Media Buying
What is media buying? A plain guide for business owners
What a media buyer actually does, how ads are bought on Meta, TikTok and Google, which numbers matter, and how much budget you need to start — for Egypt and the Gulf.
Abdelrahman Afifi Founder & CEO, Ad Holic
What does a media buyer actually do?
A media buyer is responsible for one thing: turning ad spend into results you can count. In practice that is a cycle that never really stops.
- Agree the number. Leads, sales, bookings or messages — and what each one is worth paying for. Without this, nobody can say whether a campaign worked.
- Choose the platforms. Where the people you want already spend their time, and where they are closest to buying.
- Build the campaigns. Audiences, budgets, placements and the structure that lets the platform learn.
- Brief or make the creative. The ad itself does most of the work. A good buyer says what the ad has to do, and judges it by results, not by taste.
- Set up tracking. The Meta Pixel and Conversions API, TikTok's pixel, Google tags and UTM links, so every lead can be traced to the ad that brought it.
- Read the numbers and move the money. Pause what is losing, give more to what is working, and test the next idea.
- Report honestly. Spend, results, cost per result, and what is changing next.
Media buying vs media planning
The two words are often used for the same job. They are different halves of it.
| Media planning | Media buying | |
|---|---|---|
| The question | Where and when should we advertise? | How do we get the most from every pound spent there? |
| When it happens | Before the campaign | Before, during and after |
| Output | A plan: audiences, platforms, budget split, timing | Live campaigns, daily changes, results |
| Measured by | Whether the plan is sound | Cost per result and return on spend |
In a small or mid-sized business, the same person or agency usually does both. That is a good thing: the plan gets corrected by what the buying finds out.
How is advertising bought on Meta, TikTok and Google?
You do not pay a fixed price for an ad slot. Each time someone opens Facebook, scrolls TikTok or searches on Google, the platform runs an auction between every advertiser who wants to reach that person.
- Meta (Facebook and Instagram) says the winner is the ad with the highest total value — a mix of what you are willing to pay, how likely that person is to take the action you asked for, and the quality of the ad.
- Google Ads ranks ads on the bid, the quality of the ad and the page it leads to, and how well it matches the search.
- TikTok works the same way for most campaigns, with an option to reserve reach in advance for big launches.
The practical meaning: a better ad is cheaper. Two businesses with the same budget can pay very different prices for the same customer, because the platform rewards the ad people actually respond to.
Which numbers matter?
| Metric | What it means | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| CPM | Cost per 1,000 times your ad was shown | How expensive the audience is |
| CTR | Click-through rate: clicks ÷ impressions | Whether the ad earns attention |
| CPC | Cost per click | Useful, but easy to game |
| CPL | Cost per lead | The first number tied to a real person |
| Conversion rate | Leads or sales ÷ visits | Whether the page or form does its job |
| ROAS | Revenue ÷ ad spend | The number that pays the bills, when sales can be tracked |
A cheap click that never becomes a customer is not cheap. The number that matters is the one closest to money — cost per qualified lead or cost per sale — and every other metric is there to explain why that number moved.
How much budget do you need to start?
There is no universal figure, but there is a useful rule. Meta's own guidance is that an ad set needs around 50 results in a week to leave its "learning phase", after which delivery becomes steadier and cheaper.
So the minimum sensible weekly budget for one ad set is roughly your expected cost per result × 50. If a lead costs about 100 EGP, that is about 5,000 EGP a week for that ad set to learn properly. Spend much less than that and the campaign may never settle — which is often why small tests "do not work".
If the budget cannot reach that, optimise for an earlier step that happens more often (messages or landing-page views instead of purchases), or run fewer ad sets.
Should you do it yourself or hire someone?
Doing it yourself makes sense when the budget is small, you sell one clear thing, and you have time every week to look at the numbers.
Hiring a media buyer or agency makes sense when:
- you are spending enough that a 20–30% improvement in cost per result pays for the help;
- you need more than one platform, or proper tracking you cannot set up yourself;
- the ads need new creative every month, in the right Arabic for the audience.
Whoever you hire, one rule is not negotiable: the ad accounts, pages and pixel should be in your business's name. You should be able to see everything, and keep it if you stop working together. Our guide to choosing a marketing agency in Egypt lists the other questions to ask.
What is different in Egypt and the Gulf?
- Arabic copy has to be written, not translated. Egyptian and Gulf audiences respond to different words and tone; a single "Arabic" ad for both usually underperforms in each.
- Conversations close sales. Many buyers want to message before they buy, so WhatsApp and Messenger campaigns, and how fast someone answers them, matter as much as the ad.
- Lead forms need a fast call back. A lead called within the hour is worth far more than one called the next day.
- The Gulf costs more to reach. Audiences in Saudi Arabia and the UAE are usually more expensive per thousand impressions than in Egypt, so the same budget buys less reach and the offer has to work harder.
Common questions
Is media buying the same as digital marketing?
No. Digital marketing is the whole job — brand, content, website, social media, ads. Media buying is the paid-advertising part of it.
What is the difference between media buying and boosting a post?
Boosting is a shortcut inside Facebook and Instagram with limited targeting and goals. Media buying uses the full Ads Manager: the right objective, proper tracking, audience testing and budget control.
How long until media buying shows results?
The first one to two weeks mostly buy information. Most campaigns can be judged fairly after three to four weeks of steady spend, provided tracking was set up from day one.
If you want media buying done for you, see how we run it on our media buying page.