How to Set Up LinkedIn Business Manager

Ready to get all of your company's LinkedIn assets under one central roof? LinkedIn Business Manager is the platform's official, and frankly overdue, solution for managing multiple pages, ad accounts, and team permissions without the security headaches. This tutorial will walk you through exactly how to set up your accounts, add your team, and connect your assets step by step.

What Exactly Is LinkedIn Business Manager and Why Do You Need It?

If you’ve ever used Meta Business Suite (formerly Facebook Business Manager), the concept will feel familiar. LinkedIn Business Manager is a centralized dashboard designed to help businesses and agencies securely manage their LinkedIn pages, ad accounts, and team members’ access all in one place.

Instead of manually adding individual employees as admins to every single Page or Ad Account - a process that’s messy and a security risk - you can add them to your Business Manager and grant them specific access from there. When someone leaves the company, you just remove them from the Business Manager, and their access to everything is revoked instantly.

So, why is this a big deal? It solves a few major headaches:

• Crystal-Clear Ownership: It separates personal profiles from business assets. The business, not an individual employee, owns the Company Page and Ad Account access. This prevents sticky situations where an ex-employee is the sole admin of your company’s LinkedIn page.
• Streamlined Team Management: Onboarding a new marketing hire? Just add them to Business Manager once and assign permissions. No more logging into multiple ad accounts to grant access.
• Enhanced Security: You can give team members and freelancers the exact level of access they need - and nothing more. The Social Media Manager can get post-scheduling permissions while your PPC specialist gets access to the Ad Account, all without making everyone a full-blown Admin.
• Agency-Friendly Workflow: If you're an agency managing multiple clients, it’s a game-changer. You can manage all client pages and ad accounts from your agency’s Business Manager without having clients share their personal login details.

Before You Begin: What You'll Need

Before you get started, make sure you have a few things ready to make the process smooth. It’ll only take a moment to double-check, and it will prevent you from getting stuck halfway through.

• Your Personal LinkedIn Profile: You can't create or access a Business Manager without one. Everything on LinkedIn is tied back to a personal profile.
• Admin Access to Your LinkedIn Company Page: You must be a Super Admin or Content Admin of the Company Page you want to add.
• Admin Access to Your Ad Accounts: You’ll also need to be an Account Manager, Campaign Manager, or have a higher permission level for any existing ad accounts you want to connect.

Got all that? Great, let's build your new headquarters.

How To Set Up LinkedIn Business Manager: A Step-by-Step Guide

Setting up your account from scratch is straightforward if you follow the right steps. We'll go from creating the account to bringing in all of your pages, ad accounts, and people.

Step 1: Create Your Business Manager Account

First things first, you need to actually create the Business Manager. Navigate to LinkedIn’s Business Solutions page. In the announcement banner or the site navigation, you'll see the option to create a Business Manager account.

1. Go to the Business Manager creation page on LinkedIn.
2. Click the blue “Create account” button.
3. A pop-up window will appear. Here, you'll need to enter three things:
   • Account Name: This should be your company's name. If you're an agency, use your agency name.
   • LinkedIn Page: Start typing your Company Page’s name, and select it from the dropdown. This will be the primary page associated with the account.
   • Your Name &, Business Email: These will likely be pre-filled from your personal profile, but you can change the business email if needed.
4. Click “Create.” And just like that, you have a shiny new LinkedIn Business Manager account.

LinkedIn will drop you right into your new dashboard. It might look a little empty, but we're about to fix that.

Step 2: Connecting Your Company Pages

Your primary Company Page (the one you used during setup) may already be linked. If you manage multiple pages or need to add another, here’s how to do it.

1. From your Business Manager dashboard, look at the left-hand navigation menu and click on “Pages.”
2. Click the blue “Add Page” button in the top right corner.
3. A search box will appear. Start typing the name of the Company Page you want to add. As long as you are already an admin of that page, it will pop up. Select it.
4. Repeat this process for every Company Page you need to manage from this Business Manager.

This tells Business Manager which assets your organization owns or manages. Now let’s do the same for your ad accounts.

Step 3: Connecting Your Ad Accounts

This process is nearly identical to adding pages. Ad accounts are the foundation of any paid campaigns you run on LinkedIn, so getting them connected is important for your marketing performance team.

