If you’re planning to start running ads on Facebook, then having a Facebook Business Manager account is a must. A business manager account on Facebook will allow you to manage your pages, permissions, ad accounts, billing methods and other features crucial for success in advertising.
If you’re not familiar with Facebook ads, then the interface may be a little confusing at first. I’ve had a number of clients who clueless about the whole thing and didn’t know where to start. Thankfully, this tutorial will provide a complete step-by-step guide to creating your Business Manager Account and setting up your assets the right way.
What Is Your Facebook Business Manager Account?
First things first. What exactly is the Business Manager account and why do you need it?
The business manager account is a tool that allows you to manage all of your business assets, permissions, data and other sensitive information in one place. You don’t need to download any special app or pay for a new service. Accessing the account is done through your normal browser and it’s entirely free to create.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the features that you can manage in the account.
Structure of a Business Manager Account
User Management & Permissions
When you create the business manager, you’ll be assigned as the admin for the account. You can then proceed to add or remove users whenever you need to and control the amount of permissions they have. This is really handy especially if you are thinking of engaging an advertising agency or freelancers to help run ads.
It’s best practice for business owners to have FULL CONTROL of their Business Manager account. This means that your personal account is set as the admin, instead of letting an external agency set it up for you.
Business Assets
Your account will also allow you to manage settings for the following important assets for your business.
A business can have multiple Facebook pages, users, ad accounts, and pixels etc, so you want to be able to store all of this within your business portfolio.
Later on in this guide we’ll show you how to create these assets and connect them to your account correctly.
How to Create a Facebook Business Manager Account
Login to your personal account on Facebook, this will be the profile of the admin for your business manager. You’ll be able to add and remove other people later on so don’t worry too much about that for now.
💡 Note that you dont have to create a new personal account on Facebook!
Adding this point in because I’ve been asked this by clients several times. In fact Facebook doesn’t recommend that you create more than one account. Using just one account is much easier because you don’t have to login multiple times.
(Don’t worry, when you run ads customers will not be able to see your personal account)
Head over to business.facebook.com/create and follow these steps.
Step 1: Once the page has loaded you should see something like the picture below. Click the “Create Account” button on the top right-hand side.
Step 2: A small window will pop-up and you’ll have to fill up your business name, your own name, and business email address to proceed.
Once done click the Submit button.
Step 3: Next you’ll be asked to enter your business details like country, address, phone number and website. Under the last row, select “promote its own goods or services” if you are intending to use the business manager account for your business, or select the other option “provide services to other businesses” if you are an agency that’s helping other businesses to run their ads. In most cases, the first option should be the right one.
Once done click the Submit button.
Step 4: A confirmation email will be sent to the email address that you specified in the form. When you open the message, click on confirm now.
That’s it! You’ve just created a new Facebook Business Manager account. That wasn’t too hard was it? Now on to connecting your assets to the business!
If you have more than one business and need to segment them out, you can create multiple accounts using the same method.
Just go to http://business.facebook.com/create to create a second Business Manager account. But make sure you connect the right assets to the right business in the next step!
Add a Facebook Business Page
A Facebook Page is basically a place on Facebook where you can showcase your brand & business as well as connect with your customers & followers (similar to an Instagram page).
There are several page types that you can choose from:
Connecting a Facebook Page to your business manager is a requirement before you are able to run ads through that BM.
Once you’ve created a business manager account, you’ll also want to connect pages related with your business. Here you can either decide to create a new page (if you don’t already have one) or to link an existing page to the business manager.
If you haven’t created your Facebook Page, go here to create one: facebook.com/pages/create
Once you’re done with that, here’s how you can add the page to your Facebook Business Manager.
Step 1: Go to your Business Manager dashboard and click on “Add Page”. If you already have multiple Business Manager accounts or added a page before, you may not see the “Add Page” option. In this case you will have to go to Business Settings > Accounts > Pages > Add.
Step 2: Type the name of your Facebook page into the search bar and you should see your page in the results. Select it and then click on “Add Page”. If you are the administrator for the page, this action will be approved automatically. Otherwise you may have to wait for the Business Manager admin to approve before you can proceed.
Step 3: If you have multiple pages that you wish to add to your Business Manager, you can follow the same steps. You will need to add any Facebook Page that you want to run ads from into your Business Manager.
Create Ad Accounts
Next up you want to create an ad account for your business manager, or if you can link an existing ad account if you already have one. There is a limit of a maximum of 5 ad accounts for every business manager. If you wish to create more than one ad account you will first need to start spending up to a certain amount on your first ad account before being allowed to create more.
Step 1: Go to the Business Manager Dashboard and click on Add Ad Account.
Step 2: Enter your ad account details. Make sure you select the correct currency that you wish to make payments in at this point as you won’t be able to change it in the future. Once you are sure, click on “Next”.
Step 3: You will get a prompt from Facebook asking you “who will this ad account be used for”. Since you are running ads for your own business, select the “My Business” option.
Once done, you will have successfully created your first ad account. You can now go ahead to create your ad campaigns and start optimizing them to the moon!
Manage Users & Permissions
If you are a business owner, chances are you won’t be working on your Facebook marketing efforts alone. The Business Manager is designed to effectively allow you to add people to work and collaborate on your Facebook assets.
You may also wish to grant certain individuals higher access then others to your assets. For example, your
Here’s how you can do all that easily.
Step 1: Go to your Business Manager dashboard and click on Business Settings (or the gear icon). Then on the left side bar go to the Users > People and click on “Add”
Step 2: Enter the email address of the individual that you want to add. Then assign a business role to this person (Employee or Admin access). It is recommended to keep admin access for yourself or someone that you trust as they will have full access to the Business settings.
If you click on the “Show Advanced Options”, you can actually assign additional roles to the person (Finance Analyst, Finance Editor, or Developer).
Step 3: Select which Facebook Pages in the Business Manager that you want to assign this team member to. Then select the type of permissions that this team member will have access to.
Once you are ready, click on “Invite” and the person will receive an invitation to be added into your Business Manager in his email. Once they open the email and clicks on the invitation to accept, they can start working on your business assets immediately.
Cancelling Permissions for Users
Once you have granted permission to an individual, you can always revoke it as long as you remain the admin for the Business Manager. If you sent the invite to the wrong email or one of your team member leaves your company then you may have to revoke their access. You can also adjust the level of permissions each user has.
- In the same business settings page, click on the person that you wish to remove or change access permissions
- To remove the person, click on “Remove” or the trash icon to remove them from your Business Manager
And that’s it! If you’ve followed the steps you should be looking at a new Facebook Business Manager account that you can start to run ads from. Don’t forget to add in your payment information in the Business settings tab in order to get your ad campaigns up and running.