Running ads is hard. Really hard. And the people who are genuinely good at it are rare. So before you sign a contract with an agency or hand your ad account to a freelancer, let’s talk about your five actual options.
Option 1: Hire a Freelancer
This is probably the worst option on the list. Great freelancers do exist, but they are diamonds in the rough. And here’s the thing. If a freelancer is truly talented, a top brand has already scooped them up and is paying them well to stay. Good freelancers get retained fast. The ones still floating around on freelance marketplaces are usually not the top 1%.
Beyond that, the sheer volume of changes and tests required today means a solo freelancer is going to lack the depth that even a traditional agency can offer.
Option 2: Hire a Traditional Agency
If you’ve worked with a traditional agency before, you already know the pain. Most agencies are just hiring freelancers themselves and charging you a premium on top. There are too many layers. Account executives, media buyers across multiple platforms, creative strategists, content creators. Your brand’s vision gets lost in all of it.
The biggest structural problem is that the cheapest talent is usually the one actually touching your ad account. Senior people are focused on landing new clients, not scaling yours. Most agencies are built to retain clients, not grow them.
That said, there is one case where a traditional agency makes sense. If you’re spending millions per month, you’ll be at the top of their priority list and get their best people. At that scale, it can work really well.
Option 3: Manage Ads Yourself
This is actually the preferred option for any brand spending under $20,000 per month on ads. A well-motivated founder will almost always outperform an agency or freelancer at early stages. You have more skin in the game than anyone else ever will.
Think about it this way. If you’re spending $10,000 a month on ads and paying an agency $3,000 to manage them, that’s 30% of your budget gone to management fees. And running ads at lower spend levels is relatively straightforward. You can handle it.
The $20,000 monthly spend mark tends to be the breaking point for two reasons. First, the time commitment becomes genuinely overwhelming. Second, at that level, small percentage improvements start to mean real money. A 10% efficiency gain on $20K-plus spend is worth paying someone to find.
Option 4: Hire In-House
This is a strong option, but only if you can afford an A player. True top 1% talent will want a significant salary and some skin in the game. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.
On top of the cost, a real A player almost certainly already has a great job. You’ll need to find them and then convince them to leave. And once you do hire them, you still need backup. They’ll take vacation. They’ll get sick. You need a supporting team around them.
From personal experience managing in-house at Barkbox, there was a team of three supporting the ads work, and at peak that team grew to over 10 people. Powerful, but expensive. This option makes the most sense for brands doing $20 million or more per year.
Option 5: Partner With a Top 1% Media Buyer on Performance
This is where the Moonlighters come in. The core idea is simple. What if you could get access to top-tier media buying talent without committing to a $200K-plus salary, without recruitment fees, and with incentives fully aligned because they work on performance?
We built the Moonlighters as a hybrid between a recruitment company and a growth agency. Everyone on our team has a minimum of 7 years of experience on both Facebook and Google ads. Over four years we fielded thousands of applicants, ran 1,800 interviews, and hired 24 growth directors. That’s what top 1% actually looks like in practice.
We only work with brands spending at least $20,000 per month. And the results speak for themselves.
So What Should You Do?
Here’s the simple version. Under $20,000 to $30,000 in monthly ad spend, do it yourself. Drop the freelancers and agencies and take control. The math doesn’t work in your favor otherwise.
Beyond that threshold, the game changes. Small improvements become big dollars, your time is genuinely too valuable to spend in Ads Manager all day, and the right partner can make a serious difference. At that point, the quality of who is managing your account matters enormously. B-level talent at that scale isn’t just a missed opportunity. It’s actively costing you money.
