How to Start Career as a Media Buyer

What are the Responsibilities of a Media Buyer? 

A media buyer’s main goal is to boost the performance of a business. They are responsible for securing the right ad place for the right product. They strategically analyze your business, services, and find out unique selling propositions. Besides, they do thorough research on consumer behavior. They make sure that your product is seen by the right audience at the right time. A media buyer also selects the right channel for your product such as Facebook, Instagram, Google etc. 

Here are some key responsibilities of a Media Buyer:

• Identifying the target consumer
• Identifying media channels
• Researching market trends and staying relevant
• Defining and measuring the Key Performance Indicators
• Managing paid media ads
• Generating and making inferences
• Optimizing Plans and Budgets 

Steps to Start Career as a Media Buyer

There are no stone-written steps to start a career as a media buyer. It’s all about pursuing a passion and working for it. But from my experience here are 7 steps that you can follow if you have an intent to build your career in media buying. 

Determine your passion

The very first step is to determine if you want to pursue your career as a media buyer or not. Often we make a mistake while choosing the right career path. We tend to follow other people even if we do not hold any interest in that field. So, figure out your passion for media buying. 

Acquiring Skills

To become a media buyer, you need to have an understanding of media buying. Try to acquire the necessary skills, such as running Meta ads,, Google ads, and their policies etc. Learn the terminology used in this sector. You can do any professional offline or online courses. There are various free courses available on the internet as well. You can leverage these courses. You can also learn from YouTube. 

Get a Job at a Marketing Agency

A great way to start the journey as a media buyer is to join a marketing agency. A marketing agency works with diverse clients across different industries having different business goals, target consumers, and media channels. Working with this variety of clients will accelerate your learning. You will gain real-world experience while having a dynamic environment. 

Agencies are also fast-paced and deadline-driven. This environment will help you to develop quick thinking and problem-solving capabilities. Some of the agencies also invest in training programs for media buyers. 

In a marketing agency, you will get exposure, learn, and connect with industry experts as well 

You can also consider joining a company with a good media buying team. You can learn from export media buyers and ensure your growth. 

Build a Portfolio

Often, clients or employers want to see portfolios. A portfolio is a document or proof of your skills and work. With your skills, certificates, and all the work that you have done so far, you can build a portfolio. It can be a personal website, presentation deck, etc. Having an organized portfolio will give you an upper hand in getting jobs as a media buyer. In the portfolio, mention the clients that you have worked for. You can mention some of your achievements and case studies. case studies will help the employer to understand the problem that you faced and how you have solved the problem.  While organizing the portfolio, try to give data or statistics as much as you can. 

Start Freelancing on the Side

While doing a job at agencies, or some other place, you can start freelancing on the side. Try to onboard some of the clients on your own. This will boost your confidence and your communication, negotiation skills will be improved. While doing so, make sure it doesn’t collide with your current company’s policy and interests. 

Reach out to Bigger Clients

Once you gain experience working with agencies or media buying teams, build your portfolio, and aim for bigger clients. 

Start Your Own Agency/ Move to a Bigger Role

As a final step, with the help of the expertise in media buying that you have gathered so far, you can start your marketing agency and become your own boss. It will allow you to work independently. 

If starting a marketing agency is not in your plan, you can consider joining a bigger role in any of the existing agencies or companies and continue growing day by day. 

Additional Tips:

Do Networking 

Do networking with industry experts, employers, and people from the related field. By doing that, you can receive job opportunities in the future and you may take advice and guidelines from them. They can guide you to grow in your career as a media buyer. 

Build Your Brand

For a media buyer, it is important to showcase his skill. Try to build a brand as a media buyer in social media platforms like Facebook, and LinkedIn. You can post about your skills, recent trends, and the challenges that you feel. It helps you get more clients. From the very beginning of my career, I have always tried to build my brand as a media buyer. Hence, I post often on my social media profiles about my work, showcase my skills and share tips and tricks for people who are interested in learning media buying. I have got clients for this visibility as well. So, if you want to build your career as a media buyer, start building your brand today. 

Skills of a Media Buyer

To be a media buyer you have to have certain skills that will make you stand out in the crowd: 

Media savvy

You should be media savvy as in, and have an understanding of media buying, planning, and strategy. Besides, you should follow the recent market trends and updates

Research skills

As a media buyer, you have to do a lot of research in everyday life. You gotta research your client’s business, products, competitors, strengths and weaknesses. Moreover, you have to research about the consumers and their behavior. You should know the market insights and trends. Hence having a good research skill is certainly a must-need. 

Analytical Skills

For making data-driven decisions, a media buyer needs to have analytical skills. A media buyer tends to work with metrics like impressions, clicks, conversions, and ROI. Analysing these numbers helps him to understand what’s working and what’s not. This analytical skill helps him to make different inferences on campaigns and optimize them to get better results. 

Communication Skill

For establishing yourself as a media buyer in the market, you must have a good communication skill. You have to communicate with clients, corporates and employers. Your communication skill will act as a multiplier for you in this field. 

Negotiation Skill

Having a good negotiation skill is definitely a plus point. When you deal with clients about remuneration, your negotiation skill will decide whether you win or lose. Remember this quote,

“You don’t get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate”

Problem-Solving Skill 

The media sector is unpredictable. You will often face various problems while running ads. In this situation, you have to troubleshoot the issue and make various quick decisions to solve the problem. 

Final Words

Now-a-days, a lot of young people are choosing media buying as their profession because of its demand. The media buying industry is rapidly growing hence the demand of media buyers is at the top. If you have the passion and intent to grow your career as a media buyer, look no further. Start gathering knowledge, skills and apply it to the new world. Welcoming you to the world of— Media Buying!