When you begin working with an advertising agency, you will need to provide them with access to your Meta (Facebook) assets that will be components of an advertising campaign. These typically include a Facebook page and an Instagram account. In order to advertise on Meta, you must also have an Ad Account. Optionally this may be part of a Meta Business Manager. All of these components are set up separately.
An ideal typical hierarchy may look like this:
— Personal Facebook Account
— BUSINESS MANAGER)
— Ad Account
— Facebook Page
— Instagram Account
— Pixels/Datasets
— etc.
In order to have a Business Manager, Facebook Page, Instagram Account, or an Ad Account, you must first have a personal Facebook account.
Best Practises
- If you don’t have your own personal Facebook account, you should create one, even if only for the purpose of running your business.
- All Meta assets belonging to your business should principally be in your name.
- You should not ask, or allow, employees, agencies, or service providers to create assets for your business under their personal (or Business Manager) Facebook accounts. Otherwise, you may lose access to those assets if you ever part ways with such an employee or agency. In some cases, such as Ad Accounts, formal ownership cannot be transferred to another user or business. In such cases, you may just lose your asset and its history.
- You should always create assets under your Business Manager, and then provide access to other employees or agencies if and when needed from within that Business Manager, with only the minimal level access required. This makes things much simpler if you ever have to part ways with an employee.
- For similar reasons, we also recommend that you only assign access to business assets using company email addresses, rather than personal email addresses. Employees can add their business email as a secondary address to their Facebook accounts.
- Though optional, keeping your assets under a Business Manager allows for better organisation and allows all user permissions to be managed in one location, rather than separately in each asset.
Sharing Access using Leadsie
Meta’s administration tools can be inconsistent and confusing. Many ad agencies will invite you to share assets with them from within their Meta Business Manager. In such cases, you will receive emails and/or Facebook notifications to approve the requests. Typically, there will be separate emails for each asset type.
If you’re lucky, you’ll have chosen an an agency that uses Leadsie, a third-party tool for simplifying the permissions-sharing process. Your agency will provide you with a link that will help you to more easily assign permissions. If you don’t already have the required assets (like a Business Account, Ad Account, or Page), this link will also help you to set them up.
The Leadsie link will look something like this:
When you click on the link, you will see a page that looks something like this:
You’ll be prompted to login to your Facebook account, after which you will be presented with a list of requested assets and selectors:
If you already have an Ad Account, Facebook Page, Instagram Account, or other Meta assets, you will be able to select them from the pull-down menus. If you don’t yet have them, Leadsie will help you create them. Once you select them and click “Confirm Access,” the Business Manager of the agency who sent the Leadsie link will be given partial access to your assets.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Your assets will only show up under the pull-down menus if you personally already have administrative access to them. For instance, if your Facebook Page was created by another Facebook user who has not yet added you as a manager or owner, you will first need to be added to those assets by the employee.
Possible Difficulties
Meta’s systems are not always logical and sometimes change. Because there are many possible variables involved, you may consider asking your agency to screen share with you while you perform these steps, in case confusing questions arise. Just some of the difficulties you may encounter are:
- Assets that were poorly configured in the past and need to be corrected or updated.
- Absent or insufficient permissions to your own assets.
- Meta security protocols that prevent, or delay, access to some functions.
- Assets that have been marked as closed or disabled for past billing issues or suspicious activity.
- Unresolved past billing issues.
- Assets that are unverified or have otherwise been flagged as suspicious or inappropriate by Meta.
Leadsie works well for many clients, but is dependent on the original assets being set up correctly, and fully accessible by the user. If necessary, your agency may need to help guide you to recover or reconfigure your assets before they can be shared. A reputable agency will help you to ensure that you own your own assets, and that they are managed responsibly.