Facebook Business Manager -> Let’s Get Down to Business

If you ask me how to use Facebook for business, my first answer would be, “Create a Facebook Business Manager account.”

The Facebook Business Manager is a collaborative platform for those in charge of operating or monitoring Facebook advertising for a business. It was designed to segregate personal user accounts from those of businesses and make professional collaboration much easier. That’s one of the main Facebook tools for business.

Moreover, for digital marketing professionals, this platform facilitates the creation and maintenance of separate accounts for every business for whom they manage Facebook ad campaigns. This means digital marketers can have separate ad accounts for each of their clients.

Likewise, it makes things easier for those managing multiple businesses to separate their campaigns and even assign different roles. So, basically, the Meta Business Manager enables centralized control of multiple user accounts. Through this, the administrator can assign specific permissions and limit access based on the user’s job function.

In this article, we shall discuss everything there is to know about the Facebook Business Manager, how to create a Business Manager account, and more. We shall also discuss how you can link it to the Instagram business manager account and manage your Facebook and Instagram assets from a single dashboard, so let’s get started.

What does a Business Manager do?

Are you still wondering what the Facebook Business Manager is all about? Well, it’s not just you but almost everyone gets confused with the large variety of options this tool has to offer. So, no surprises here!

As Facebook puts it, the Facebook Business Manager is a free tool that allows you to manage Facebook pages, Facebook ad accounts, and those who work on those pages or accounts. So, this tool has three main parts — pages, ad accounts, and people.

Overall, it safeguards the advertiser’s privacy by separating personal profiles from business accounts. This means, your personal account won’t show up in the ad campaigns, giving you the privacy you need. Also, if your Facebook ad account gets banned, it would not impact your personal account or other Facebook ad accounts.

Why you should use the Business Manager

So, how does a business account work?

Let’s assume you run two businesses — one that sells protein bars and another that sells ebooks. For each business, you make use of a separate Facebook business ad account linked to your Facebook Business Manager. In this case, if your protein bar-related account gets banned due to an FDA policy violation, that does not impact the Facebook ad account related to your ebook business. Powerful, right?

Well, there’s more!

Let us now assume that you are not using a Facebook business account, but rather an ad account linked to your Facebook personal account via Facebook Ads Manager for both the above-mentioned businesses. In this case, if your account gets banned and you cannot appeal successfully, then there goes your privilege to advertise on this powerful social media platform.

Facebook Business Manager, therefore, creates a level of separation between your Facebook ad accounts and is a powerful administrative tool. If you manage a handful of start-up businesses, you might not find this tool appealing because there are minimal sales. So, you may be tempted to skip using the Facebook Business Manager, but wait a minute before you do so.

What if one of your businesses performs exceptionally well and you decide to assign a team or a Facebook manager to manage its operations? In this case, your team could definitely use a Business Manager account. Therefore, using a Meta Business Manager to manage individual Facebook ad accounts right from the very beginning makes more sense.

Plus, it becomes easier for those taking Facebook page and Facebook account management. They can work virtually without the need of being monitored as their role would restrict their access. So, basically, it is an interface that connects administrators and others involved in the day-to-day management of Facebook assets.

Moreover, The Facebook Business Manager allows you to pay for ads using different payment methods. You can define a different primary method for each of the ad accounts you add to your Business Manager. Hence, you will have more control over your payments.

How to create a Facebook Business Manager account

The first step to simplifying the management of your Facebook assets is to create a Facebook business account.

To get started, you need to have a personal Facebook account. At this point, it does not matter whether you have or don’t have a Facebook ad account or Facebook pages because you can always create them in the Business Manager.How to set up Facebook Business Manager

1. Navigate to Facebook Business Manager login (business.facebook.com) and click “Create Business” (what used to be “Create Account”).
2. In the pop-up screen, cautiously enter the correct business name because this name will show up when you roll out ads.
3. Next, enter the email address of the business to receive updates pertaining to your Facebook Business Manager.

