How to Hire a Facebook Ads Manager: The Top 5 Skills You Must Look For (2026)
Should you hire an agency to manage Facebook ads or run them yourself? Actually, there is no single answer for all businesses, as each business has its own unique characteristics and needs. As an agency that has managed many ad accounts for businesses at various stages, we want to share the valuable experience we have accumulated, while offering the most sincere and practical advice for each situation. In this article, BlackHatWorld will point out 5 important qualities you should look for when hiring a Facebook ads manager, helping you make the most informed decision based on your business’s current stage of development.
Should you Hire a Facebook Ads Manager for your business?
Before deciding whether to hire an agency or freelancer to manage Facebook ads for your business, it is crucial to clearly understand your business’s current stage and your advertising goals. Not all businesses need to hire a manager from the start, and sometimes running ads yourself can be cost-effective while giving you full control over the marketing budget.
In the case of new, bootstrapped businesses
If your business is starting with a small budget, hiring a professional ad manager may not be the optimal choice. For example, if your marketing budget is $1,000 per month, hiring an agency or freelancer with experience for $500 to $1,000 per month will consume 50% of the budget.
At this level, you may encounter managers with little experience. Of course, you might occasionally find excellent “diamonds in the rough,” but they are usually fully booked or increase their prices very quickly. If you hire someone for $500–$1.000 per month, this will likely be their first time managing a campaign for you, and the advertising results will reflect this experience.
This means that if you spend $500 on management and $500 on actual advertising, the cost per lead will increase significantly. Even with a larger budget, for example, $2,000/month, you still have to spend 25% of the budget on a manager. Therefore, during the initial phase, we usually advise you to manage the ads yourself. This helps save costs and puts the entire budget into direct advertising, thus generating more leads and sales.
Many new businesses often make the mistake of expecting Facebook ads to yield a profit right from the start. In reality, during the early stage, advertising should be viewed as a way to buy data, not to make immediate profits. You need to monitor how the ads bring in traffic, and then evaluate how that traffic converts into leads and sales on the website. Based on this data, you can optimize the conversion rate, improve products/services, and optimize the ad message.
If you run ads for a few weeks without seeing a profit and think that Facebook ads are not effective, the problem most likely lies in the sales funnel or the message being suboptimal, rather than the ads being ineffective.
New business, with investment capital
If your business has received investment and has a larger budget, hiring a skilled agency or freelancer is a reasonable option. The reason is that you have sufficient budget to collaborate with experienced specialists who understand the industry and can help achieve better results from the start.
Despite hiring a manager, you still need to maintain a data purchasing mindset to analyze and improve the campaign. Collaborating with a media buyer helps optimize for cheaper traffic while you focus on improving the funnel, product/service, and increasing the conversion rate.
The business has stabilized
For businesses that already have customers and stable operations, or those that have grown organically but have not run ads yet, hiring an agency is a very reasonable choice. The reasons are: self-managing advertising takes significant time to learn, while an agency has experience for quick deployment, provides consultation on landing pages, and optimizes conversions based on real-world data.
When doing it yourself, you will encounter two learning curves: how to make advertising effective and how to scale when the advertising is already effective. An agency helps you save time and money while scaling ads faster and maintaining efficiency.
4 options you can hire to run Facebook ads
Before diving into the details of the crucial qualities when hiring a Facebook ad manager, we want to briefly review the four types of people or entities you might consider hiring for this position. Understanding each option will help you make a decision that fits your business needs and budget.
Hire an official employee
One of the popular choices is hiring an in-house employee. You can post listings on recruitment platforms like Indeed, Monster.com, or leverage existing relationships to find a suitable person and bring them on as a full-time or part-time employee.
Advantages: When you hire in-house staff, they commit long-term to the business and will understand your processes, products, and company culture. For instance, if you own a spa, the in-house staff will clearly understand each service, each promotion, and how to communicate with target customers.
Disadvantages: New employees sometimes lack in-depth skills in Facebook advertising compared to an agency, especially for complex campaigns or those requiring continuous optimization.
Hiring a Freelancer
Freelancers are contract-based experts who can be billed per project, per hour, or on a monthly retainer.
Advantages: The cost is usually lower than hiring a full-service agency, and there is more flexibility regarding time and scope of work. For example, you can hire a copywriting freelancer to write ad content, or a designer freelancer to create images for a short-term campaign.
Disadvantages: A freelancer’s skills may be more limited, their ability to specialize is lower, and they often do not provide a comprehensive solution like an agency. If you need to implement a synchronized campaign from content, visuals, to budget optimization, a freelancer may not meet all requirements.
Hiring an Agency
An agency is a professional entity, often comprising an entire team: a designer, a copywriter, a project manager, and an advertising expert.
Disadvantage: The cost of hiring an agency is higher than hiring staff or a freelancer, but if your business wants to achieve quick and professional results, this is still a worthwhile investment.
Advantage: With a multi-specialist team, an agency can provide comprehensive solutions, optimizing campaigns from A to Z. For example, when running ads for a cosmetics brand, the agency can manage everything from content strategy, product imagery, data analysis, and budget optimization. If your campaign is still experiencing interruptions, consider rent Facebook ad account service of BlackHatWorld.
