How to Add Someone to Facebook Ads Manager

Bringing a team member, agency, or contractor into your Facebook Ads Manager shouldn't feel like you're giving away the keys to the castle. It's a routine, necessary step for growing your marketing efforts, but the process can be confusing if you don't know where to look. This guide is here to help. We'll walk through the exact steps for adding someone to your ad account, explain what the different permission levels actually mean, and show you how to do it all securely through Facebook Business Suite.

Before You Add Anyone: Understanding Roles & Permissions in Facebook Business Suite

First, let's get oriented. You shouldn't be giving out your personal Facebook login to anyone - ever. The whole point of the Facebook Business Suite (formerly Business Manager) is to create a secure, professional environment where you can manage your pages, ad accounts, and pixels - and grant access to others without compromising your own account.

Correctly assigning roles is about more than just security, it’s about clarity and accountability. When everyone has the right level of access, your in-house social media manager can launch campaigns, your analyst can pull reports, and your agency can manage ads, all without stepping on each other's toes or having access to parts of the business they don’t need.

There are two primary ways to grant access to your ad account:

• Adding People: This method is best for individuals who are part of your direct team, like employees or long-term contractors. You add them by email, and they become a user within your company's Business account.
• Adding Partners: This is the standard, professional method for working with external collaborators like marketing agencies or freelance ad specialists who have their own Business Manager account. Instead of adding them as an individual user, you’re basically connecting your two business accounts, allowing them to use their own tools to work on your assets.

We’ll cover both methods in detail, starting with the most common one: adding a person directly.

Method 1: Adding Individuals (Employees, Contractors) Directly to Your Business Account

This is the process you'll use for new hires on your marketing team or dedicated contractors who work closely with your brand. They’ll become a user within your Business Account and you’ll assign them permission to work on specific assets, including your ad account.

Step-by-Step Guide to Adding a New Person

Follow these steps carefully to make sure you assign the right permissions from the start.

1. Go to Your Business Settings

First things first, navigate to the heart of your business operations on Facebook. You can get there by going directly to business.facebook.com/settings. If you have multiple business accounts, make sure you've selected the correct one from the dropdown menu in the top-left corner.

2. Find the "People" Section

On the left-hand navigation menu, under the "Users" category, you'll see an option labeled People. Click on it. This is where you'll see a list of everyone who currently has access to your business account.

3. Click the "Add" Button

Near the top of the "People" list, find the blue "Add" button and click it. This will open a new window prompting you to invite someone new.

4. Enter Their Email Address

This is an important detail: you must enter the email address your team member uses to log into their personal Facebook account. If they give you their fancy work email but their Facebook is linked to their old Gmail account, the invitation won't go through properly. It's always a good idea to confirm which email they use for Facebook before sending the invite.

5. Choose Their User Role (Employee vs. Admin)

Facebook will ask you to assign a Business Account role. You have two choices:

• Employee access (Recommended): This is the default and correct choice for 99% of situations. It means the user can only work on the specific pages and ad accounts that you manually assign to them. They cannot change business settings or add/remove other users.
• Admin access (Use with Caution): This gives the user full control over your entire Business Account. They can add or remove people (including you!), change billing details, delete assets, and take any other high-level action. Only give admin access to trusted business partners or senior managers responsible for operations.

6. Assign Them to Your Ad Account

Here’s the step where many people get tripped up. Inviting someone to your Business Account doesn't automatically give them access to do anything useful. You must now tell Facebook precisely which assets they can work on. After clicking "Next," you'll see a new window with a list of all your assets on the left.

1. Click on Ad Accounts in the left-hand panel.
2. In the middle column, check the box next to the ad account (or accounts) you want them to access.
3. On the right-hand panel, a list of permissions will appear. This is where you set exactly what they can do within that specific ad account.

Next, let's break down what those permissions actually mean.

What Do All These Permissions Mean? A Quick Breakdown

Giving out the right level of ad account permissions is vital. You want to empower your team without creating security risks. Here’s what each option lets a user do:

Partial Access (For most team members)

Most of your team will fall into one of these categories. You can toggle them on individually.

