How to Hire a Performance Media Buyer in Egypt (2026 Guide)

Most Egyptian ecommerce brands hire a media buyer on a referral and a good-looking Instagram feed. Neither is evidence. I run paid media for 40+ brands across Egypt and the Gulf, and the accounts I've seen burned were rarely burned by fraud. They were burned because nobody agreed on standards up front.

Here are the standards.

1. Demand evidence, not reports

Anyone can put ROAS 7.4 on a slide. The only acceptable proof is a screenshot taken from inside Meta Ads Manager or a Shopify dashboard, with the date range, the currency, and the spend column visible next to the revenue column.

When you see one, check three things:

• Duration. One good week is noise. Ask for three consecutive months.
• Spend level. A high ROAS on 5,000 EGP tells you nothing if you plan to spend 150,000.
• Spread. If every screenshot is one brand, that's luck, not a system.

2. Interrogate their measurement

This is the line between a professional and a button-pusher. Ask these verbatim:

1. What attribution window do you optimise on, and why?
2. Is the Conversions API installed, or is this Pixel-only?
3. How do you handle event deduplication between browser and server?
4. How do you reconcile Meta's order count against the store's?
5. If Meta reports 100 purchases and Shopify reports 60, what do you do?

In the Egyptian market that gap regularly reaches 40%. A buyer who can't explain it is spending your money blind.

3. Get them talking about net profit

ROAS is an incomplete metric. It divides revenue by ad spend and ignores COGS, shipping, return rate, collection fees, and salaries.

In cash-on-delivery ecommerce this matters enormously: a brand can post a 3.0 ROAS and still lose money, because a quarter of orders come back and shipping is paid in both directions. If the buyer never asks about your product cost, your cancellation rate, or your average order value, they aren't managing a budget. They're spending one.

4. What it should cost

The working rule in the Egyptian market is 10–15% of monthly ad spend. In practice that maps to three tiers:

• 5,000–10,000 EGP/month — a junior freelancer who uploads and manages campaigns you brief.
• 15,000–40,000 EGP/month — an experienced buyer handling structure, tracking, creative direction, and weekly written reporting.
• 50,000 EGP/month and up — a specialist delivering a full system: 40–60 original creatives a month, server-side tracking, and a live dashboard.

The test is arithmetic rather than a fixed figure: if one percent of your monthly ad spend is worth more than the fee, the top tier pays for itself. Below that line you will get further with a generalist.

5. Settle ownership before the first payment

Put this in writing:

• The ad account, Pixel, catalogue, and page sit under your Business Manager. The buyer gets access, not ownership.
• Historical data stays with you if the engagement ends.
• A fixed number of original creatives produced per month.
• A written weekly report: spend, revenue, orders, next week's decision.
• A 90-day evaluation period before any final judgement.

Red flags

• Promises a specific ROAS before seeing the account or the product.
• Never asks about COGS, delivery rate, or stock levels.
• Refuses to open the ad account on a call.
• Runs 30 accounts alone.
• Talks about targeting 'hacks' more than about creative.

The short version

The right buyer isn't the one with the best pitch. It's the one asking you the hardest questions. If the first call is mostly them interrogating your margins, stock, and cancellation rate, that's a better signal than any portfolio.