Job Descriptions / Media Buyer
Media Buyer Job Description Template
A ready-to-customize job description for hiring a media buyer at a performance or full-service agency. Built from real hiring loops for paid media teams. Copy, adapt to your platform mix, and publish.
What does a media buyer do at an agency?
An agency media buyer plans, launches, and optimizes paid campaigns across Meta, Google, TikTok, YouTube, and other channels. They own monthly ad budgets, creative testing, bidding decisions, and the weekly numbers that clients live and die by. The role blends analytical rigor with commercial judgment and a steady nerve when performance dips.
Unlike in-house performance marketers who focus on one brand, agency media buyers run three to six accounts at once across very different verticals. They need to context-switch cleanly, communicate performance clearly to non-technical clients, and partner with creative teams to keep accounts fresh. The best ones understand that paid media is half math and half storytelling.
Job Description Template
Job title
Media Buyer
Summary
We're hiring a Media Buyer to own paid media strategy and execution for a portfolio of client accounts. You'll plan campaigns, manage spend, brief creative, and report to clients with clarity and confidence. If you love the blend of analytical work and client-facing strategy, and you want to manage real budgets with room to experiment, you'll fit here.
Responsibilities
- Plan, launch, and optimize paid media campaigns across Meta, Google, TikTok, YouTube, and emerging channels for a portfolio of clients.
- Own monthly ad spend ranging from $20k to $500k+ per account, making daily decisions on budget allocation, bidding, and scaling.
- Build account structures, audiences, and creative testing frameworks that ladder up to client business goals.
- Brief creative and copy teams on ad variants, performance learnings, and iteration priorities.
- Run weekly and monthly reporting cadences for clients, including performance, pacing, and forward-looking recommendations.
- Manage pixel, server-side tracking, UTM, and conversion API setup in partnership with developers.
- Forecast performance, set realistic benchmarks, and flag underperformance before it becomes a client escalation.
- Monitor platform changes, beta features, and industry shifts (iOS updates, policy changes, auction dynamics) and adjust strategy.
- Partner with strategists and account managers to translate paid performance into business impact for clients.
- Document account structures, testing plans, and playbooks so other team members can pick up accounts without starting from zero.
Required qualifications
- 3+ years of hands-on paid media experience, ideally at an agency managing multiple concurrent accounts.
- Proven ability to manage at least $100k/month in ad spend across Meta and Google with documented results.
- Strong analytical skills: comfortable with pivot tables, cohort analysis, and attribution debates.
- Deep fluency with at least two of: Meta Ads Manager, Google Ads, TikTok Ads, YouTube, LinkedIn Ads.
- Experience with conversion tracking setup, server-side events, and common attribution tools (GA4, Triple Whale, Northbeam, Shopify).
- Ability to write a coherent client recommendation email that explains what happened, why, and what to do next.
- Comfortable running client-facing calls and defending strategy when numbers are down.
Preferred qualifications
- Experience running creative testing programs and briefing UGC, static, and video creative.
- Exposure to MMM (marketing mix modeling) or incrementality testing methodologies.
- Platform certifications (Meta Blueprint, Google Ads, TikTok For Agencies).
- Vertical depth in DTC, B2B lead gen, SaaS, local services, or app growth.
- SQL or BigQuery basics for pulling data outside the platform UIs.
Salary range (2026)
United States
$75,000 to $150,000 base
Mid: $75k to $110k. Senior: $110k to $150k. Plus performance bonuses of 10 to 25% at outcome-driven agencies.
Global
$22,000 to $95,000 base
LATAM and Eastern Europe: $22k to $55k. Western Europe: $45k to $80k. UK and Australia: $55k to $95k.
Top skills to look for
- Meta Ads Manager and Google Ads depth
- Bidding strategies and budget pacing
- Creative testing frameworks
- Conversion tracking and attribution
- Analytical fluency and pivot-table fluency
- Client communication under pressure
- Forecasting and benchmarking
- Documentation and account handoff
Red flags
- Cannot explain why a campaign underperformed beyond blaming the platform or creative.
- Has never worked with spend levels close to what your clients run.
- Copies account structures from playbooks without adapting to the client's funnel.
- Lacks comfort with conversion tracking and hands all setup to developers.
- Refuses to take client calls or lets an account manager deliver every performance update.
Interview process structure
Stage 1
Recruiter or hiring-manager screen (30 min)
Walk through their spend levels, account mix, and recent wins. Filter for someone who's actually operated at the scale your clients run.
Stage 2
Technical interview (60 min)
Live screen share through one of their accounts (with permission) or a sample dashboard. Probe on structure, bidding, testing, and debugging decisions.
Stage 3
Strategy exercise (4 hours, paid)
Provide a realistic client brief and anonymized data. Candidate returns a media plan, testing framework, and first 30-day roadmap with a short client-facing writeup.
Stage 4
Client readiness interview (45 min)
Role-play a tough client call where last month's numbers are down. Evaluate calm, clarity, and how they frame recommendations instead of excuses.
Frequently asked questions
What should a media buyer earn at an agency in 2026?
US mid-level media buyers earn $75,000 to $110,000 base, often with performance bonuses. Seniors reach $110,000 to $150,000, with paid media leads going higher. Global ranges run $22,000–$55,000 in LATAM and Eastern Europe, and $45,000–$95,000 across Western Europe.
How much ad spend should a single media buyer manage?
A typical mid-level buyer manages $400k to $1M per month across 3–6 accounts. Seniors can manage $1.5M to $3M+. The right load depends on account complexity, platform mix, and reporting cadence.
Should I pay bonuses on ad spend or on client outcomes?
Tie bonuses to client outcomes (retention, ROAS targets, revenue) rather than raw spend. Spend-based comp creates incentives to scale for scale's sake and can harm account health.
Do I need separate Meta and Google specialists?
At smaller agencies, one buyer covers both. Split specialists once you have 15+ concurrent accounts or a single client spending $500k+/month on either platform. Until then, generalists give you more flexibility.
How do I evaluate creative thinking during an interview?
Give them a real client brief and ask for three ad concepts plus the hypothesis behind each. You're not looking for Cannes-winning creative, you're looking for clear hypotheses and testability.
Hire with capacity in mind
Media buyers are a leading indicator of agency health. Hire one too early and you burn cash; too late and existing buyers start making mistakes that cost client relationships. Capacity planning tells you which side of the line you're on.