Speaker 1: So in today's video, I'm going to discuss how you can become a media buyer and how you can make seriously good money doing it. So you may be wondering what is a media buyer in the first place. So in layman's terms, all a media buyer really is, is the person that places creative on some type of marketing channel. Now there are a lot of marketing channels out there. So that's TV, radio, print, the web, okay, social. Now for me personally, I'm in paid social, right? So I place media, you know, on behalf of Allstate. I manage around five to $10 million worth of ad spin. And my main objective is to get policies, right, or generate leads. And most of the time, you know, as a media buyer, that's going to be your primary objective, but there are going to be times where you run campaigns that are, I would say is upper funnel, which is more brand awareness, but it is definitely going to depend on the company or agency that you work for and what is the overall goal and objective of the campaign. Now again, my bread and butter is paid social. So that's social media ads, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, all of that, but there are other media buyer platforms. So that's paid search, which is like Google ads. And then there's programmatic and display, which is one. So there's a lot of different media buyer platforms that you can get accustomed to. Now I will say the most popular is social media ads. That's what you primarily see, but there are other avenues to get into media buying, even if you're not really into social media. So you may be wondering what are the perks of being a media buyer? So the first thing is you can literally work from anywhere. I have a lot of friends that are digital nomads that run agencies and they can work in Bali, they can work in England, they can work in Texas, Canada, Toronto, it doesn't matter. They pretty much manage all their clients from around the world. As long as they have wifi and a laptop, you can do media buying. So there's a lot of freedom with this job field that I really, really love. So if you do not want to drive to work anymore, media buying is 100% for you. Now another good perk about media buying is that it has a lot of job security. Marketing isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Now I will say people will downsize their marketing budgets, but nine times out of 10, they're not going to get rid of their media buyers because again, people need to generate sales and to generate sales, you need marketing. And if you need marketing, you need people to do it. So media buying is one of those things to where there's always going to be jobs available because it is very much a high value skill that a lot of agencies and brands need. And then especially with a lot of people going to more of an internet-based, web-based type of experience, a lot of money is switching from traditional media buying, I would say, into digital media buying. So that's paid search, paid social, programmatic, and display. And so these are really, really good job fields that everybody is pretty much hiring for right now. So another thing that I really like about media buying is that you get to work on some really cool projects. And so as a media buyer, you really look at the full totality of the funnel. So you really try to help people through their customer journey, through the ads and their creatives. So a lot of times, when I'm sitting down with clients, I ask them like, who's your target audience? Who's your demographic? What do you think will get them to buy? What type of creatives were you running before? And then you start to formulate this strategy to get people to purchase their product. And I think that's super cool. It's kind of like a chess game of cat and mouse, of how can I get customers through the door? How can we scale this business? What creatives are going to work? What creatives are not going to work? There's a lot of testing. There's a lot of stuff that goes into social media advertising that a lot of people don't see. It's a lot more strategy, I would say, than just technical ability. And so I think that's the funnest part about the job, because there's always new projects that are coming up and new campaigns, depending on the product and line of business. So if you don't want to be bored at work, I 100% guarantee you that being a media buyer will keep you on your toes, day in and day out. Okay, so now I'm going to tell you what type of education and skills you need to become a successful media buyer. When it comes to education, it really depends on the job you're going after. Now I will say nine times out of 10, they are going to require you to have some type of four-year degree, and they're probably going to have you be in the fields of business marketing communications. That's probably where they're going to be looking for, or any type of relevant degree. So sometimes that's graphic design as well, right? Or maybe even journalism, right? Because there is copywriting involved sometimes in media buying, if you are creating the creative as well. But those are probably the fields that you're probably going to want to stick to. Now I will say I do have a master's degree in internet marketing from Full Sail University, but you by no means need that level of education. I kind of figured that out halfway through my program, but a four-year degree is going to be fine. Now I will say if you do want to have a leg up, I would recommend getting certain certifications depending on the job posting. So the most important certification really is going to be either the Google search certifications if you want to do search type media buying. So the Google certifications are really good to get. And the Facebook ad media buyer certifications are going to be really, really good for you to get. Other than that, you really don't need any other certifications. That's really all you need from an educational standpoint. Now from a skillset standpoint, you definitely want to learn these social media platforms. So again, going through those certifications will help you understand these platforms like Google, Facebook, Snapchat, Pinterest, all this other stuff. So you definitely want to have a foundation there. And depending on your role, you do want to have some soft skills. So be able to be detailed, communicate clearly, be able to manage projects. There is some project management aspects of this role. Have very good communication skills. All of these things will help you be more of a successful media buyer because on the agency side, you're probably going to be what is called a marketing manager. So where more than likely you'll probably have a graphic designer or some type of copywriter and a content creator that will create all these things for you. And then you place the media and then you talk to a client, kind of, again, like a marketing manager or account manager-esque role. And you're going to have to do the reporting and all this other stuff. And so having those good soft skills are definitely going to help you excel in this role. Now if you're more on the brand side or corporate side, I've seen that they're a little bit more siloed depending on what company you work for, right? So a lot of times you may only be placing the media. There's a person that does the website already. There's a person that creates the copy. There's a person that does the legal to make sure that the creative and copy is legally approved. There's going to be people that do, you know, they call it IOs or insertion orders. So you can actually place the media as contracts. So for a large company, you're probably only going to have to worry about your specific job, you know what I mean? And so you don't need all those skills. So what I'd recommend is look at the job description and then make sure that you tailor your resume to that job description. So now I want to tell you how you can get your first media buyer role, okay? So after you've done your studying and you've got your theory and you're ready to implement, right? I recommend starting at a very small local digital marketing agency. That's where I got my start as a marketing manager. And the only reason I really got the marketing manager role is because I already had, you know, digital marketing and marketing experience as my role as a manager with Verizon. And so the skills transferred extremely well since I had my master's in internet marketing. So all I needed was really a space to test my theories, right? Outside of Verizon. And so I recommend that you do the same. Again, if you're brand new to media buying, then I would look at some junior level roles. In these roles, you can literally learn so much. You know, a senior media buyer will teach you, you know, how to place media on Google, how to place media on Facebook, Instagram, you know, all the popular social media platforms. They'll teach you about copy landing pages, you know, data tracking and analytics. Like there's so many things to learn. So in a junior level role, you know, there's not a lot of pressure for you to do everything correct because you're literally learning. So that is the first place that I recommend that you start. And then once you feel a little bit more comfortable, you know, if you want to make some additional income as you kind of climb the corporate ladder, I recommend taking on your own clients on the side if you have some time, you know, and running like a freelance agency to where you can onboard clients for, you know, 500, 1,000, 2,000, 5,000, right, depending on their ad spin, right? And so this is why I love media buying is because you can make money from your nine to five and also take on clients, right? If you want to and make additional income. So making six figures, you know, in this field really is not super, super hard. It just depends on how much work you want to put in. And a lot of people don't like dealing with clients because sometimes it can be a headache and it can be very, very time consuming. But you can definitely make really, really good money in this field. Now if you have any questions that I didn't cover in this video, make sure that you comment them down below. I will try to answer every single question that I get. Now if you do want to leg up on your competition, I recommend that you check out this video right here, where I teach you how to run TikTok ads.