Digital marketing
Hire a media buying expert to plan budgets and report across paid channels
A media buying expert plans where your paid advertising budget goes across search, social and video, books the campaigns and reports on what each channel delivered. Rates start from about £6.50 an hour at the beginner level, rising with experience. Ad spend is paid to the platforms. We find the candidate and run four screening steps.
Before you start
- Four screening steps before you meet a candidate
- Hours tracked
- Earliest start within 48 to 72 hours of choosing a candidate
The planning and buying work an assistant takes on
Running one ad platform and deciding how to split a budget across several are different jobs. A media buying assistant does the second: it decides where the money goes, books it and shows what came back.
Plan
- Budget allocation. A written split of the monthly budget across channels, with the reason for each share.
- Audience and message plan. Who each channel is meant to reach and what it should say to them.
- A calendar. Launches, seasonal peaks and end dates in one place.
Buy
- Booking campaigns. Setting campaigns up in the platforms to the plan, or briefing the channel specialist who does.
- Pacing checks. Watching spend against the budget so no channel runs dry or runs over.
- Moving budget. Shifting money between channels when the report supports it, with your approval.
Report
- One report across channels. Spend, results and cost per result side by side, in the same units.
- A decision note. What to keep, what to cut and what to test next.
Where the assistant stops
Day to day running of a single platform belongs to the channel roles: Google Ads, Meta ads, TikTok ads and LinkedIn ads. Programmatic buying and out of home advertising are specialist fields that this page does not cover.
Other tasks this role covers
- Forecasting
- Optimisation
- Attribution notes
Tools
Media buyers commonly work across the ad platforms themselves, a spreadsheet for the plan and a reporting tool for the results. Tell us which platforms you already use and we match the candidate to them.
What a media buying expert costs
This role is priced per hour by experience, in pounds, at the Digital marketing level. A beginner level assistant starts from about £6.50 an hour, and the rate rises with experience. The channel roles sit at the same Digital marketing level. The ad spend you pay the platforms is separate. The pricing page lists the published roles, and the cost calculator lets you try your own hours.
A call to talk through your budget
Is a media buying expert right for you?
A media buying expert suits you if
- You spend, or plan to spend, on more than one paid channel and want one person to see the whole picture.
- You are unsure how to split a budget and want the reasoning written down.
- You want a single report instead of three that use different words.
Another role may suit you better if
- You only need one platform run well: choose the channel role, such as the Google Ads virtual assistant.
- You do not know which channel to start with: the paid ads expert page is the chooser.
- Your customers are other businesses: a LinkedIn ads expert.
- Your audience is younger and watches short video: a TikTok ads expert.
Who does what
General guidance, not a promise about any one assistant. The usual confusion is between media buying and ad management. This table shows one common way to divide the work.
| Job | You | Media buying assistant | Channel specialist or agency, if you have one |
|---|---|---|---|
| Set the goal and the ceiling | Yes | Advises | Advises |
| Split the budget across channels | Approves | Proposes with reasons | Gives channel input |
| Build and run a campaign | Briefs or books | Builds and runs | |
| Check pacing and spend | Yes | Yes, per channel | |
| Report across channels | Reads | Writes | Supplies channel figures |
| Decide to stop a channel | Yes | Recommends | Advises |
A budget split worksheet
Fill this in before any money moves. It is a blank structure: the numbers are yours, and this page gives no benchmark.
| Channel | The goal it serves | Share of budget | What it must show before it gets more |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search | People already looking for what you sell | ||
| Social | People who have not yet looked | ||
| Video | Awareness, or a story that needs time | ||
| A test | One new idea |
What the channels are for
Google describes the main campaign types in its campaign type guide: Search campaigns are text ads on search results, Video campaigns show video ads on YouTube and other sites, Shopping ads show product listings, and Performance Max lets you access all Google Ads inventory from a single campaign. The point for planning is that each type serves a different goal, so a split should start from goals, not from habit.
Measurement and consent
Reporting across channels relies on tracking tags and conversion events. The ICO’s guidance on storage and access technologies has sections on tracking for online advertising and on advertising measurement. Settle your consent approach before the tags go live, and make sure the report says which results it can and cannot see.
What you should receive
A plan, a booking record, a report and a decision note. The plan says where the money goes and why. The booking record lists each campaign, its dates and its budget. The report shows spend and results by channel in the same units. The decision note says what to keep, cut and test.
How the work is measured
Compare channels on cost per result for the same result: a lead with a lead, a sale with a sale. Add pacing, which is spend against the plan, and share of budget on channels that have not yet shown a result. Do not compare a click on one channel with a view on another.
Quality checks before the budget moves
- Every channel has one goal and one way to count it.
- The same result is counted the same way everywhere.
- Totals in the report add up to what the platforms billed.
- No channel got a bigger share without a reason written down.
Common mistakes
- Splitting the budget evenly because it feels fair.
- Comparing figures that measure different things.
- Moving money after two days of data.
- Not leaving any budget for a test.
Worked example: a first split
Example only. The business and the split are invented to show the method, not to recommend a split. A shop that sells online starts with 60 percent of its budget on search, because people already look for its products, 30 percent on social to reach people who have not, and 10 percent kept for one test. After a month the report shows cost per sale for each. The decision note moves a share from the weakest to the strongest only if the difference is large and has held for several weeks.
Questions to ask any media buying provider
- Who owns the ad accounts and the data, and what happens if we stop?
- How do you report results from different channels in the same units?
- What do you need from me before the first pound is spent?
- When would you tell me a channel is not working?
What is included
The hourly rate covers the whole service: finding the candidate, the four screening steps below, setting up the advertising platforms and tools your assistant needs, hours tracked with tools such as Time Doctor, and our management of recruitment, payroll management and quality management. There is no separate recruitment fee.
How hiring works
We start with a free call about the work and the hours you have in mind. We shortlist candidates who have passed our screening, you interview them and you choose. The earliest start is within 48 to 72 hours of choosing a candidate.
Four screening steps before you meet anyone
- CV screening.
- A first interview on personality and the general benchmark criteria.
- A technical interview.
- A practical task, to test the candidate in the field.
Notice, replacement and fees
- In the first 3 months, you can end an unsuitable hire on one week’s notice.
- In the first days, you can tell us it is not right and we will replace them.
- After the first 3 months, the notice period is 1 month.
- Replacement is included in the ongoing fee for as long as you are paying, at no extra charge.
The full terms are set out on how it works.
Questions about hiring a media buying expert
What does a media buyer do that an ads manager does not?
A media buyer decides where the whole paid budget goes across channels and reports on all of them together. An ads manager runs the day to day work inside one platform. Many businesses need one of each at different stages. The who does what table above shows a common split.
Where should a UK business look for media buying support?
Start with what you need. If you want one platform run well, a channel specialist is enough. If you want a plan across several, look for someone who will write down the split, report in common units and let you own the accounts. A virtual assistant is one route, an agency another.
Should I spend on several channels at once?
Not at the start, unless the budget is large enough to give each channel a fair test. A smaller budget usually learns more from one or two channels run well. Add a channel when the first has shown a result you can count.
Related roles
Browse the paid ads expert chooser, the TikTok ads expert or the LinkedIn ads expert. All of them sit in the Digital marketing virtual assistants family.
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