A media buyer's job isn't just building campaigns. There's research, creative, tracking, daily monitoring, reporting and client communication. The right tools won't make you a better media buyer on their own, but they free up time for the parts that need your thinking.
Here's a list of tools we use or see widely used among advertisers, grouped by stage of the work.
Execution and setup
1. Meta Ads Manager
The foundation: building, editing and detailed reporting. Learn its custom columns, breakdowns and saved reports — they save a lot of time.
2. Meta Business Suite and business settings
For managing Pages, ad accounts, permissions and the inbox. Good organization here prevents permission headaches with clients.
Tracking
3. Events Manager
To monitor your pixel and Conversions API and make sure purchases and events are recorded correctly. Most "spending with no results" problems start here.
4. Meta Pixel Helper
An official Chrome extension that shows whether the pixel is working on a page and which events it sends.
Research and inspiration
5. Meta Ad Library
Free, and shows active ads for any Page. Great for studying competitors' angles, offers and formats — and how long an ad has been running (an ad that's been live for months is usually working).
Creative
6. Canva and CapCut
Canva for quick designs in every size, CapCut for editing short video with text and captions. Between them they cover a lot without needing a designer for every small change.
Monitoring and alerts
7. Raqeeb Ads
A tool we built for exactly this: it checks your Meta ad accounts every 30 minutes and alerts you on Telegram or your phone before a balance runs out, and when an account is disabled, an ad is rejected, cost per result spikes, a campaign spends with no results, or a creative fatigues. Plus one dashboard for all accounts and daily and weekly reports.
Reporting and analysis
8. Google Sheets or Excel
Indispensable for quick math and custom reports. Start from our free report template.
9. Raqeeb Ads client reports and Campaign Analyzer
Branded report links that update themselves, ready-made placement, time, audience and creative breakdowns, and 90 days of history with a change log.
10. AI tools (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini)
For writing ad copy variations, summarizing numbers, and as a second opinion on analysis when you give them complete data: Analyze Facebook Ads With AI: A Ready-Made Prompt for ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini.
One more free tool
Our free tools: calculators for break-even ROAS, maximum cost per sale, budget and profit, plus a UTM builder, an ad character counter, an ad sizes guide, and Excel templates for media plans and budget tracking. No sign-up.
Tools by level of work
| Your situation | What's enough |
|---|---|
| Starting out or running one account | Ads Manager, Events Manager, Ad Library, Canva and the free calculators |
| A freelancer with 3–10 clients | All of the above, plus a monitoring and alert tool, automatic client reports and CapCut |
| An agency or team | All of the above, plus a task system, consistent campaign naming and advanced reporting as clients require |
Using the Ad Library smartly
- Search a competitor's Page name and pick the country.
- Check each ad's start date: an ad that's been running for weeks or months is usually working — otherwise it would have been switched off.
- Note recurring angles: price? quality? shipping? customer reviews?
- Note formats: short video? product photos? carousels?
- Log ideas in a file, and don't copy ads word for word — borrow the angle and make your own version.
Habits that save more time than any tool
- Templates: one for the weekly report message, one for onboarding a client, one for campaign naming.
- Saved column presets in Ads Manager: one for sales, one for messages, one for video.
- A fixed optimization slot: an hour a day for analysis and planned edits, instead of opening Ads Manager at random all day.
- An organized creative library: a folder per client with winning ads and why they won.
Tools for client communication
A big chunk of a media buyer's time goes into communication, not Ads Manager:
- One group or channel per client on WhatsApp or Telegram, instead of mixing clients into personal chats.
- A shared folder per client on Google Drive for photos, videos and reports, so files don't get lost in chats.
- Permanent report links the client can open themselves, which cuts down "how are the numbers today?" questions.
- A simple calendar of key dates: offer launches, report days and top-up dates.
Choosing your media buyer tools
- Start from the problem, not the tool: what eats the most time in your week?
- Keep the number of tools down — each one is another thing to maintain.
- For any tool you connect to your ad accounts, check its permissions: does it need edit access, or is read-only enough?
FAQ
What's the most important tool for a new media buyer?
Are paid tools necessary?
Is it safe to connect third-party tools to my ad accounts?
A media buyer running Meta campaigns for clients across Egypt and the Gulf, who built Raqeeb Ads to fix the account-monitoring problems he kept running into himself.