Media Buying Agency in Egypt or an In-House Media Buyer?

Ads were working, then they weren't. Whoever was running them (a nephew, a freelancer, the social media person doing it on the side) can't explain why. That's usually the week an Egyptian business owner starts asking whether to hire a proper media buyer or hand the whole thing to an agency.

Neither answer is always right. An in-house media buyer gives you someone who lives inside your business every day. A good agency gives you a team with experience across many accounts, plus creative and strategy that one person rarely has. The deciding factors are your monthly ad spend, how much fresh creative you need, and whether anyone on your side can manage and judge the work. If you're leaning toward outside help, here's how our paid ads and media buying service works.

Here's what this covers:

• What you're really hiring for
• The real cost of an in-house media buyer
• What a media buying agency costs
• Where in-house wins
• Where an agency wins
• The hybrid setup most growing brands end up with
• Whichever you choose, keep control of your accounts
• How to decide this month

What you're really hiring for

Media buying isn't just pressing buttons in Ads Manager. Done properly, it covers planning the budget across platforms, setting up tracking, building campaigns, testing ads, reading results, briefing new creative and reporting. If you're fuzzy on what that involves, start with what media buying is.

Plenty of people can run ads. Far fewer can keep the creative fresh, connect results to actual sales, and tell you straight when something isn't working. That's the person, or team, you're looking for.

The real cost of an in-house media buyer

Salary is the obvious part. Salary surveys for Egypt put most media buyers between roughly 6,500 and 24,000 EGP a month, and people with real experience on big budgets ask for more, especially in Cairo. A junior will cost less, but you'll be paying them to learn on your money.

Then come the hidden costs:

• Tools: reporting dashboards, design apps, maybe a tracking tool.
• Training: platforms change constantly. Meta, TikTok and Google all reshuffle features every year.
• Creative: one media buyer can't shoot, edit and design. You'll still need someone for the ads themselves.
• Management time: someone has to set goals, review results and push back. If nobody senior understands ads, it's hard to know whether the person is doing well.
• Turnover: good media buyers get offers. When they leave, the knowledge often leaves with them.

So the real cost of an in-house buyer is the salary plus all of that, which usually lands well above the number on the contract.

What a media buying agency costs

Agencies in Egypt price in a few common ways:

• Flat monthly management fee: commonly from around 8,000 EGP for a small account to 30,000 EGP or more for larger, multi-platform work.
• Percentage of ad spend: often somewhere in the 10% to 20% range, sometimes with a minimum fee.
• Packages that bundle management with content, design or video.

Freelancers usually charge less than agencies, sometimes a few thousand pounds a month, though the depth of the work varies a lot.

Ad spend is always on top. And so is VAT on what you pay Meta, TikTok or Google. For a fuller picture of what each service costs, see how much a marketing agency costs in Egypt.

When you compare quotes, look at what's included. A cheap fee that covers "campaign setup and a monthly report" isn't the same as a higher fee that includes strategy, testing, weekly optimization and new ad creative.

Where in-house wins

An in-house media buyer is part of your business. They hear what the sales team says about lead quality. They know when stock is running low on a product, when a branch is busy, when the offer changes. They can react the same day without a brief or a meeting.

In-house also makes sense when ad spend is large and steady. A real-estate developer or e-commerce store spending hundreds of thousands of pounds a month on ads often wants dedicated people whose only job is that account.

And if you have someone senior who understands performance marketing, they can manage an in-house buyer properly. That's the condition people skip.

Where an agency wins

A good agency has seen many accounts. When CPMs jump in Ramadan, they've seen it before. When Meta changes how Advantage+ campaigns work, they've already tested it on other accounts. That breadth is hard for one person to match.

Agencies also bring a team: a strategist, a media buyer, designers, video editors, sometimes a full production crew. Ads live or die on creative, and having the people who make the ads sit next to the people who run them saves a lot of back-and-forth. When we plan a campaign at HOK, the shoot and the media plan are designed together, so the videos come out in the formats and lengths the campaigns need.

And an agency is easier to change. If it's not working, you end a contract. Letting go of an employee in Egypt is slower and harder.

The downside: an agency splits its attention across clients. You need clear goals, regular check-ins and someone on your side who reads the reports.

The hybrid setup most growing brands end up with

Many businesses don't choose one or the other. A common middle ground:

• The agency handles strategy, campaign builds, creative production and monthly planning.
• An in-house marketing person handles daily checks, lead follow-up, WhatsApp coordination with sales, and internal reporting.

This works well for clinics, schools, real-estate brokers and e-commerce brands in the 20,000 to 200,000 EGP monthly spend range. The in-house person learns from the agency, and the business keeps knowledge inside even if the agency changes.

Whichever you choose, keep control of your accounts

This matters more than the agency-versus-in-house question. Your business should own:

• Your Meta Business portfolio (what used to be called Business Manager), your Facebook page and Instagram account.
• Your ad accounts on Meta, TikTok and Google.
• Your Meta Pixel, TikTok Pixel and Google conversion tracking.
• Your payment method.

The agency or employee should be added as a partner or user with the access they need. Too many Egyptian businesses have lost years of ad data because a freelancer or agency set everything up under their own name and walked away with it.

How to decide this month

Ask yourself three questions. How much are you spending on ads each month, and will that grow? Do you have the creative (videos, designs) to feed the ads, or do you need that too? And is there someone on your team who can manage and judge a media buyer?

If spend is modest, creative is a gap, and nobody internal can manage the work, an agency is usually the better start. If spend is big and steady and you have strong marketing leadership, in-house makes sense, often with outside help for creative. Before you sign anything, read up on how pricing works in Instagram ads cost in Egypt so you can judge proposals properly.

If you'd like to talk through your setup, see how we work on our paid ads page or contact us.