Agency owners: when to hire a media buyer for your agency

If you're still the one launching campaigns at 11pm, you're late. The right time to hire a media buyer for your agency is when the founder's hours, not the clients, become the limit on growth: you are running accounts yourself, new clients wait on your time and margin per client is slipping because work is rushed. Most agencies feel those signals before they admit them.

This article covers the five signals, how to check whether the hire pays for itself, and what to hand over first.

When should you hire a media buyer for your agency? Five signs

These are the five to watch. You do not need all of them. Two is usually enough.

1. You still run accounts day to day. Launches, bid changes and creative swaps go through you.
2. Sales slow down when you are busy. New business waits because delivery takes your time.
3. Margin per client is falling. Rushed work means more revisions, more meetings and more churn.
4. Quality depends on who is online. Accounts perform well when you have time for them and slip when you do not.
5. You avoid taking bigger clients. Not because you cannot win them, but because you cannot run them.

The common thread is simple: the agency's capacity has become your personal capacity.

How many accounts can one senior media buyer handle?

It depends on spend, complexity and how much client communication the role includes. A senior buyer running a few large, complex accounts carries a very different load from one running many small, stable ones.

As a planning range, and this is a fitted. estimate rather than an industry standard, a senior media buyer can usually own somewhere between four and eight active client accounts on one or two channels, with account management support. Fewer if they also lead client calls and strategy. More if accounts are small and similar.

The better question is: how many of your current accounts could you hand over tomorrow with a clear brief?

Can your agency afford a senior media buyer?

Run the math on margin, not on revenue. Here is an illustrative example with round numbers, not data from any real agency:

At those numbers, the hire costs about 15% of the revenue they look after. Your own numbers will be different, so replace each line with yours. The salary figure is the midpoint of our estimate for senior paid media talent in Latin America, explained in what a senior performance marketer costs in the US vs Latin America.

The bigger return is usually your time. Every hour you stop spending inside ad accounts can go into sales, strategy or keeping your best clients.

What should you hand over first?

Not your most difficult client. Start with accounts that are stable and well documented, so your new hire can learn your standards before taking on the hard ones.

A good order:

1. Two or three stable accounts with clear goals and clean tracking.
2. The weekly reporting for those accounts.
3. A new client onboarding, with you in the room.
4. One difficult account, once your process is clear to them.

Use a written plan for the first month. We lay one out in onboarding a remote media buyer: the first 30 days.

Should your first hire be a specialist or a generalist?

For most agencies, hire for the channel most of your retainers depend on. If most clients are on Meta, hire a strong paid social buyer. If most are lead generation on Google, hire search.

A generalist makes sense when your client mix is spread evenly and spend per client is modest. We cover the trade-off in paid social vs paid search: which hire do you actually need?

Do agency media buyers need client-facing English?

Often, yes. Agency roles usually include at least async client communication, and senior ones lead calls. Decide which level the role needs before you start interviewing, and test it in the interview.

We break the levels down in what English level a client-facing paid media role needs.

What should the job post say?

A clear post saves you from interviewing the wrong people. For an agency's first senior media buyer, include:

• The channels and spend: for example, "Meta and Google, US$20k to 80k a month per client". Use your real ranges.
• The number of accounts they will own at the start.
• The client-facing part: written reports only, or live calls they lead.
• What they take over from you, in plain words, such as "you will own launches, testing and weekly optimization".
• Working hours: the shared window with your team and clients.
• What success looks like at 90 days, so candidates can judge themselves.

Leave out long tool lists and "rockstar" language. Senior candidates read posts for clarity about the job, and the clearer the post, the better the people who apply.

How do we run agency searches at fitted.?

We ask about your client mix, channels, average spend and how much of the role is client-facing before we source anyone. Then every candidate is interviewed in English by a performance marketer, about accounts they actually ran, and scored on the same five points.

You get two or three scored candidates for one role, and you decide who to meet. Our fee is US$3,750 flat per hire, whatever the salary.