1. After that, it’s time to enter your business details, such as your address and website.
2. Once you have done that, go to the email address you had earlier entered and confirm the email address to complete the initial setup of your Facebook business account.

Pro Tip: How many business manager accounts can I have?Two accounts. That’s the meximum number you are allowed to create. If you need more than two, ask one of your associates to create the business account and grant you admin access.

Add your Facebook page to the Business Manager

In your Facebook Business Manager, you can add, delete, or assign Facebook pages but only if you are the administrator. Adding a Facebook page literally means claiming its ownership so you can add one only if you own it.

We shall soon figure out the step-by-step process to connect a Facebook page to the Business Manager, but before that let us look into the prerequisites.

Prerequisites to adding a Facebook page to Business Manager

You can add a Facebook page to your Facebook Business Manager only when you have administrative rights to both the accounts. If you don’t have admin rights, you must request administrative access and remain an administrator for a period of seven days.

If someone else has administrative control over this Facebook page in their Business Manager, you would have to wait until that person deleted it. Only then, you would be able to add that Facebook page to your Facebook Business Manager account.

If that particular page is linked to an Instagram business account, you would also have to add this account to your Facebook Business Manager. So, basically, Facebook’s goal is to centralize control over all Facebook and Instagram assets through the Facebook Business Manager.How to add a Facebook page to Business Manager

1. Go to the Business Manager and click on “Business Settings” with the gear icon on the left-side menu.
2. On the menu to the left, under “Accounts”, select “Pages”.
3. Enter the URL of the relevant Facebook page to which you have admin rights and click “Add”.

Pro Tip: Getting a verified badge for your Facebook business page is a very wise move for your business. Read our article to learn more about how to get verified on Facebook.

Add your Facebook ad account to the Business Manager

When it comes to ad accounts, you can do three things — add an existing Facebook ad account to the Business Manager, request access to someone else’s Facebook ad account, or create a new Facebook ad account.

These accounts are neatly classified under the business settings together with each account owner’s name. You can easily filter these accounts based on who owns or manages them, through the four filters — Advertising for Partner, Owned by Partner, Advertised for Self, or Owned by Self.

This way, the Facebook Business Manager makes it easy for you to switch between different business ad accounts. Then, you can simply manage each account using the Facebook Ads Manager.

Prerequisites for adding an existing Facebook ad account to Business Manager

You can only add a Facebook ad account that no one else has already added to their Facebook Business Manager.

This is based on the principle that only one Facebook Business Manager gets to own a Facebook ad account. Others can only request access from the administrator of that particular business ad account.

Pro Tip: How many ad accounts can I have in Business Manager?This limit differs from one Business account to another, so better check your limit using Facebook’s instructions.

How to add an existing Facebook ad account

1. Navigate to Business Settings on the left-hand side panel of the Business Manager.
2. Click on “Ad Accounts” under the “Accounts” tab on the menu to the left.
3. Enter the relevant ad account ID or name and click “Add” to add ad account.

Pro Tip: If you advertise on Facebook, you’ll benefit a lot from taking Facebook’s Blueprint courses and getting the Blueprint certification.

Add your Instagram account to the Facebook Business Manager

If you have an Instagram Business Manager account, you can simply add it to your Facebook Business Manager. This allows you to conveniently manage your marketing activities on both platforms from a single dashboard.

However, you can add a particular Instagram business account only to one Facebook Business Manager account. Also, if the Instagram business account is connected to a Facebook page, you will have to transfer that as well.

How to add an Instagram account to Facebook Business Manager?

If you are the administrator of a Facebook Business Manager account, follow the below listed step-by-step procedure to add an Instagram account to your Facebook Business Manager.

1. Navigate to Business Settings on the left-hand side panel.
2. Click on “Instagram accounts” under the “Accounts” tab.
3. Next, click the “Add” button.

