Choosing a paid ads specialist is an expensive decision to get wrong. The loss is not just the fee, it is the ad budget spent badly and the months that pass before you notice. And the usual ways of choosing are weak: screenshots of big numbers, a friend's recommendation, the lowest price.

A screenshot that says "8x return" tells you nothing. Is that after returns? Is it for a product with a 70% margin or 15%? Did it last a month or two days? The questions below reveal how someone thinks, and that is what you are actually buying.

Questions about thinking

1. "Which metric will you judge my campaigns by?"

Weak answer: "cost per result" or "ROAS" with no detail. A strong answer starts with questions about your business. What is your margin? Do you sell cash on delivery? What is your delivery rate? A good specialist does not pick a metric before understanding the economics.

2. "Tell me about a campaign you stopped even though its numbers looked good"

This separates people who run a platform from people who run an outcome. On an Egyptian cash-on-delivery store, I stopped campaigns that had the cheapest cost per order in the account, because courier data showed their rejection rate was double the average. A cheap order that is never delivered is the most expensive order in the account.

3. "What do you need from me to succeed?"

If the answer is "account access and the budget", that is a bad sign. A serious specialist will ask for actual sales data, delivery or close rates, margins, and access to the sales team if there is one.

4. "When will you tell me the problem is not the ads?"

A slow landing page, an uncompetitive offer, a sales team that does not call leads back. An honest specialist says so, even when it means you need to spend less.

Technical questions

5. "How will you make sure tracking is right?"

Ask specifically about the Conversions API and deduplication. Since the iOS privacy changes, the pixel alone loses a large share of signals. If the specialist does not raise it on their own, that is a weakness. See the Pixel and Conversions API guide.

6. "Which event will you optimise campaigns for?"

A campaign learns from the event you choose. Optimise for "add to cart" and you get people who add to cart. Optimise for "install" and you get people who install and delete. The question shows whether the specialist understands how the algorithm learns.

7. "How will you test creative?"

A strong answer includes a method: how many ads, what is being tested (angle, format, the first three seconds), and when an ad is judged.

Questions about the relationship

8. "Whose name are the ad accounts in?"

The ad accounts, Business Manager and pixel must be yours, with the specialist given access only. Any other arrangement makes you a hostage.

9. "What do your reports look like?"

Ask for a sample. A good report is short and speaks business: what we spent, what we sold, what we earned, what changes next. A report full of reach, impressions and CTR with no link to sales hides more than it shows.

10. "How often will we talk, and who will actually work on my account?"

Especially with agencies, the person who sells to you may not be the one running your account. With a freelance media buyer, the person you hire is the person doing the work.

11. "What can you not guarantee?"

A specialist who guarantees a specific number before seeing your data either does not understand the work or is selling a promise. An honest answer describes a clear process, not a guaranteed result.

12. "What happens in the first 30 days?"

There should be a plan: account and tracking review, defining the metric, a test plan, then the first decisions. If the answer is "we launch and see", you are paying for their experiment.

The fastest warning signs

  • Talks about platforms more than about your business.
  • Does not ask about numbers, or dodges when you ask about past clients' results after returns.
  • Sees a bigger budget as the fix for everything.
  • A portfolio of screenshots with no context: no duration, product type or margin.

How to judge the answers

Do not look for perfect answers, look for a pattern. Do they tie everything to a business outcome? Do they ask more than they promise? Do they admit what they do not know? The specialist who asks about your margin in the first call will probably protect your budget better than the one who dazzles you with screenshots.

For more on the role itself, read what a media buyer does, and if you are weighing an independent specialist against an agency, read freelancer vs agency.