How to Add Someone to TikTok Ads Manager

Sharing your TikTok Ads Manager login is a recipe for disaster, yet countless teams still do it. Granting full account access to a freelancer, intern, or new employee just to run a few campaigns is a huge security risk. This guide will show you the right way to add someone to your TikTok Ads Manager, giving them the exact permissions they need - and nothing more.

Good teamwork makes an ad work, but not if everyone is just staring at your ads.

You can’t realistically scale your TikTok advertising by yourself. Running effective campaigns involves multiple skills: copywriting, video editing, data analysis, and overall strategy. No one is an expert at everything. Bringing in team members, freelancers, or an agency allows you to delegate tasks to specialists who can improve your creative, optimize your spend, and find new opportunities for growth.

But collaboration only works if it’s secure and efficient. Without a proper system for granting access, you’re left with two bad options:

• Sharing Passwords: This is a massive security risk. If a team member leaves on bad terms or their account is compromised, your entire ad account - and your connected payment methods - are vulnerable. It also creates a mess when you have to change the password and update everyone again.
• Bottlenecking: If you're the only one with access, every little change has to go through you. Need to update a caption? Wait for the account owner. Need to check performance metrics? Wait for the account owner. This slows everything down and makes it impossible to react quickly to an ad that's either performing brilliantly or failing miserably.

Using the built-in roles and permissions within TikTok Ads Manager solves these problems. It's the professional way to manage your ad account, keeping it secure while empowering your team to do their best work.

Before You Start: Getting TikTok Ads Manager Roles Right

Before you invite anyone, it helps to understand how TikTok organizes permissions. The structure can feel a little confusing at first, but it makes perfect sense once you grasp the core concept: access is managed at two different levels.

Business Center Level vs. Ad Account Level

Think of your TikTok Business Center as the main office building. It’s the central hub that owns all your company's assets, including multiple ad accounts, pixels, and catalogs. People invited to the Business Center can be given keys to the whole building or designated areas within it.

Think of an Ad Account as a specific room inside that office building. It's where the day-to-day advertising work happens. Someone might have a key to the building (they're a member of the Business Center), but they still need to be given a keycard to a specific room (assigned to an Ad Account) to do any work.

This is the most common point of confusion: Just because you’ve added someone to your Business Center does not mean they automatically have access to your ad account. You have to perform two separate steps: invite them to the Business Center, then assign them to one or more ad accounts.

With that in mind, let's look at the specific roles you can assign at each level.

Level 1: Business Center Roles

When you first invite someone, you'll assign them one of two high-level roles inside the Business Center. This determines their ability to manage the "office building" itself.

• Admin: This is the superuser, the building manager with a master key. An Admin can do everything: add or remove other members (including other Admins), add new ad accounts, manage billing settings, and access every asset within the Business Center. You should only grant this level of access to trusted business partners or senior managers who are responsible for overseeing the entire advertising operation.
• Standard: This is the default role for most team members, freelancers, and agency partners. A Standard member cannot manage the Business Center’s settings or its members. Their only power is to work on the specific assets - like ad accounts - that an Admin assigns to them. For 99% of your invitations, this is the role you will use.

Level 2: Ad Account Roles

After inviting someone to the Business Center as a Standard member, your next step is to give them access to a particular "room" - your ad account. Here, you have more granular options to control precisely what they can do.

• Ad Account Admin: This person has full control over the specific ad account they're assigned to. They can create and manage campaigns, view performance data, manage creatives, and assign other members from the Business Center to that ad account. However, they cannot remove the Business Center that owns the account or manage the Business Center’s finances. This role is perfect for a marketing manager or the lead contact at your ad agency.
• Ad Account Operator: This is the role for the "doers" - the people who are actively creating, launching, and optimizing ads every day. An Operator can do everything related to campaigns: create them, edit them, pause them, and check their performance. However, they cannot manage any of the settings for the ad account, like modifying billing details or adding or removing other users.
• Ad Account Analyst: This is a view-only role. An Analyst can see all the campaign data, reports, and insights, but they can’t make any changes. This permission level is ideal for stakeholders, executives, or finance team members who need to monitor spending and performance without the risk of them accidentally changing a live campaign.