• View Performance: This is a read-only role. It's perfect for stakeholders, executives, or analysts who need to see campaign data and run reports but should absolutely not be touching live campaigns. They can see everything but can't edit anything.
• Manage Campaigns: This is the standard, day-to-day role for an ads manager, social media marketer, or freelancer. A user with this permission can create, edit, and run campaigns, test different ad creatives, and view all performance reports. They cannot, however, change the payment method or manage ad account permissions for others. This is the permission you will likely use most often.
• Manage Creative Hub Mockups: This is a more specialized role for creatives on your team, like copywriters or designers. It allows them to use the Creative Hub tool to design and test ad mockups before they are pushed live into a campaign. They can play with drafts without impacting any active ads.

Full Control (The "Admin" Role for the Ad Account)

This grants total control over a specific ad account, so assign it carefully.

• Manage Ad Account: Someone with "Full Control" can do everything listed in the "Partial Access" section. In addition, they can edit the ad account's payment methods, and they can add other people to the ad account, remove them, or change their permission levels. This should be reserved for a senior marketing manager or the head of an agency you work with very closely.

Once you’ve selected the right permissions, click “Invite.” Your team member will get an email with a link to accept the invitation and join your Business Account.

Method 2: Adding Partners (Agencies, Freelancers) to Your Ad Account

If you're working with an agency, a consultant, or an experienced freelancer, they'll almost certainly have their own Facebook Business Manager. The "Partner" method is the cleanest and most professional way to give them access. It keeps your business assets organized and lets the agency manage your account from their own centralized dashboard, which is more efficient for them and more secure for you.

How to Securely Add a Partner

The process starts in a similar place, but with one key difference: you're going to use their Business ID instead of their personal email.

1. Ask for Their Business ID

Before you start, you'll need the agency or freelancer to provide you with their Business ID number. To find it, they need to go into their own Business Settings, click on "Business Info" at the bottom of the left menu, and copy the ID listed under their business name.

2. Navigate to the "Partners" Section

Once you have their ID, go back to your Business Settings. This time, under the "Users" category, click on Partners.

3. Give a Partner Access to Your Assets

Near the top, click the blue "Add" button. You’ll be given two options. Choose the first one: "Give a partner access to your assets."

4. Enter the Partner Business ID

A new window will appear. Paste the Business Account ID your partner gave you into the field and click "Next."

5. Assign Assets and Permissions

This final step works exactly like it did when adding an individual. You'll see the same screen where you can assign access to different assets.

1. Select Ad Accounts from the list on the left.
2. Check the box for the correct ad account in the middle column.
3. On the right, toggle on the permission level you want to grant them - usually "Manage Campaigns" is what an agency will need to get started.
4. Click "Save Changes."

And that’s it! The partner agency will get a notification and see your ad account appear in their own Business Account, ready to start work.

Troubleshooting Common Issues

Even when you follow the steps, things can sometimes go wrong. Here are a few common hiccups and how to fix them.

• "The invite wasn't received or it expired." - The invitation link sent via email is only valid for 30 days. First, have the person check their spam folder. If it's not there, confirm you used the correct email address linked to their Facebook profile. You can easily click "Resend" in the "People" section of your Business Settings to send a new invite.
• "They joined the business but can't see the ad account." - This almost always means you missed the final, most important step: assigning assets. Go back into Business Settings >, People, click on their name, and click "Assign Assets." Make sure you've selected the correct ad account and assigned them a role there.
• "They also need to post on the Facebook Page." - Correct! To create ads, users usually need access to both the Ad Account and the Facebook Page the ads will run from. When you are assigning assets, simply click on "Pages" in the left panel and assign them a role there (e.g., "Editor") in addition to the Ad Account. It's often helpful to grant access to the Page, Ad Account, and Pixel all at the same time.

Final Thoughts

Whether you're bringing on a new marketing hire or onboarding a freelance specialist, correctly adding users to your Facebook Ads Manager is a foundational step for secure and efficient collaboration. By understanding the difference between adding people versus partners and carefully assigning the right permissions, you can keep your business assets safe while empowering your team to deliver results.

Managing an ad campaign is only one piece of a successful social strategy, keeping your organic content aligned is just as important. For our team's workflow, we use Postbase to plan, schedule, and analyze all of our organic content in one visual calendar. It saves us from jumping between apps and helps us see how our paid and organic efforts support each other, which is a massive help when managing multiple platforms.