How to Choose an Agency or Consultant to Run Your Media Buying

Agency, consultant or in-house: decide what you are missing first

Before comparing names, write down what your store is actually missing. Is it planning and reading the numbers, execution hours, or both? The answer usually points to the right option.

• A consultant fits when someone on your team can run the day-to-day work in Meta, TikTok or Google Ads, but you need a senior person to set the plan, read the numbers and challenge decisions.
• An agency fits when you need both hands and thinking: building campaigns, producing creative and optimising daily across several platforms.
• An in-house hire fits when spend is steady enough to justify a full salary and you can manage and supervise that person yourself.

In-house is not necessarily the safer long-term choice. ANA reports that in 2025 high-profile in-house teams in several industries were downsized, lost scope to external agencies, or shut down completely (1). Resource pressure is common even at large companies. In Gartner's 2026 survey, 54% of CMOs reported insufficient resources (2), and 70% said their internal marketing processes are not yet mature enough to implement and scale AI effectively (3). Check honestly whether you can build a team and keep it before you start.

Questions to ask before you sign

• In whose name will the ad accounts, Pixel and Business Manager be set up? They should all be in yours.
• Who will actually work on my account each week, and how experienced are they?
• Which metric will you optimise campaigns toward, and how will you connect it to the actual revenue in my store, not only to the platform dashboard?
• How will you set up tracking, including Conversions API, and how will you check that it works?
• What do you need from me to do good work, such as margins, stock, offers and creative approvals?
• How is your fee calculated, and what does it include and exclude?

The fifth question matters more than it looks. Brands rate a good brief (5.6 out of 6), respect and trust (5.2) and high-quality feedback (5.1) as the strongest drivers of agency performance, while financial incentives score only 3.9 (4). A partner who never asks about your margins or stock will not get a good brief and will not work at the level you need.

The sixth question matters because transparency is a weak point in many relationships. 89% of brands believe they get value for money from their agencies, but only 48% feel they have enough transparency into how agency costs and profitability are calculated (5).

The reports you should expect

A good report answers one question first: did paid ads make the store money? Then it explains why. Ask for at least the following:

• Spend by platform and campaign, reconciled against what was actually billed.
• CAC for new customers, separate from returning customers.
• MER: total store revenue divided by total ad spend.
• Platform-reported ROAS, shown next to store revenue so you can see the gap between them.
• What was tested, what the team learned and what changes next.

If you are unsure which number to run your store on, read the difference between MER, ROAS, POAS and ROI. If you sell with cash on delivery in Egypt, the report should count delivered orders, not only placed orders. For more on this, see how to reduce refused cash-on-delivery orders in Egypt.

Pay attention to the metric the partner optimises toward. In ANA's programmatic transparency benchmark, advertiser case studies showed that optimising toward quality-adjusted metrics rather than CPM alone cut cost per conversion by nearly 40%, even when nominal CPMs went up (6). The goal is profitable orders, not cheap impressions or cheap clicks.

How fees are usually structured

Three models come up most often:

• Labour-based: you pay for hours or headcount.
• Fixed fee or output-based: you pay a set amount for a clearly defined scope.
• Labour plus performance: a base fee plus a bonus linked to results.

Among multinational brands, labour-based pay fell from 54% of arrangements in 2011 to 19% today, while fixed-fee or output-based models rose from 20% to 33% (7). In media buying specifically, labour plus performance makes up 34% of arrangements, and 30% in paid social (8). Even where performance pay exists, its share is usually small. In most disciplines, 67% to 80% of respondents say it is less than 20% of total agency compensation, and it is most common in media because outcomes there are easier to track (9).

The practical point for your store is to agree in writing which metric the performance bonus is measured on. A bonus tied to platform-reported ROAS can reward the wrong thing. A bonus tied to new-customer CAC or to MER measured in your store is harder to game. If the fee is a percentage of ad spend, ask how you will confirm that any increase in spend paid off for you and not only for the partner.

Warning signs

• The ad accounts or Pixel are set up in the partner's name, not yours.
• They promise guaranteed ROAS or sales before they have seen your numbers.
• Reports show only platform dashboards and never reconcile them with Shopify or your store revenue.
• Success is measured in reach, impressions, CPM or clicks.
• They cannot break down their fee when you ask.
• Nobody asks about your margins, return rate, stock or delivery.
• The senior person who sold you the service disappears after onboarding, and someone you never met takes over your account.

One sign on its own does not necessarily mean the partner is bad. Several together are worth stopping for before you sign.

What platform badges tell you

TikTok runs the TikTok Marketing Partners Program. It launched an Agency category to officially recognise media agencies with proven TikTok marketing expertise, and advertisers can find these badged agencies on the programme's website (10). It also added a Channel Sales Partner category under the Marketing Technology badge, which recognises partners that meet TikTok's technical, operational and go-to-market standards (11).

A badge is a useful filter because it means the partner has met the platform's standards. It does not tell you whether they understand your margins, your market or your delivery costs. Use badges to build a shortlist, then choose from it using the questions and reports above.

Set the relationship up to last from the start

Agency relationships now last longer than they did in 2018, and in paid social average tenure rose from two years to 4.3 years (12). That makes the first choice worth getting right, and it means your side of the relationship matters too.

• Give a clear brief that covers your goals, margins and constraints.
• Give honest, regular feedback and approve creative quickly.
• Share real store data, not only screenshots.
• Agree from the start on a fixed review schedule and a trial period with clear goals.
• Add a clause to the contract that returns all accounts and assets to you when the work ends.

Sources

1. (1) Association of National Advertisers (ANA) · 2026-07-15
2. (2) Gartner, Inc. (press release via Business Wire) · 2026-05-11
3. (3) Gartner, Inc. (press release via Business Wire) · 2026-05-11
4. (4) World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), with Agency Mania Solutions · 2026-09-29
5. (5) World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), with Agency Mania Solutions · 2026-09-29
6. (6) Association of National Advertisers (ANA) · 2026-02-25
7. (7) World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), with Agency Mania Solutions · 2026-09-29
8. (8) World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), with Agency Mania Solutions · 2026-09-29
9. (9) World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), with Agency Mania Solutions · 2026-09-29
10. (10) TikTok for Business · 2025-06
11. (11) Social Media Today (Industry Dive) · 2026-01-12
12. (12) World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), with Agency Mania Solutions · 2026-09-29