Should I hire a freelancer or in-house full-time employee to manage Meta ads?
There are plenty of pros and plenty of cons for hiring either a contractor as a media buyer or an in-house, full-time employee. There’s no one-size-fits-all, always right approach to this and every brand and business is different. What works perfectly for one brand may be the worst decision for another. Contractors can be less expensive with less commitment if things don’t work out, but will also have other clients and cannot devote all of their time to just your company. A full-time employee may be more of a risk to hire and comes along with more “extra” expenses like benefits and PTO, and doesn’t have as much external knowledge about the state of advertising with other brands at any given time, but is focused solely on just your brand, which can be very important for brand owners and in-house brand teams. Many times, brands need a full-time ad buyer when that media buyer is either the ONLY marketing person there and spending $500k/mo+ OR if they're spending ~$1million/mo or more with a full team.
There are, of course, nuances and specifics for each brand and what their needs are, as well as what other tasks and duties are assigned to this person. Aside from the nuance, keep reading for the Pros and Cons of both a media buying contractor and full-time ad buyer.
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Pros for hiring a media buying contractor
They are working on other accounts so they see other industry and platform trends that an in-house person would be too siloed to see
They can test things out in other accounts (not just yours) so they're able to spend more efficiently with eyes on more than just your account
They can identify faster larger economic macro trends as well as platform trends/outages having access to other accounts
They know when something in the account is exclusive to your specific industry vs. what's more widespread, and then what to do about it based on those factors
Benefits of a contractor in general - no extra expenses like healthcare, paid time off, parental leave, etc.
Pros for hiring an in-house/full-time employee media buyer
Full access to this employee any/all the time and their full attention
This person will likely be more entrenched into the branding/brand values & mission
This employee may have different/better insight for media buying because they are more knowledgable about other departments of the business, company-wide info and meetings, business plans, etc.
If there is a marketing director/strategy person already there, this person can pivot all of their ad buying duties to focus on other, higher-level or different level strategy work and can have all of the media buying taken off their plate
Cons for hiring a media buying contractor
Though contractors are generally available, they are more tied to getting the work/project done as opposed to committing a certain number of hours to the brand, so they may not always be available when you need them, which requires more planning ahead and time management to ensure tasks are completed
They usually aren’t as knowledgable about the intricacies of the brand and aren’t as focused on the brand mission, values, etc.
The contractor will still need direction and oversight and will not likely be able to self-manage. They need direction for budgets and other larger business aspects that are out of their scope of work
They will likely need approval for certain (decided upon) decisions, like budget, scaling, and sometimes even creative approvals, which will require some work and time from the in-house employee
Cons for hiring an in-house/full-time employee media buyer
Expenses and benefits - they will require a salary, vacation time/PTO, healthcare, etc.
They will be a bit siloed into just your account and not have outside insight from managing other accounts
Sometimes full-time employees can fall behind on industry standards and best practices due to only working on one account
Many times full time employees don’t network as well outside of their company and therefore lose the ability to make new connections outside of the business, for things such as new content creators, video editors, graphic designers, or other roles that may still need to be contracted out
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Think you may be ready to go the contractor route? Here are some questions you should ask them to make sure your brand and they are a good fit together:
What size accounts in monthly spend have you managed before or currently?
Different levels of spend require to be managed differently in tactical and strategic approach. It’s preferable to have a contractor who has had experience spending per month around the general range your brand is currently spending. Some general ranges of similar budgets include:
$0-10,000/mo
$10k-$50k/mo
$50k-150k/mo
$150k-300k/mo
$300-600k/mo
$600k-1mm/mo
$1mm+/mo
How many accounts do you currently manage?
Every contractor will be different in their bandwidth and what they're able to manage, but for one person without any help, more than ~8-10 would be a bit of a red flag. If they have help of course that's different and then you're getting into a small/boutique agency. This one is a bit of a gut check and what feels right. But if it feels like they have too many clients or they get weird about answering, that could be less than ideal
Do you have any experience with our brand’s industry or any nuances our account deals with that others may not?
This one isn't a surefire no if they say no, but it is helpful for them to have some experience if there are any nuances to your industry so that it's not a complete shock to them when they start getting in the weeds of the nuances that your account deals with that others might not. For example, industries that may require additional knowledge: health/wellness, skincare, special ads categories (credit, housing, and politics), alcohol, firearms, or any other categories likely to be rejected.
What are they doing for ad buying collaboration as a solo ad buyer?
Truly not to self-promote, but the Foxwell Founders community is a great place for solo ad buyers to be in to share learnings and performance data. This is another downside of a contractor/freelancer in that they are solo, so besides their other accounts, they dont have other coworkers to chat with about what's going well or wrong. Even if they're not in our community, they should have some sort of outlet for continued education, learning, and collaboration since things are always changing so fast in digital marketing and specifically on Meta. Even if their answer is being active on DTC Twitter, that's something!
No matter which you choose is best for your brand, keep in mind that things are always changing, so what works for your brand this year may need to be re-evaluated next year. Maybe you need a hybrid approach of a full-time employee and a contractor to help with strategy or just complete menial tasks like uploading creative or buildout.
Don’t feel alone as an ad buyer! The Foxwell Founders Community has channels to specifically support you as an ad buyer and marketer no matter your role – we have channels for in-house advertisers and brand owners, for freelancers and contractors, hiring, conversion rate optimization, creative, creative strategy, Google ads, TikTok ads, and so much more. We’d love to see you there!