1. In the left-hand navigation, click on “Ad Accounts.”
2. Click the blue “Add Ad Account” button.
3. You'll get a few options here:
   • Add Ad Account: If a specific person already owns the ad account ID, you can claim it for your business. You’ll need the account ID (a string of numbers).
   • Request Access: Perfect for agencies. You can ask for access to a client’s ad account without "owning" it. You’ll need their account ID.
   • Create New Ad Account: If you're starting from scratch, you can create a brand new account right from this interface.
4. To add an existing account you manage, simply start typing the name of the account or paste the account ID into the search bar. Select it from the list.

Once you’ve linked your page(s) and ad account(s), you've officially connected your assets. Now it’s time to bring in your team.

Step 4: Adding People and Assigning Roles

This is where Business Manager really starts to shine. Adding your team members allows you to manage permissions centrally without giving everyone the keys to the kingdom.

1. In the left-hand navigation, click on “People.”
2. Click the blue “Add People” button.
3. Enter the work email addresses of the team members you want to invite. You can add multiple people at once by separating emails with a comma.
4. Now, you need to assign them a role within Business Manager itself. This initial role defines what they can do at the account level. You have two main choices:
   • Admin: This is a high-level permission. Business Manager admins can add or remove people, connect or disconnect pages and ad accounts, and manage partner relationships. Reserve this for senior marketing leads or company owners.
   • Staff: This is a standard permission. 'Staff' members can't change Business Manager settings at all. They can only see and access the specific pages or ad accounts you grant them permission to. For nearly everyone on your team, ‘Staff’ is the correct and safest choice.
5. After choosing a role, click “Next.”

Step 5: Granting Access to Your Pages and Ad Accounts

Just because you've added someone to your Business Manager doesn't mean they can do anything yet. The final, and arguably most important, step is to assign them to specific assets. This two-part security model ensures no one accidentally gets access to something they shouldn’t.

On this next screen, you’ll see the people you just invited on the left, and a list of your Pages and Ad Accounts on the right.

Giving Page Access:

1. Click on a team member’s name from the list on the left.
2. In the middle column, click on "Pages." This will show a list of all Company Pages connected to your Business Manager.
3. Select the specific page you want this person to have access to.
4. On the right side, a menu of page roles will appear. These roles are the same as LinkedIn's native roles: Super Admin, Content Admin, Curator, or Analyst. Choose the appropriate permission level. For someone managing content, “Content Admin” is usually sufficient.

Giving Ad Account Access:

1. Still with the same team member selected, now click on “Ad Accounts” in the middle column.
2. Select the Ad Account they need to work on.
3. On the far right, choose their ad account role: Account Manager, Campaign Manager, Creative Manager, or Viewer. For someone running campaigns, "Campaign Manager" is a common choice.

Once you've set the permissions, click "Confirm." The team member will receive an email invitation to join your Business Manager. Once they accept, they'll have the exact access you assigned. Repeat this process for each person you invited - Jane from design might only get 'Analyst' access to the Company Page, while David from paid media gets 'Campaign Manager' access to the Ad Account.

Best Practices for a Smooth Operation

With your Business Manager set up, keep these quick tips in mind to keep things tidy and secure long-term.

Add More than One Admin

What happens if your only Business Manager Admin leaves the company? You can get locked out. Always assign Admin privileges to at least two trusted senior team members to avoid this kind of disaster. It’s a simple redundancy that can save you a mountain of stress.

Use Partner Connections for Agencies and Freelancers

If you're an agency, don't just add clients as 'People'. Use the "Partners” section. Your client can give your Business Manager’s ID access, which then allows you to assign your own staff members to their assets. It’s cleaner, more professional, and gives the client full visibility into who has access. Clients are never added to your own team roster, keeping the boundaries clear.

Regularly Audit Your Users and Permissions

Every quarter, take five minutes to review the people in your Business Manager. Has anyone left the company? Did anyone's role change? Removing old users and adjusting permissions keeps your business secure and organized.

Final Thoughts

Setting up your LinkedIn Business Manager is one of those foundational tasks that pays dividends in saved time, better security, and cleaner workflows. By centralizing management of your company's pages, ad accounts, and team access, you’re building a scalable and professional operation on the platform.

Once you've streamlined your LinkedIn operations, the natural next step is bringing that same organization to all your other social accounts. At Postbase, we designed our platform to do just that. We focus on providing a clean, modern tool with a visual planner, unified inbox, and powerful scheduling support for the content formats that matter today - like Reels and Shorts - so you can finally stop jumping between ten different platforms and manage everything in one organized spot.