The Step-by-Step Guide: How to Add Someone to TikTok Ads Manager

Now that you understand the roles, let’s walk through the exact steps. You’ll need to be an Admin of the Business Center to invite new members.

Step 1: Invite a New Member to Your Business Center

This first sequence gets them inside the main "building."

1. Navigate to the TikTok Business Center and sign in.
2. On the left-hand sidebar, under the "Users" section, click on 'Members'.
3. You'll see a list of current members. In the top left corner, click the blue 'Invite Member' button.
4. A pop-up window will appear. Enter the email address of the person you want to invite. Pro tip: Send the invite to their professional business email, not a personal one, to keep access organized and secure.
5. Under "Access type", choose their Business Center role. As mentioned earlier, select 'Standard access' for almost everyone. Only choose 'Admin access' if this is a business partner or C-level executive who needs ultimate control.
6. Click 'Next'. You will be prompted to assign access to ad accounts, which we cover next. For now, you can just click 'Confirm'. TikTok will send an invitation link to the email you provided, and the user's status will show as "Pending" until they accept it.

Once they accept the invite, they are officially a member of your Business Center but still can't do anything yet. Now, you need to assign them to your ad account.

Step 2: Assign the New Member to an Ad Account

This second sequence gives them a keycard to a specific "room" where the work happens.

1. Go back to the 'Members' page within your Business Center.
2. Find the name of the new member you just invited (their status should now be 'Active').
3. Click on their name. A new tab will open, showing what assets are assigned to them. Click '+ Assign new assets'
4. An 'Assign assets' window will appear with all the assets owned by your Business Center (Ad Accounts, TikTok Accounts, Catalogs, Pixels, etc.). Select Ad Account here.
5. All your Ad Accounts under management in this business center will show up as a selectable list. Select the relevant account(s) you wish for this user to receive access to. You may grant someone access to one or all of the accounts. Each access is managed and can be revoked on an individual basis.
6. Now, you'll need to assign them a role for this specific ad account. Select the access permission appropriate for this person's role.
7. Once you’ve selected the permissions, click the blue 'Assign' button.

And that’s it! The person now has access to your ad account with the exact permissions you granted. They will be able to access it by logging into their own account and switching to your Ad Account via their Business Center portal.

Best Practices for Team Management in Your Ads Manager

Successfully adding a new user is just the start. Following a few simple practices will help you keep your account secure and your team efficient:

• The Principle of Least Privilege: This fancy-sounding term has a simple meaning: only give people the minimum level of access they need to do their job. If a freelancer is only running campaigns, give them Operator access, not Admin. If your boss just wants to see reports, make them an Analyst. This limits potential damage from mistakes or malicious actions.
• Conduct Regular Audits: At least once a quarter, go through the 'Members' list in your Business Center. Do you still work with everyone on that list? Remove access for former employees, old agencies, and completed freelance projects immediately. Keeping a clean user list is one of the most effective security measures you can take.
• Have Clear Communication: Make sure team members understand their roles and responsibilities within the Ads Manager. A brief message explaining why you've given them 'Analyst' or 'Operator' access can prevent confusion and requests for unnecessary permission upgrades.
• Use Asset Groups, if Needed: If you're an agency managing many accounts for a single client (e.g., accounts for different regions), you can use TikTok's "Asset groups" feature. This allows you to bundle several ad accounts and pixels together and assign a user to the whole group in one click, which is much faster than assigning them one by one.

Final Thoughts

Properly adding team members to your TikTok Ads Manager is a fundamental skill for scaling your marketing efforts. By navigating Business Center Roles and Ad Account Permissions correctly, you empower your team to work efficiently and securely, eliminating the messy and dangerous practice of sharing passwords.

Once your ads are bringing new eyes to your profile, managing the flood of comments on your organic TikToks and DMs becomes the next challenge. We learned firsthand how chaotic it is to jump between apps to manage community engagement, which is why we built our unified inbox in Postbase. It brings all your TikTok and other social conversations into one organized stream, so you and your team can collaborate on replies and keep your new audience engaged without missing a single message.