Facebook Business Manager: Mastery Guide

Facebook Business Manager Mastery Guide For 2020

At K6, we think that the Facebook business manager was probably one of Facebook’s best inventions. Why? Having a dashboard with all you need to track, optimize and create your Facebook ads in one place is a true heaven for marketers.

We sometimes forget how lucky we are to have such an amazing platform at our disposal. It is complex, but having a chance to leverage Facebook ads with such a tool as the Facebook business manager makes a huge difference.

There have been tons of Facebook updates related to the business manager but so far they were all good. From Facebook custom audiences to automated rules, we can say that we never lack the resources to create & launch extremely successful Facebook ads.

This is what the Facebook business manager looked like when it launched:

Facebook Business Manager old

The picture is a bit blurry, but it’s the best we could find.

Essentially, you can manage your ads, see analytics, change your targeting, manage permissions to Facebook pages, and much more.

What can you do with Facebook’s business manager?

Facebook says that the “Business Manager helps advertisers integrate Facebook marketing efforts across their business and with external partners. You can use this free platform to run and track your ads, manage assets such as your Pages and ad accounts, and add an agency or marketing partner to help manage your business.”

To sum it up, you can pretty much do any tasks you need to run Facebook ads right on the platform. It’s also a good way to separate your personal life and your business career.

If you are still wondering if you should switch from your personal profile to a business manager, here’s a bullet list of situations where you should switch:

  • Your business has a marketing team
  • You manage assets such as Facebook pages, Instagram accounts, pixels, ad accounts and so on.
  • You are working with a marketing agency but want to keep control of your assets.
  • You want to control access and permissions your employees or third parties have.
  • You want to grow your business with better analytics and Facebook ads options
  • You feel the need to make sure all your assets are safe and secure.

The main takeaway here, if you run Facebook ads, you need a business manager, period.

#1 – Structuring your business manager

So how do we make sure everything is set?

There are six assets you can share the permission to:

  • Facebook pages
  • Ad accounts
  • Business asset groups: this is if you want to share Facebook pages and ad accounts together.
  • Instagram accounts
  • Apps
  • Pixel
Business manager

Furthermore, you can either share these assets with “people” or “partners” which means other business managers.

The permissions you give have different levels. For example, someone can be able to post on your Facebook page without having access to the settings of the page, managing the users and so on.

Here are a few best practices:

  • Never give someone more access than they need to.
  • Make sure the owner of all the assets is the most likely to remain in the business (the founder)
  • Make sure you look at the administrative right level you give to make sure the people have exactly what they need.

Hot tip: if you want someone to create ads in your Facebook ad account, you also need to give them access to your Facebook page.

#2 – Should you get a Facebook business manager?

The reality is that if you have more than one person managing a Facebook page, Facebook ad account, app or Instagram profile then you should definitely have a business manager.

Facebook becoming a very important part of a lot of businesses, you definitely don’t want to lose your Facebook page because you didn’t control the permissions.

If you have an agency running your ads, a team of employees that require access to certain assets or even just want to gain more control over your assets, then go create an account already.

Here’s a list of advantages and disadvantages of using the business manager:

Advantages

  • You can keep your business safe by managing permissions
  • Separate business and personal life
  • You can collaborate with third parties (agencies or employees)
  • You can create Facebook custom audiences
  • You can run ads and create a lot of different ad versions
  • You can manage multiple assets within one platform

Disadvantages

  • It requires to learn more about how to use the platform (we hope to help)

As you can see, there aren’t a lot of disadvantages. If we were in 2016, I would have added that there are a lot of bugs but Facebook keeps improving their platform so I can’t complain.

Ain't no complaint

#3 – How to add, claim or request access to Facebook assets?

If you want to add an asset to your business manager, you need to either “add, claim or request”.

Facebook business manager

Each function is the same for all assets. Meaning that for Facebook ad accounts, you still have the same three options.

