Adding an Agency/Partner as a User to Your Facebook Ads

Difference between Facebook Ads & Facebook Business Manager Accounts

Before we jump into this topic, it’s important to know some of the terminology and how we use it in this post.

Your Facebook Ads account is connected to your Facebook Business Manager Account. It is just one of many assets within the account.

The Facebook Business Manager Account is where you can control all the assets you have for your business on Facebook (ie Pages, Ad account, Pixels, Catalogs, Custom Conversions, etc). Typically when an agency needs access to your Ad account they will need access to other assets as well.

So this post will go over providing access to various assets within your Facebook Business Manager Account, which is what you will need to do for pretty much any marketing agency you are working with. We may refer to Facebook Ads interchangeably since that is the primary purpose of the post, but technically the guides demonstrate how to provide access to more than just your Facebook Ads account but will also work if that is the only asset they need access to as well.

Methods For Giving Facebook Ad Account Access To An Agency Or Partner

There are four primary ways to give someone access to your Facebook Business Manager/Ads account and the preferred method for you may just depend on what the Agencies preferences are or which option you are the most comfortable with.

Two of them are designed specifically for you to give access to an ad agency, consultant or social media company, or marketing partner.

One is not really a listed method but works for both employees and agencies.

The last option is meant specifically for adding users like employees and your internal team members.

We will go over all five methods but start with our preferred method first.

Methods Specifically for Adding an Agency or Partner to Your Account

Method 1: Adding the Agency as a Partner Using Their Business ID

This is our preferred method. Providing an agency with access to your Facebook Ads is a breeze. However, it typically requires giving access to assets that you wouldn’t typically think of or you may not even know that you have.

If you prefer video, check out this walk-through we provide our clients at Nuwave.

Just change out our Partner Business ID with that of the Agency you are working with. Just ask them if they have one and what assets they need access to. They may differ from what we have listed in this video, but when in doubt, just give them access to all of it. It will save you the trouble of them having to change the settings when they ask for greater access later.

If you prefer to follow along with written instructions, follow these steps to provide the right permissions to your agency partner:

1. Visit Site: https://business.facebook.com
2. Login: Enter your login information if not logged in already.
3. Navigate to Add Partners: Next, click the gear icon in the upper right corner to navigate to your Business Settings, then under Users on the left side of the page, select Partners, then click the blue Add button under Partner to share assets with.
4. Enter their Partner Business ID: Ask the agency for their Partner Business ID, then enter it in the Partner Business ID field and click Next.
5. Set Access Settings: (this may differ depending on what your agency needs)
   • Pages: Select the page for the account, then check the Manage Page option in the Admin Access section at the bottom, as well as View Earnings Insights.
   • Ad Accounts: Select the ad account you want us to view, then check the Manage Ad Account option in the Admin Access section at the bottom.
   • Pixels: Do the same for Pixels as you did for Ad Account.
   • Instagram Accounts: If you use Facebook to run Instagram Ads, go to Instagram Accounts, and check the Instagram account(s) connected to your Ad Account.
   • Custom Conversions: Check any custom conversions you may have setup.
6. Save & Complete: Once your settings are all set. Click the Save Changes button and finally the Done button.

Why do we prefer this method over the other 4 methods?

Easier to setup: It is very easy to add a partner to your account, and it doesn’t require any additional back and forth like the second method requires. This is because the next method requires you to accept a request by the agency to have access privileges.

It is secure: You don’t have to share your password with them to give them access, and you can change or remove them from your Business Account at any time.

Managing Access of Team Members: Agencies typically need to provide multiple team members with various access levels to manage your account. It would be very daunting for you as a client to add all the team members to your account individually and then to have to manage the access levels for each one as time passes. This is why the Partner option exists, so you can just give access once, and they can take care of providing access to their individual team members from there.

Method 2: The Agency Requests Access Using Your Business ID

The second option that some agencies prefer is to get your Facebook Business ID from you, then just send a request to you for all the access privileges they need.

This may be preferred by some because they don’t need to explain all the access settings they need from you. It can be less of a hassle if they don’t have a video walking you through each step on hand.

