Hiring a marketer? Run these three checks first.
Hey, it's Cem from Lead Generation Pipeline.
Any marketer's job should be to get you more customers. That's the bottom line.
Write down the one job: more sales appointments from Meta. Measure it by cost per sales appointment. That's ad spend divided by the sales appointments you got.
When you're not getting the results you want and you're looking to hire, the real question is who to hire and what to check for.
In-house: one business, many jobs
An in-house marketer works only for you every single day. They learn your customers, your offers and how you talk.
They also get pulled into flyers, posts and website fixes. Meta lead campaigns need someone on the numbers daily.
This is a good fit when you need lots of general marketing done.
Specialist: one job, many accounts
A Meta specialist runs lead campaigns for many owners. They see what's working right now across many accounts.
It's a good fit when the gap is customers and you want it done right away.
Any hire can fail. That's why you check first.
Give it enough leads
A handful of leads proves nothing. That's too small of a sample to judge any channel.
Agree upfront how many leads you'll judge it on. Same rule for an in-house hire or a specialist. Write that number down before day one.
1. Show me your live ads
Ask any candidate which ad they're running right now. Then open Meta's Ad Library. It's free and public. Type the name of the business they ran ads for and look at how long each ad has been running. No live ad to show you tells you something.
2. Ask which number they judge
Ask them: how will you know this is working for me? The right answer is cost per sales appointment, or customer acquisition cost, everything spent per customer. The wrong answer is clicks, cost per click or brand awareness. These are all vanity metrics.
3. Ask what happens after the lead
Most hires stop at the ad. The sale happens later. Ask who calls the lead back and how fast. A lead called back late often books with someone else. If they don't care about your speed to lead, they don't care about you making money either. Ask if every lead is yours. Some sellers send the same lead to several businesses to make their margin.
Whichever you pick, run the same three checks: live ads, the right number, and what happens after.
Watch the video: If I Hired a Marketer in 2026, I'd Do This
Talk later, Cem
PS. Go watch my long-form videos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@cemunlubiz/videos