  • Add: this works if the Facebook page, ad account, app or Instagram account is already owned by you personally. You can take off the asset at any time but it has to be done from your business manager.
  • Request: this works if you want to gain access to the page of someone else, a client for instance. You have to request it and they have to go and approve your request.
  • Create: this is obviously if you want to create a new asset from scratch

Hot tip: if you have a marketing agency, you can ask your client to add you to partners so they can start sharing their assets with you. It’s faster if they have multiple Facebook pages and ad accounts to share.

#4 – Is there a Facebook ad account limit?

Unfortunately, there is a limit of ad accounts for every business manager depending on how much you spent, how many ad accounts you have, and so on.

As you spend more and create more ad accounts, you can ask Facebook’s support to increase your limit but they might not give you that opportunity.

It’s why I truly recommend you don’t create useless ad accounts because you do have a limit.

To create a new ad account, you just have to go in “business settings” and select “ad account”.

Then you just need to find the “Add” button and select “create new ad account”.

Facebook business manager

You also have a limit of Facebook pixels, so if you don’t need more than don’t create them. Again, you can ask Facebook to increase your limit but they still can say no.

#5 – How can you add users?

This might seem like the simplest task to do but a lot of people struggle to do this step.

First, you need to have someone who owns the business manager. We truly recommend it be the founder or the CEO because employees come and go.

Let me show you step by step how to do it:

Step #1 – Go in the business manager under business settings and select “people” then click “Add”.

Facebook business manager

Step #2 – Enter the email address or addresses of the people you want to add and select “employee access” or “admin access”.

The admin access will literally give them control over everything, so 99% of the time you’ll only need to select employee access.

There are also two more options: a finance analyst and finance editor. These are good options if you want your accountant to have access to such details to better do their job.

Facebook business manager

Step #3 – Choose the asset you want to add, select it and choose the permission you want to give.

Add User Facebook Ads

This is the best way to give people permissions on your Facebook assets, but now I’ll show you how you can give access to your assets to another business manager, called “partners”.

#6 – How to give access to partners?

Partners are essentially other business managers. As a marketing agency, it’s our favourite way of getting access to our client’s Facebook assets.

Why do use this? Because in our business manager, we already have all our employees and having our client add us as partners and give our Facebook business manager access to assets, we can then choose to which employees have the access to the assets.

Here’s how to do it…

Step #1 – Go in the business manager under business settings and select “partners” then click “Add”.

At this stage, you’ll either be able to request access to another business manager or give access to another business manager. We’ll focus on giving access.

Facebook business manager partner

Step #2 – Enter the “business ID” of the partner you want to add. Where do you find this ID? We usually find at the end of the URL after you’ve logged in the business manager in question.

Facebook business manager

Step #3 – Go under the “partner” in question and share the assets you want to share.

Facebook business manager

A few extra tips…

#1 – Can I create multiple business manager accounts?

Currently, we haven’t found a way to have multiple business managers unless you have someone else create one and give you access to it.

#2 – Can you have multiple pixels and share them?

It used to be a nightmare sharing pixels. It was in fact so risky I wouldn’t have recommended it to anyone, but now Facebook made the process way better.

When it comes to creating multiple Facebook pixels, you can, but you do have a limit.

So how do you share your pixels? You can share your catalogues, pixels, offline events and custom conversions to partner or a person.

Here’s how you do it step-by-step…

Step #1 – Go in the business manager under business settings and select “data sources” then click on the section you want.

Facebook Data Sources

Step #2 – Select which data source you want to share and click on either “add people” or “add partners”.

You can then choose to give them one of these options:

  • Standard access: “View and analyze pixel performance in Facebook Analytics” from Facebook.
  • Admin access: “Create, edit and view pixels. Add or remove pixel events. Create pixel audiences and conversion ads. Add, edit and remove pixel users” from Facebook.

What’s next?

When it comes to Facebook business managers, you can’t go wrong by creating one. Yes, it can be complex to use at first, but the benefits clearly outweigh its complexity.

I’ve been using the business manager since it’s inception and I really think that every year Facebook does an amazing job at making it way better than the previous year.

If you think of anything we should improve in this article, let us know! We’re always looking to get better.

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