anyone

Before you compare candidates, write down exactly what you need. List the platforms you advertise on today or want to start on, the market you sell in, and who will produce the creative. A candidate who suits a store selling in Saudi Arabia through Meta and Snapchat may not suit a store selling in Egypt on cash on delivery, where refused orders become part of the cost calculation.

Write down the numbers you have as well: gross margin per product, AOV and return rate. If these are not clear to you, you cannot judge any media buyer, because you will not know the point at which ad spend turns into a loss. The post how to calculate the break-even CAC your store can carry walks through this step.

Signs of a suitable media buyer, and of an unsuitable one

A suitable media buyer starts with questions about your store before proposing a budget:

• They ask about margins and returns, and in Egypt about the share of cash-on-delivery orders that get refused.
• They talk about the maximum CAC your store can carry, not about ROAS alone.
• They show a written plan for testing creative and explain what they will pause, what they will scale and why.
• They read your store's own numbers, not just Ads Manager.

The unsuitable one shows the signs early:

• They promise a specific ROAS before seeing your data.
• They want the ads to run from an ad account they own.
• Their reports are screenshots from the platform, never compared with store sales.
• They cannot explain why platform sales differ from the sales in your store.

What to ask before you sign

Ask these in the interview, and have the answers written into the contract:

• Whose name will the ad accounts, pixel and catalogue be in? The only acceptable answer is your company's.
• Which measure will their work be judged on? Agree on one that ties spend to total store sales, such as MER, alongside the platform numbers.
• How will they test creative, and who will make it? You can compare their answer with how to test creative on Meta and TikTok.
• Which reports will you receive, how often, and from which source: the platform or the store?
• How are they paid? A percentage of spend ties their income to how much you spend, not to your profit. A fixed fee needs a clearly defined scope.
• What happens when the contract ends: what is handed over, and when is their access removed?
• Ask them to walk you through a campaign they ran: what they tried, what failed, and why.

Keep ownership of your accounts and data

An ad account holds your campaign history and your audience data. If it is in the media buyer's name, you can lose all of it when the relationship ends. The account should be created in your company's name, and the media buyer should get user access that you can change or remove at any time.

Google Ads has a feature called Multi-party approval. With it, sensitive actions such as adding a user, removing a user or changing user roles need a second administrator's approval before they take effect (1). Google says the feature applies only to accounts with more than 3 administrators, and it is paused if the account drops to a single admin (2). Google Ads support also cannot approve or deny a request for the account owner, so the account needs internal administrators who can respond (3).

In practice, never make the media buyer the only administrator on any account. Keep at least one admin from inside your company on every platform, and review the user list at the start and at the end of the contract.

How to judge the work after you sign

Every platform credits itself with part of your sales. ROAS in Ads Manager can look healthy while total store sales do not move. If you see that gap, read why Meta Ads Manager sales don't match your store's sales before you judge anyone.

The question that matters is which sales would not have happened without the ads. Start by comparing total store revenue with total ad spend. The post on MER, ROAS, POAS and ROI explains when to rely on each number. Then compare periods in which campaigns changed, and take the season into account.

Stores with a long data history and several channels can go further. Google describes Meridian as its open-source marketing mix modelling framework, which helps separate sales caused by ads from baseline sales that would have happened anyway (4). It analyzes aggregated historical data across all channels, digital and offline, alongside factors such as seasonality and economic conditions (5). Not every store needs it, but a good media buyer understands the idea and accepts being measured by it.

Ask for transparency in automated campaigns

Automated campaigns such as Performance Max in Google Ads split spend across channels on their own, so ask the media buyer how they will show you where your money went.

Google announced Performance Max channel reporting on 30 April 2025, together with full search terms reporting and asset metrics, and channel reporting reached all campaigns in November 2025 (6). But seeing where spend goes is not the same as being able to direct it, and advertisers are still waiting for full channel controls (7). Channel reporting at the asset group level is also available only through the Google Ads API, not in the Google Ads interface (8).

So ask for a regular report on the channel split, and ask whether they pull the more detailed data through the API or rely on the interface. A media buyer who cannot answer that question is asking you to trust a closed box.

When the answer changes: freelancer, agency or in-house

A freelance media buyer usually fits when you advertise on one or two platforms in a single market, and when you or your team can produce creative and follow the store's numbers.

If you sell in more than one market, need tracking and measurement set up from scratch, or need a plan that ties ads to pricing and stock, an agency or consultant is usually the better fit. The post how to choose a media buying agency or consultant covers how to make that choice.

When ad spend becomes large and continuous, an in-house hire may make more sense, with a periodic outside review that checks the numbers reflect real sales. In every case the rule stays the same: the accounts and the data belong to you.

Sources

1. (1) Google (Google Ads Help) · 2026-02
2. (2) Google (Google Ads Help) · 2026-02
3. (3) Google (Google Ads Help) · 2026-02
4. (4) Google (Google for Developers, Ads blog) · 2026-05
5. (5) Google (Google for Developers, Ads blog) · 2026-05
6. (6) PPC Land · 2026-11-08
7. (7) PPC Land · 2026-11-08
8. (8) PPC Land · 2026-01