BHW Agency provides a reliable, high-quality Facebook ad account rental solution, specializing in running crypto campaigns, delivering high efficiency, and ensuring safety. As a result, businesses can overcome Facebook’s algorithm moderation hurdles, reach the right target audience, and achieve the most cost-effective advertising results.
We are committed to providing customers with high-quality Facebook ad accounts that have good trust, are completely clean, have no debt, and do not violate policies. These accounts have been successfully used in many challenging ad campaigns, including industries such as cosmetics, tobacco, casino, and many other fields, helping businesses deploy ads smoothly and achieve fast results.
DIY
If you are reading this article, you may be considering running the ads for your business yourself.
Pros: You have complete control over every aspect of the campaign and can gain direct experience.
Cons: You need to consider the time and opportunity cost. For example, if you are a dentist and earn $300 per hour, but have to spend time writing content, designing images, managing ads, etc., are you creating value greater than $300/hour? In this case, hiring someone else for only $40–$60/hour might offer better financial benefits and help you focus on your primary professional work.
The top 5 skills you must look for when hiring a Facebook ad account manager
Before you decide to hire a Facebook ad account manager, it is crucial to identify the truly essential skills to ensure your campaign is effective and delivers a high ROI. More than just running ads, a good manager must deeply understand your business, build long-term strategies, create engaging content, and simultaneously optimize profit from the advertising budget.
Deep understanding of your business
A good ad manager does not just know how to run ads but must also have a thorough understanding of your business. For instance, if you own a hair salon, everyone knows it is a place for cutting, dyeing, and styling. But an excellent ad manager will understand the customer’s feelings before and after using the service, their pain points related to pricing, time, service quality, and the overall experience. They need to clearly grasp:
- The ideal customer profile and consumption behavior
- The factors that capture customer interest and drive action
- Detailed products or services and outstanding advantages
- Your differentiators compared to competitors
- Their experience with similar industries or the time they need to deeply understand your business
Strategic mindset and campaign planning
Successful Facebook ad managers do not just run ads but also build a long-term strategy aligned with your business goals. They can:
- Design a long-term Facebook advertising strategy.
- Plan objectives for each campaign, such as brand awareness, lead generation, or conversion
- Align ad content, images, videos, and messaging to match business objectives.
- Optimize each stage of the marketing funnel to increase the conversion rate.
Being a T-shaped Marketer
Facebook ads are just a small part of the overall marketing strategy. A good manager should have in-depth knowledge of:
- Email marketing and customer nurturing campaigns
- Landing pages and websites
- Sales copywriting (content)
- Image and video design
- Branding and brand building
- Conversion funnels
A proficient T-shaped marketer:
- Specializes in Facebook ads but also understands enough about other areas to coordinate effectively
- Recognizes that if a campaign is ineffective, the problem might stem from a poor landing page, weak content, inadequate nurturing emails, unattractive offers, or an unoptimized website
Copywriting and creative skills
The biggest difference between a media buyer and a full-service ads manager lies in the ability to generate creative and write content.
- Media buyer: only runs ads; you must provide the images, videos, and content yourself; the cost is lower.
- Full-service manager: writes content, designs images, creates videos, and proposes campaign ideas from A to Z; the cost is higher, but quality is guaranteed.
When evaluating a full-service ads manager, you should request:
- Samples of content they have written or images and videos they have produced
- Ask them to write sample content for your business to test their ability to convey the sales message
This is crucial because many people know how to run ads but cannot write content that is engaging and converts well.
Cost and profit efficiency
The cost of hiring an agency or freelancer needs to be weighed against the advertising budget and expected profit. For example:
- Agencies usually cost from 1,500 USD to over 5,000 USD per month, depending on the service
- Freelancers can range from 300 USD to 3,000 USD per month.
You should calculate the gross profit versus the management cost and advertising cost to ensure ROI. For example:
The gross profit is 50%, meaning 3,000 USD → you actually lose 1,000 USD (3,000 – 4,000). In this case, you need to adjust the advertising budget or optimize the campaign to make the management cost more reasonable and ensure profitability.
Hiring the right Facebook ad manager can completely transform your campaign’s effectiveness. By focusing on 5 key skills, from deep business understanding to profit optimization, you will ensure the campaign achieves good results, saves budget, and increases ROI. Take the time to evaluate skills, experience, and suitability before signing a contract to ensure your investment is truly worthwhile.
Frequently asked questions
This depends on your business size, budget, and service needs. If you need a comprehensive solution from strategy development, design, copywriting, and continuous optimization, an agency is often the better choice because they have a full team of specialists. Conversely, if your budget is limited or you only need a running ad expert whom you can coordinate with directly, a freelancer may be more suitable and flexible.
You can ask them to provide ad samples, videos, or articles they have previously executed. Additionally, try asking them to write a short ad copy or design a sample campaign idea for your product/service. Through this, you will be able to assess their message delivery ability, creative quality, and suitability for your brand.
💬 Contact now for free consultation from BHW!
- Website: https://vi.blackhatworld.io/
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