Since you may not be familiar with how to find your Facebook Business ID, we provided a quick video with two ways you can find it in a snap.

Note: An agency can also send a request for a specific asset, such as your Ads account or Page. These may use a different ID number than your Business ID.

They will also need the Contact Name and Email associated with the account, especially if it differs from your name and email.

There is a second part to this. That is to accept the request they sent you. You will get an email notification from Facebook about this however, you can also see the request in your Facebook Business Settings. This video will show you how to find that and what to do from there.

If you prefer written instructions here you go:

1. Login to your Facebook Business Account
2. If you have more than one, select the Facebook Business Account the Agency needs access to
3. Click the Business Settings button in the top right of the page.
4. On the left panel, scroll down to Business Info and click it
5. You can find the Business ID under the name of the business near the top. It will say Business Manager ID:
6. Copy the number to the right of that and send that to the agency
7. If the email and contact name differs from yours on the Business account, share the name and email address with them as well, because they will need this information to send the request.
8. They will then trigger off a request to access your account
9. Lastly, accept their request. You will receive an email notification about this, but another option is to login to your Facebook Business account and follow these steps
   • Go to Business Settings/Users/Partners.
   • Click on the Partner Account that sent the request
   • Click the Respond to Request button
   • Check all the accounts under each option that says (Requested) next to it.
   • Click Confirm & Review followed by Approve Request

The Method that Works for Both People and Agencies

Method 3: Sharing Your Username and Password

The no-fuss option for giving access to your Facebook Ads/Business account is to simply share your username and password with the marketing agency or consultant.

There are no real steps to doing this you, simply give them the username and password you use for your Facebook Business account, and they use that to access it or they will set up themselves as a user/partner by using your account. It works for both agencies and anyone else, however, it’s not a recommended option.

Why we don’t recommend using this method

Too much access: They have access to your Facebook Account, generally, you have your personal account tied to your business account with the same login, if this is the case, they are able to access more than they really need. They can also change pretty much anything while they are in there since they have ownership access to it all.

Unsecure Transfer of Sensitive Information: Most agencies don’t have a secure method for collecting usernames and passwords. Often clients just email the information which is not a secure way to send credentials. We took the time to build a secure method to transfer information like this, but if there is an option to create or add us as a user, we still advise doing that oversharing credentials for your account.

2-Factor Authentication: If you are using 2FA features on your account, then you will need to send them a code to get into your account, which is a major hassle as the code expires relatively quickly. We have had multiple instances where a client needed to resend a code 3, 4, even 5 times because the code kept expiring before they sent it.

Changes to Your Password: At some point, you will need to change the password for your account. Maybe you entered the wrong password too many times, forgot the password and needed to reset it, or the system forces you to change it every 6 months or so. This means that the agency will need to obtain the new password again every time you change it. This can be a big hassle and an unnecessary barrier if you are needing urgent help.

If you really prefer them to set it all up for you, we recommend you change your password before giving it to them. Then ask for them to create the access they need and let you know when they are done. Then change the password again after that.

The Method that Is Meant for Employees or Individuals Such as Freelancers

Method 4: Invite a Person to Access Your Account

Although this method isn’t designed for agencies, you may have an outside partner that doesn’t have a team or a lot of accounts that they manage, and thus are without a Partner Business Account.

Inside of your Facebook Business Manager account, you can give People access as an employee (They don’t have to be an employee to give them access as one).

Then there is the option to enable Admin privileges for them. These differ because an employee is granted fewer privileges than an Admin. Namely access to manage user permissions, business settings, and financial information.

To give a person access to your account:

1. Login to your Facebook Business Manager account
2. Go to Business Settings/Users/People
3. Click the blue Add button
4. Enter the email address of the user you want to add. This doesn’t even have to be their email associated with an existing Facebook account. It can be a company email if you want.
5. Setup their access level
6. Send the Invite
7. They accept the invite

About the access privileges, you can give them

You can get very granular on what you give them access to. It’s actually the same privileges we go over in the video for Method 1.

You can even give them access to financial details or the ability to edit payment options by showing the Advanced Options and checking the privileges you want them to have.

The employee option is always checked, the other options are just additional privileges you can grant the user.