Head of Media Buying
Head of Media Buying oversees paid traffic acquisition in high-risk verticals: allocating budgets, choosing channels, and managing the team of buyers who bring in target users.
What a Head of Media Buying does
The Head of Media Buying leads a team of media buyers who purchase traffic from ad networks, social platforms, push and native channels, and affiliate partners. The job is to turn budget into profitable users: deposits and bets in betting and gambling, registrations and paying customers in dating and nutra. In high-risk verticals this role is critical, because ad platforms often restrict or block offers, traffic costs rise quickly, and without a systematic approach margins disappear.
Within the company, the role usually reports to the marketing director, CMO, or the head of affiliate/performance. The Head of Media Buying manages several team leads or senior buyers who run individual campaign flows, geos, and channels. They agree the budget plan with finance, permitted traffic sources with the risk team, and attribution models and reporting with analytics.
The role sits between strategy and execution. The Head sets the rules for working with channels, testing, and scaling, and is accountable for the ROI of all media buying. They decide when to exit unprofitable geos and offers, how to split budget across channels, and when to hire or replace team members.
Responsibilities
- Builds the quarterly and monthly traffic buying plan by vertical, geo, and channel, based on target ROI and LTV.
- Allocates budgets across buyers and campaign flows, and reviews them based on results and profitability.
- Oversees testing of new offers, creatives, and audiences, and decides whether to scale or stop them.
- Manages the buying team: sets goals, runs weekly reviews, and coaches and develops team leads.
- Builds relationships with ad networks, SSPs, and affiliate platforms, and negotiates terms and limits.
- Aligns permitted traffic sources, creatives, and copy with the risk team and compliance to avoid account blocks.
- Monitors anti-fraud and traffic quality: bot share, suspicious sources, refunds, and chargebacks.
- Sets up reporting and attribution models with analytics and ensures tracker data matches ad network dashboards.
- Works with finance on budgets, platform payments, cash flow gaps, and revenue forecasts.
- Owns the account reserve and pool of ad accounts so buying does not stop when accounts are banned.
Skills
- Expert understanding of unit economics: CPA, CPL, CPC, ROI, LTV, and the rates and terms for each vertical.
- Ability to manage a team of several team leads and buyers, set goals, and run regular performance reviews.
- Deep knowledge of ad channels: push, native, social, search, programmatic, and affiliate traffic.
- Fast data analysis and decision-making with incomplete statistics and high volatility.
- Understanding of ad platform restrictions for high-risk verticals and experience working with moderation.
- Negotiating with platforms and partners, and managing limits and deal terms.
- Budgeting and prioritization: knowing where to direct money when resources are limited.
- Communicating with finance, risk, product, and CRM, and turning numbers into decisions.
- Understanding of anti-fraud, traffic quality, and signs of unscrupulous sources.
Tools
- Trackers and attribution systems, such as Keitaro or Binom.
- Ad network and DSP accounts, plus SSPs and affiliate platforms for buying traffic.
- Google Sheets and Excel for budgets, summary reports, and forecast models.
- BI tools and dashboards, such as Looker Studio or Power BI.
- Anti-fraud systems and traffic quality verification tools.
- Jira, Notion, or Confluence for processes, hypotheses, and campaign knowledge bases.
- Slack or Telegram for day-to-day communication with the team and partners.
How performance is measured
- ROI and profit margin of media buying overall and by vertical.
- Cost per target action (CPA, CPL, CPD) against plan.
- Volume of managed budget and its execution without overspending.
- Share of successful tests: scaled campaign flows as a share of launched ones.
- Share of traffic passing anti-fraud checks, and refund and chargeback rates.
- Account stability: number of bans and downtime per unit of budget.
- Speed of response to falling performance and time to bring new campaign flows into profit.
By vertical
Betting
In betting, the Head of Media Buying works with player value based on bets and LTV, and accounts for the seasonality of sporting events. It is important to plan buying around major tournaments and to reallocate budget quickly across leagues and geos.
Dating
In dating, the main focus is on registrations and paying subscriptions, and traffic evaluation depends heavily on audience quality and creative moderation speed. The Head often works closely with product and anti-fraud, because user complaints and fake profiles quickly affect channel availability.
Gambling
In gambling (online casino), buying is built around deposits and repeat players, and evaluation models rely on GGR and retention. The Head must ensure compliance with licensing and regulator requirements in each geo and tightly control brand and white-label advertising.
Nutra
In nutra (dietary supplements and health products), the key problem is strict ad platform restrictions on medical claims and creatives. The Head keeps a buffer of accounts, tests wording together with lawyers, and often relies on organic and native traffic.
Levels
Head of / Director
The Head is responsible for all traffic buying across the company or a business line: budget, channels, team, and results. They make strategic decisions about verticals and geos, are accountable to leadership for overall margin, and manage several team leads or buyers.
How to get there
People usually move into the Head of Media Buying role from a media buyer position, having run campaign flows themselves and shown consistent results in one or several verticals. Hands-on experience with trackers, ad accounts, and hypothesis testing matters, as does experience managing budget. The transition often happens through a team lead role, where a person learns to set tasks, run reviews, and be accountable for a team.
To prepare, it helps to study unit economics in several verticals in depth, learn to build forecast models, and understand how ad auctions and moderation work. It is useful to study the rules of ad platforms for high-risk topics, learn anti-fraud, and understand the basics of financial accounting for media buying. People also develop people management and negotiation skills separately.
Growth comes from expanding scope: from a single campaign flow to a whole geo or channel, then to managing a team and a business line's budget. Candidates need their own case studies with figures and should be able to explain how decisions to stop or scale were made.
Next steps: Director of Performance Marketing, Head of Affiliate, VP Marketing, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Head of Growth
FAQ
How is a Head of Media Buying different from a media buyer?
A media buyer purchases traffic and is responsible for specific campaign flows and campaigns. The Head of Media Buying is responsible for buying across the whole company or a business line: they allocate budget, manage the team, and make strategic decisions about channels and verticals.
Which verticals most often need this role?
The role is common in betting, gambling, dating, and nutra, where traffic buying is the main source of customers and requires constant management of block risks. The exact set of verticals depends on the company's business model.
What determines a Head of Media Buying's income?
Income usually depends on the size of the managed budget, the profitability of the business line, the size of the team, and the market the company operates in. Bonus schemes are often tied to ROI and fulfillment of the buying plan.
Is a deep technical education required?
A formal technical degree is usually not required. Practical experience with trackers, data, and ad accounts matters more. Understanding the basics of analytics, SQL, and programmatic principles is useful, but results on campaign flows remain the decisive factor.
What matters most when hiring for this role?
Employers look for proven experience managing budget and results, the ability to build processes, and experience working with a team. Case studies on scaling campaign flows and stopping underperforming areas often carry more weight than diplomas.
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