1. Then, insert your Instagram business account login details.
2. Lastly, select the pages and ad accounts that you wish to add and click “Next”.

Once you have added your Instagram business account, you can assign roles to others and limit their access. You can also add other assets from your Instagram business account.

Connect your Meta Pixel to the Business Manager

The Meta Pixel is a snippet of code that can track user behavior on a website, which can help increase conversions. Visitor interactions with your website can be tracked by the Pixel and registered as “events”, which are classified into standard and custom events.

Standard events refer to predefined actions businesses commonly track, such as “Add to Cart”, “Add to Wishlist”, etc. For everything else, you can choose to set up custom events. After all, businesses need to track user interaction and align their marketing strategy accordingly.

Facebook makes this convenient through Meta Pixel and takes it even one step further, allowing businesses to install Meta across multiple domains through the Facebook Business Manager. While the Meta Ads Manager allows advertisers to create only one Pixel per ad account, the Business Manager allows the creation of up to 100 Meta Pixels.

If you wish to learn more about the Meta Pixel, you can read our comprehensive guide: Meta Pixel – What Is It and What Does It Do?

‍To create a Meta Pixel in your Business Manager, you need to have administrative rights. If you fulfill that condition, you can start following the below-mentioned step-by-step procedure to create a Pixel in the Facebook Business Manager.

How to create a Meta Pixel in the Facebook Business Manager?

1. Navigate to the Business Manager and click Business Settings on the left-side menu.
2. Open the “Data Sources” tab and click on “Pixels”.

1. Click the “+ Add” button and name your Pixel.
2. You can also enter your website URL.
3. Click “Continue”.
4. Finally, you can install the Pixel on your website and start tracking events. You should read our article explaining how to set up Meta Pixel events.

Manage your asset groups

Facebook Business Manager makes it convenient to separate asset groups depending on your campaign’s goal. You can even target specific geographical regions using different asset groups.

As a result, businesses can pay individual attention to multiple product lines or business verticals.

Likewise, digital marketers can segregate the assets of each client and manage them from a single dashboard.

Add your team members to Facebook Business Manager

Wondering how to add a user to Facebook Business Manager? We’ll tell you everything you need to know about it but before that let’s understand its implications.

The Facebook Business Manager makes use of a very secure access management system that distinguishes individuals and entities based on their roles. Broadly speaking, it can be divided into admin access and employee access, which is further narrowed down based on task-oriented permissions to specific assets.

For instance, you can assign the Financial Analyst role to your accounts manager, without the fear of your credit card details being tampered with. Another special role — Financial Editor — allows specific individuals to edit credit card information and other advanced finance-related permissions. This keeps data secure because it limits what a user can do, without interfering with their job functions.

With that said, administrators of Facebook Business Managers need to stay alert when it comes to handling requests for access. Scammers might send you a request for access from fake accounts and then create problems. So, make it a point to only add people you know and trust to your business manager accounts.

Also, you can be sure that no one from the Facebook team requests access to your Business Manager. Any such requests would be from scammers and must be denied and immediately reported to Facebook.

How to add a user to Facebook Business Manager

1. Navigate to Business Settings on the left-hand side panel.
2. Select “People” on the menu on the left side of your screen.
3. Now enter the official email address of the person you wish to add.

1. Carefully assign the role to that individual.

1. Grant access to individual assets and use the toggle switch buttons to grant role-based permissions.

1. Finally, click “Invite”.

Share the Business Manager with your partners

In the previous section, we have discussed how you can add team members to your Business Manager account.

Aside from this, you can also grant partners, vendors, or agencies access to your Business Manager. This is very useful when you want a Facebook advertising agency to manage your marketing efforts for you.

In addition, once you add a partner to your Facebook Business Manager, they can manage the permissions for the individuals on their team themselves. Hence, you don’t have to worry about assigning permissions to every media buyer or Facebook manager working with your assets.

