Get AI Media Buyer: category guide

What the category is

A media buyer is the person who turns a marketing budget into ads that run. An AI media buyer is software that takes on the hands-on part of that job. It prepares the ad, attaches the image or video, sets out the budget and brings the result to a person for a decision.

The term is used loosely. Some products that carry it are dashboards with suggestions, and others are creative generators. Here it means something narrower: software you can brief in plain words, that returns a finished draft, and that does not spend until someone approves.

What you hand over, and what comes back

The exchange is simple. You hand over a short brief. A draft comes back. You approve it or send it back with a comment.

What goes in

• An offer: one product, service or event, with a price or a clear next step.
• A monthly limit: the ceiling on ad spending for one calendar month.
• An approver: the person whose yes is required.
• Creative: photos, clips and brand notes, or permission for the software to make its own.

What comes out

• An ad draft with the creative, the wording and the destination.
• A budget line giving the amount per day and the month totals that follow from it.
• A status that shows the draft is waiting for review.

Where the category stops

An AI media buyer does not know your margins or your stock. Which product deserves this month's budget is a call for the owner.

The role also ends where the ad ends. Someone clicks, lands on your page and asks a question or books a slot. Answering, selling and delivering are the business's work, and a weak landing page will undo a good ad whichever buyer drafted it.

It is also not the same as an experienced specialist. Human media buyers on larger accounts spend their time on audience strategy, bidding choices and measurement across several ad platforms. Products in this category vary in how much of that they attempt. Read each vendor's published scope literally and treat everything outside it as a question.

Who should get one

The clearest fit is a business that knows ads would help but has nobody to build them: a pottery studio with empty weekday classes, a bike shop before spring, a clinic opening a second location. The owner can describe the offer in a sentence and spare a modest monthly amount. What is missing is the hour it takes to turn that into an ad.

It suits less well a business with no clear offer yet, an account already run by a specialist who is doing good work, or an advertiser whose main spend sits on a platform the product does not cover.

A quick self-test: can you finish the sentence 'I want more people to ...' with one thing, name a monthly figure you would not miss, and say who gives the yes? Three answers mean you are ready to look at products. A blank means the next step is the brief, not a demo.

What getting one involves

The steps mirror a hire.

• Define the role. Write a short job description.
• Interview. Put the same questions to each option. See how to choose.
• Onboard. Complete the four-item checklist.
• Settle the money rules. Decide how budget approval will work before the first draft.
• Run a first month, then review. Follow the first-month plan.

Where Link AI fits

Our pick for the media buyer seat is Link AI by Linkme. Media buyer is on Linkme's list of the roles it covers, and the page walks through the order we look for. The Meta ad arrives as a draft, with a per-day budget and the amount each month's spend rises by. The draft waits as 'Needs review'. A person approves it, and the launch on Meta comes last. Link AI produces images and videos too, which lightens the creative item on your list.

Meta is the only ad platform published for it, and we claim no other ad platforms, audience controls or bidding features. To watch the role being filled for your own business, pick one real offer, then book a demo to try Link AI. What to confirm on that call is listed in the profile.

Connected entries

Questions & answers