As the network itself puts it, Facebook Business Manager allows you to “manage ad accounts, Pages, and the people who work on them—all in one place.”
It’s a one-stop shop for all of your Facebook marketing and advertising activities, with controlled multi-user access to additional resources like your Instagram account and product catalogs.
It’s also a central place to track your efforts, with detailed reports and visualization that show you how your ads are performing.
If you’ve been putting off setting up Facebook Business Manager because you weren’t quite sure how it works, we’ve got good news. In just seven simple steps, this tutorial will teach you how to do everything from setting up your account to placing your first ad. Let’s dive in!
How to set up Facebook Business Manager
Step 1. Create a Facebook Business Manager account
Whether you’ve already created a Facebook page or you’ve only got a personal Facebook profile, the first stage of setting up Business Manager is to create an account.
1. Go to business.Facebook.com and click the big blue Create Account button at the top left of the screen.
2. Enter your business name in the pop-up box, then click Continue.
3. Enter your name and the business email address you want to use to manage your Facebook Business Manager account, then click Finish.
Step 2. Add your Facebook business page(s)
In this step, you have a couple of different choices. You can add an existing Facebook business page or create a new one. If you manage Facebook pages for clients or other businesses, you can also request access to someone else’s page.
That last distinction is important. While you can use Business Manager to manage clients’ Facebook pages and ad accounts, it’s important to use the Request Access option rather than the Add Page option. If you add your client’s pages and ad accounts to your Business Manager, they’ll have limited access to their own business assets—a sure way to cause tension in your business relationship.
For the purposes of this post, we’ll assume you’re managing your own assets, rather than acting as an agency, so we won’t get into the Request Access process. But be sure to keep this difference in mind.
We have a guide that shows you how to set up a Facebook business page, so we’ll assume you already have one to add to Business Manager. If you haven’t created your page yet, hop on over to that post and come back here to add your page to Facebook Business Manager when you’re done.
To add your Facebook page to Facebook Business Manager:
1. From the Business Manager dashboard, click Add Page, then, in the pop-up box, click Add Page again.
2. Start typing the name of your Facebook business page in the text box. Your business page name should autocomplete below, so you can just click on it. Then click Add Page. Assuming you have administrator access to the page you’re trying to add, your request will be approved automatically.
3. If you have more than one Facebook page associated with your business, add the remaining pages by following the same steps.
Step 3. Add your Facebook ad account
Note that once you add your ad account to Facebook Business Manager, you can’t remove it, so it’s especially important only to add accounts you own. To access a client account, click Request Access instead.
If you’re already using Facebook ads, you can link your existing ad account as follows:
1. From the Business Manager dashboard, click Add Ad Account, then Add Ad Account again, and then enter the ad account ID, which you can find in Ads Manager.
If you don’t already have a Facebook ads account, here’s how to set one up.
1. From the Business Manager dashboard, click Add Ad Account, then Create Account.
2. Enter your account details, then click Create Ad Account.
Each business can create one ad account right from the start. Once you are actively spending money in your first ad account, you can add up to four more—but you cannot host more than five ad accounts within one Business Manager.
Step 4: Add people to help you manage your Facebook assets
Keeping on top of your Facebook marketing can be a big job, and you may not want to do it alone. Facebook Business Manager allows you to add team members so you can have a whole group of people working on your Facebook business page and ad campaigns. Here’s how to set up your team.
1. From your Business Manager dashboard, click the gear icon (Business Settings) at the top of the page.
2. Click the People and Assets tab, then choose People in the left-hand column. This will bring up a list of all the people who have access to your Facebook Business Manager.
For now, you’ll just see yourself listed, but we’re about to change that. Click Add to start adding team members.
3. In the pop-up box, enter the business email addresses of team members you want to add. This might include employees, freelance contractors, or business partners, but in this step you are specifically adding individuals, rather than an agency or another business (you can do that in the next step).
You can decide whether to…