How to add a partner to the Facebook Business Manager

1. Go to the Business Manager and click on “Business Settings” on the left-side menu.
2. Under the “Users” tab, select “Partners”.
3. Enter the partner’s name or Facebook Business Manager ID.
4. Click “Add” and select “Give a partner access to your assets”. Alternatively, you can ask a partner to share their assets at this point, if that’s the case.

How to use Facebook Business Manager

Now that you know how to set up the Facebook Business Manager, let us explore some interesting things that you can do on this amazing platform.

Launch ads

You can launch your ads directly through one of the ad accounts on your Facebook Business Manager.

To do this, you need to link one of your existing ad accounts or create one. So, start by clicking on Facebook Ads Manager on the side panel and do the needful. Accordingly, move forward and create a campaign using the green ‘Create’ button on the top-left corner.

You then need to choose your campaign’s objective, which clearly indicates the outcome you desire. Next, you need to name your Facebook ad campaign, set up your target audience, plan the ad placement, and set up the budget and the bids.

With that done, you are all set to launch your Facebook ad campaign! Woohoo!

Want to learn more about running ads and Facebook ad management?Here are some articles that might interest you:

Create audiences

Facebook has over 2.7 billion monthly active users. With this amount of users, Facebook holds great audience targeting opportunities for every advertiser. All you need to do is find the audiences that work best for you.

You can do this in the Facebook Business Manager, by clicking on ‘Audiences’ on the top-left corner. From that section, you can either use your saved audiences, create custom audiences, or even opt to go with lookalike audiences.

Create a product catalog

Product catalogs are a very useful solution for Retargeting.

You can upload a file with all your products and services listed to create this catalog. Follow Facebook’s instructions when doing so.

Then, you can use the catalog to launch dynamic ads. These ads let you show specific products to specific users without having to create tens or hundreds of different product ads.

Here’s a great use case for example:

Imagine that someone visits your website, ads an item to their cart, but doesn’t complete the purchase.

What can you do to encourage them to buy the item?

Target them with a dynamic product ad that will show them the exact product they left in their abandoned cart and remind them to complete the purchase!

Configure ad attribution

Facebook Attribution is a cutting-edge ad measurement tool that tells businesses everything they need to know about the customer journey to make the right business decisions.

You can use it to pinpoint which ads are working for you and divert your ad spend in that direction.

This tool goes beyond tracking user behavior based on cookies and last clicks, which makes it a whole lot more powerful than most tools out there.

However, to use this powerful ad performance measurement tool, you need to have a Facebook Business Manager account so make it a point to create one if you don’t already have it.

Monitor performance with Facebook Analytics

An analysis is always a crucial part of a successful business strategy. That’s the only way you can tell if you’re doing things right.

That’s why the Meta Business Manager lets you analyze both your page and Pixel’s performance.

Regarding your Facebook page, you can monitor user activity, post reactions, shares, and comments, and even discover your top-reacted posts.

However, the Meta Pixel allows you to track visitor activity on your website. For example, you can monitor user activity, traffic sources, bounce rate, and even revenue if you set it up.

Facebook Business Manager support

Over time, Facebook has become a complex marketplace, with a variety of tools that require thorough and clear understanding.

So, if you need Facebook Business Manager help, you can navigate here. This is where you can find help articles and even chat with Meta’s support team via Messenger.

Pro Tip: Facebook Business Manager and Facebook Ads Manager have changed due to Apple’s iOS 14 update. Prepare yourself for these changes.

Conclusion

The Facebook Business Manager is a complete solution for businesses and agencies to manage their Facebook and Instagram assets, without losing control over them.

Also, it lets you get more out of your campaigns through advanced capabilities such as creating and setting up Meta Pixels, various audiences, product catalogs, and more.

You can even use the Attribution tool to measure ad performance across the Facebook platform and make data-driven business decisions.

All of this leaves you with no reason to overlook this powerful Facebook ad management tool that can transform your business.*Contributed to this article: Pooja H.