The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Business Manager

Facebook is an important social media marketing and selling platform for a lot of businesses. The sheer number of users on Facebook—2.5 billion monthly users—make it a lucrative platform for businesses.

And, Facebook’s “Business Page” and other features make it easy for businesses to market and sell their products on the platform. It also provides a sophisticated advertising tool with advanced targeting capabilities.

However, for enterprises and agencies that want to manage multiple pages and ad accounts, it becomes a difficult task. That is probably why Facebook came up with the Business Manager tool.

In this post, we will discuss what Facebook Business Manager is and how you can create and set up your account on it.


Ultimate Guide to Facebook Business Manager:


What is Facebook Business Manager and Why Do You Need It?

The short answer is that it is Facebook’s solution for helping businesses manage their marketing and advertising activities on the platform. 

Now, coming to the more detailed explanation.

It is a free tool created by Facebook that lets businesses and agencies manage their Facebook ad accounts, business pages, and pixels from one place. You can see all the activity from your pages and accounts from a single dashboard. This gives you a bird’s eye view of your business’ performance on Facebook.

It also helps you manage your activities better as you can analyse which pages or accounts are not performing well and need a boost. You can also identify ad accounts that are giving a low ROI and discontinue those.

Overall, it is a very useful tool if:

  • You are very active on Facebook and consider it an important marketing platform
  • Have multiple pages and ad accounts that you need to manage
  • You need to share different levels of access with different people

How to Create a Facebook Business Manager Account

To create a Facebook Business Manager account, you need to have your own Facebook account. If you have one, then you’re all set to create your account by following these steps:

  1. Go to this page.
  2. Click on the “Create Account” button.

  1. Fill in the details in the form, including your business name, email, etc.

  1. Click “Next” and another form will appear.
  2. Fill in the details about your business and click on the “Submit” button.

And, your account will be created. 


How to Set Up Facebook Business Manager

After you create your account, there are some essential steps that you need to take before you start using it. You need to add pages, ad accounts, and people to get your Business Manager account working.

Here is a four-step process to get your account up and running.


Step 1 - Add Pages to Your Account

The first step in setting up your account is to add the business pages that you want to manage through that account. 

Please note that you can only add your own business pages to your Business Manager account. Facebook enforces this by only allowing you to add pages for which you are an admin or were an admin for at least seven days. So, if you are not an admin of a page that you want to add, then you need to request access to it.

Also, ensure that the page you want to add is not owned by any other person or business. And, if you have an Instagram account linked to the page, then you should add that to your account as well.

If you’re following all these criteria, then you can go ahead and add a page to your account. Here’s how:

  1. Go to the “Business Settings” page.
  2. Under the “Accounts” tab, select “Pages”.
  3. Click on “Add” and select the “Add a Page” option. 

  1. Enter the page name or URL.

That’s it, the page will be successfully added to your account. Also, note that people who already had access to the page can still manage it.


Step 2 - Add Ad Accounts

The next step is to add your business’ ad accounts to your Facebook Business Manager. The procedure is similar to adding pages and has similar options as well. You can add accounts, request access to accounts, and create an account.

Add an Ad Account

You can use this option only if you own the ad account and are an admin in the Business Manager. When you add an ad account, it permanently moves into the Business Manager and this is irreversible.

Request Access to an Ad Account

If you want to work on an account that is owned by another person, then you can request access to it using this option. When you request access to an ad account that account’s admin can give you access to work on it.

Create a New Ad Account

You can also choose to create a new ad account that will permanently belong to the Business Manager that it was created in.

Now that you know the various options, let’s take a closer look at the process of adding an ad account to your business manager.

  1. Go to the “Business Settings” page.
  2. Under the “Accounts” tab, select “Ad Account”.
  3. Click on “Add” and select the option you want.

  1. If you’re requesting access, then you need to enter that account’s ID.
  2. Follow the prompts and complete the process.

Once you have successfully added accounts, those will remain in your Business Manager, even if you deactivate them later. 


Step 3 - Add People to Manage Your Assets

Now that you have added pages and ad accounts to your Business Manager, you need to add people to manage them. For a large business with numerous accounts and pages, it is difficult for one person to handle everything.

More often than not, you will need different people to manage different accounts or pages. And, you also may want to give people access to specific assets and not your entire Business Manager account. Luckily, Facebook Business Manager takes care of all of these aspects.

But, before we get into preferential access, let’s first take a closer look at the process of adding people to your Business Manager account.

  1. Go to Business Settings.
  2. Click on “People” under the “Users” tab.
  3. Click on “Add”.

  1. Enter the work email of the person who you want to add.

This will add the person to your Business Manager account.


Step 4 - Providing Access to People

Once you have added people to your account, you will be able to see a list of them in the dashboard. 

Here’s the process of assigning assets and tasks to a person:

  1. Click on the person’s name and select the “Assign Assets” option.
  2. Then, select the type of asset.
  3. Choose from the list of tasks and assign the specific tasks that you want a person to perform.
  4. You can also provide them with admin access to let them manage all available tasks.
  5. Choose a role and save changes.

Do this for all the people that you have added and assign tasks to them. Once you are done with this, you can see the list of assets assigned to each person when you click on their name.

Best Practices to Follow When Granting Access to Assets

When you give someone access to your assets, you give them the right to view all the related information and the ability to perform tasks. If the wrong person gets access to your assets, they might get confidential information or make unwanted modifications.

You need to be careful while granting access and should follow certain best practices including:

  • Never accept an access request from a person who you don’t know or recognise.
  • If you ever get a request from a business claiming that it’s Facebook, then deny that request as Facebook never does that. In fact, you should also make sure that you report that business.
  • Don’t accept responsibility from third-party businesses that claim to get your business verified, as only Facebook can do that.
  • Always check the level of request that a person has asked for before granting a request, even if it is from someone you know.
  • Be very careful about whom you give admin access to, as they are allowed to make modifications to your account or asset.

Just follow these best practices and you’re good to go. Also, explore the other options and tabs in your dashboard and familiarise yourself with the tool when you start using it.


Ready to Get Started?

The Facebook Business Manager is an extremely useful tool for businesses that are active on the platform and manage multiple ad accounts or pages. It can help you manage your marketing and advertising activities from a single dashboard.

You can even give limited access to different members of your team, making it much easier to collaborate. If you have not yet tried using Facebook Business Manager, make it a part of your Facebook marketing strategy right now.

About the Author
With over 15 years in content marketing, Werner founded Influencer Marketing Hub in 2016. He successfully grew the platform to attract 5 million monthly visitors, making it a key site for brand marketers globally. His efforts led to the company's acquisition in 2020. Additionally, Werner's expertise has been recognized by major marketing and tech publications, including Forbes, TechCrunch, BBC and Wired.