A Paid Media Manager is hands-on in the ad accounts all day, pacing budgets and swapping creative, and most of their week is manual. They have been pitched the platform that adds another dashboard. The ones who get the call ask what eats the most hours and which channel's numbers they cannot fully trust.
What a Paid Media Manager actually cares about
A Paid Media Manager is measured on channel ROAS, budget pacing, and getting creative live on time. They buy to cut the manual work and to trust the numbers, so time saved that turns into performance wins. Prep around the busywork and the untrusted channel and every answer maps.
Discovery call questions for a Paid Media Manager
Copy the list and cut it to the six or eight that fit the deal. Lead with the question that gets at the number they own, and let the rest earn their place. Each is tagged with the MEDDICC field it fills, so your notes drop straight into the CRM.
- Where does your week actually go: pacing, creative, reporting? (Implicate Pain)
- Which channel's numbers do you trust least, and why? (Metrics)
- Walk me through how budgets get set and adjusted. (Decision Process)
- What is the ROAS target by channel, and which is off? (Metrics)
- How fast can you get new creative live, and what slows it? (Implicate Pain)
- What is the most error-prone manual task in your day? (Implicate Pain)
- What have you tried to automate, and why did it not stick? (Competition)
- If something saved hours and held ROAS, how does it get in? (Decision Process)
- Who signs off: your manager, finance? (Economic Buyer)
- Ninety days in, what tells you this was worth it? (Metrics)
- Would you be the one running it? (Champion)
Do not read the whole list. Pick six, open on where the week goes and the channel they distrust, and let the answers pull the rest. The prompt below tailors these to a real account.
Generate these for your exact account
The list is the floor. The call is won by tying each question to their real accounts and creative cadence, which you get from their ad presence and site. That is the prep you skip mid-account-audit. Hand it to Claude.
You are prepping me for a discovery call with a Paid Media Manager at {{company}} ({{company URL}}).
First, read their website: what they sell, who they sell to, how they go to market, and any public signals about their priorities right now.
Then take the discovery questions below and, for each one, swap the generic blank for something specific to {{company}} and this Paid Media Manager's world. Keep every question mapped to its {{MEDDICC}} field. Cut the list to the 8 that best fit this deal, sequence them broad to specific, and flag the ONE question most likely to surface a real gap I can act on.
Use only what you can read or reasonably infer, and mark anything inferred so I do not assert it as fact on the call.
QUESTIONS:
{{paste the list above}}Generate this for any account
- Discovery call prep skill →The Claude skill that tailors this whole list to a specific account and your framework (MEDDICC, BANT, SPICED).
- Sales discovery questions prompt →The copy-paste prompt version, tailored to the deal in front of you.
Frequently asked questions
What should you ask a Paid Media Manager on a discovery call?
Lead with where their week actually goes and which channel's numbers they trust least. A Paid Media Manager is hands-on and time-starved, so questions about the manual busywork and budget pacing land. Keep it to six or eight and map each answer to a qualification field.
How is a Paid Media Manager different from a Performance Marketer?
A Performance Marketer owns the efficiency strategy and the numbers; a Paid Media Manager is in the accounts executing it every day. The performance conversation is about ROAS and scale; the paid-media conversation is closer to the ground: manual workload, pacing, and getting creative live on time.