If your business wants to run Facebook ads, these need to be run from your brand’s business manager. Think of a business manager (BM) like a suitcase – the place that houses all your Facebook ‘assets’.

Inside your BM should be your organic Facebook and Instagram pages (linked to each other). This is also where you’ll find your ad account, dataset (the new name for the pixel), your domain and your catalog (if relevant). Your BM ‘owns’ these assets.

From within your BM, under Business Settings, you can manage your team members’ access (under Users) and manage your payment methods and settings (under Billing). It’s also the place where you input your company details, manage your 2FA settings and can see a history of actions taken within the BM, alongside a few other bells and whistles. 

The right-hand side panel of your business manager will enable you to manage the assets and the roles

Making sure all your assets are ‘owned’ by the right BM can be a bloomin’ minefield. Facebook doesn’t produce a handbook on this shizzle and many brands I talk to invariably have got themselves into some sort of pickle along the way.

“But our Facebook page has been around for as long as Facebook has, Mel, I’ve no idea if we have a business manager or an ad account.”

Yep, I hear you. In most cases, Facebook will have created a BM for your FB page – it’s just not told you. Sneaky, huh?! Check under Page Management History and see if there is a entry there that says “Claimed ownership of the page”. If so, this is a business manager.

Once you’ve found this, you should be able to sort out the rest of the assets without too much stress. (Still need help? Hit the link at the bottom of this page and book yourself in for a Power Hour).

But why should you bother? You’ve found an agency or freelancer that knows how to run ads and they’ve said they can just create a pixel and an ad account in their agency BM and use that… surely that’s a lot easier isn’t Mel?

Yes, it certainly is. But here’s the thing…

If an agency is running ads, for your business, from an ad account and dataset housed in their business manager….. they own your data.

Just let that sit for a minute.

Let me repeat that…

If the ad account and dataset they’re using for your ads sits in their BM, they own the data it accrues.

Data that your business has paid for.. is not owned by your business.

Should your relationship with that agency or freelancer end, aside from the actual sales and leads that the ads brought in at the time, you will have nothing else to show for your money.

Once ad accounts and datasets are created within a BM, they cannot be transferred. Pages can be moved. Catalogs can be disconnected and reconnected. But ad accounts and datasets are native to the BM in which they were created.

No agency or freelancer will have any need for that data once the contract has ended… but you do. Here’s why…

Facebook and its ads platform is one huge data learning machine. We’re all aware of the algorithm, right? When you run ads, the budget you spend is used to ‘buy data’. Hopefully as you progress and test, that data brings you leads and sales. The more Facebook learns about who you’re trying to reach, the more data your ad account and dataset accrue.

You want your data to all accrue on the same ad account and dataset. There can be some exceptions to this – different arms of the business offering different services to a different audience, for example – but in the main, especially for e-commerce businesses, you want to keep your Facebook data all in the same BM at the very least.

If you use agencies/freelancers to run your ads (and this is a very wise decision, so that you don’t waste money ‘winging it’), you don’t want to start afresh with a new ad account and dataset each time you change provider. If this is the case, Facebook starts the learning all over again. Progress will be slow.

Another point – although I will caveat that I like to think most agencies are honest – is that if your ads are being run from a third-party BM, it’s likely that the agency’s payment card is attached to the account. So, not only do you not own the data the ads are accruing, you’re not directly paying for it either. Now, obviously you can ask for copies of the invoices that sit within the Billing section, but this is not ideal. Best practice is to have your business’s payment card attached to the account, and have eyes on your data and the budget being spent – because all that data is housed within your business’s BM.

Phew! It’s a lot. I know. I get it. And if you’re just starting out with FB ads, it’s not always easy to understand the correct processes.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve started with a client, or done an account audit, and noticed several datasets on their website, invariably owned by a ‘previous agency’.

Or received an enquiry about retrieving an ad account from a third party; or a plea for help as a business just ‘doesn’t know’ where their assets are or who owns them.

Running ads can be hugely beneficial to your business – even more so if your business owns and controls all of its own assets.

Got yourself in a pickle? Not sure if all your assets are where they should be? I can help.

Power Hours are a great way to get my eyes on your assets and check that everything is where it should be. Find the booking link here.

Have questions? Want to chat further? Email me: mel@sociallysound.co.uk

Not run ads at all before? Read this first.