A must-have for beginners, Meta BM's most comprehensive introductory tutorial

 Nowadays, efficient management of Facebook ads is a mandatory course for advertisers. But advertising placement, content management, and data analysis are all too complex, and many companies don't know how to start. But with the right tools, everything will be much easier.

This guide will take you to a deeper understanding of Meta Business Manager and help you set up and advertise on Facebook.

The article will answer the following questions:

1.How to use BM to centrally manage assets?

2.How to create and set up business combinations?

3.How to use its tools and reporting functions to improve efficiency?

01

Meta Business Manager

Meta has two tools: Meta Business Suite and Meta Business Manager (BM). BM is a free one-stop tool for managing marketing and advertising campaigns, but each tool has its own purpose.

Meta Business Suite： Used for managing Facebook and Instagram content, supporting content creation, publishing, and community interaction, it is a customer-oriented front-end tool. It can access the business combinations set by Meta Business Manager and supports both mobile and desktop use. 

Meta Business Manager： As the main platform, it includes functions such as content management, advertising placement, data analysis, asset organization, and team collaboration. It is the core tool for managing Meta business and serves as the backend of the business. Only supports desktop version.

If you accidentally enter Meta Business Suite but need to access Meta Business Manager, you can switch by following these steps:

1. Click on the help icon in the bottom left corner of the screen.

2. In the pop-up menu, click "Go to Business Manager".

3. You will be redirected to the homepage of Meta Business Manager.

Using the Business Manager platform, business combinations can be created by integrating the company's Facebook page, Instagram account, data, and other things together for easy unified management. It can also determine who has the right to use these resources and give them corresponding permissions.

02

Why build a Meta business portfolio?

If you don't use Meta Business Manager, you won't be able to promote your business on Facebook, or even create business combinations, advertising accounts, directories, and datasets. The most efficient way is to consolidate all Meta assets into a business portfolio and manage them from one place. Why build a business portfolio? The reason is simple:

1. Business and personal separation: The business portfolio includes all business assets, which can help you distinguish between work and Facebook profile. If your homepage is affected by advertising violations (such as in regulated industries), your personal information will not be affected. In addition, you can also manage the homepage, but activities will not be displayed in personal updates.

2. Centralized management: By creating a business portfolio through Meta Business Manager, you can centrally manage all Meta assets of your enterprise, including pages, Instagram accounts, inbox, advertising accounts, directories, and datasets (Meta Pixel).

3. Convenient content management: You can publish content and manage comments uniformly in Meta Business Manager.

4. Efficient collaboration: You can assign roles and permissions to team members so that they have sufficient permissions to complete their work. At the same time, you can maintain strict control over assets, thus simplifying the collaboration process.

5. Advertising placement: You can create and manage advertising campaigns that cover Facebook and Instagram, reaching a wide audience through Meta ad Manager.

6. Data analysis: Through the "Insights" tab, you can view performance data of various activities in the business portfolio and obtain valuable analysis.

7. Store Management: As long as you are in a supported country/region, you can create and manage stores on Facebook and Instagram.

Now that you understand the benefits of building a Meta business portfolio, let's take a look at how to proceed.

03

How to create a Meta business portfolio?

Meta is currently upgrading the Meta Business Manager homepage, so you may see different page versions.

Visit business.facebook.com, click the down arrow below the "Home" in the upper left corner, open the submenu, and then click "Create Business Combination".

Fill in the detailed information of the business combination in the pop-up window, including the company name, your name, and company email, and then click "Create".

On the next page, declare your existing assets, such as a Facebook page or Instagram account, or skip this step and add or create these assets later.

Enter the email addresses of team members, set their permission levels (employee or full access), and add them to the business portfolio. You can assign roles and permissions according to requirements, or you can skip them first and set them later. Permissions can be edited at any time in the "Personnel" section of Meta Business Manager.

Confirm the detailed information and access permissions of the business combination, and click "Confirm" after confirming that there are no errors.

matters needing attention:

If you want to add an existing homepage to your business portfolio, for security reasons, you need to become the administrator of that homepage for at least 7 days.

If the homepage is connected to an Instagram business account, the Instagram account will also be automatically added to the business portfolio.

Now that your Meta business portfolio has been set up, you can start adding more assets and allocating personnel. Next, I will introduce how to add different Meta assets to Meta Business Manager, so that you can manage all content in one centralized location.

1. Add Facebook homepage to the business management platform

Before starting, please ensure that you have administrator privileges on this Facebook page.

Log in to Business Manager and click on the gear icon "Business Settings" in the left menu.

In the "Account" section of the left menu, select "Page".

Enter the name or URL of the Facebook page for which you have administrative privileges, and then click "Add".

Follow the prompts to complete the page addition.

After adding, you can assign roles and permissions to team members (if you have already added them in the "People" section).

Click the "Assign" button in the pop-up window to complete the permission settings.

2. Add Facebook advertising account to the business management platform

Click on 'Business Settings' in the left menu.

In the "Account" section of the left menu, select "Advertising Account".

Enter the ID or name of the advertising account and click "Add".

Attention *:

Only ad accounts that are not associated with other Business Managers can be added. If it is already associated, you need to request access permission.

Each commercial entity can only have one advertising account.

You can manage up to 25 advertising accounts, and switching between different brands will be displayed in the form of a list of advertising account names.

3. Add an Instagram account to the business management platform

Click on 'Business Settings' in the left menu.

In the "Accounts" section, select "Instagram Account".

Click the 'Add' button.

In the pop-up window, click on 'Connect your Instagram account'.

Enter the login information for your Instagram business account.

Select the pages and ad accounts to add, and click 'Finish'.

After adding, you can assign roles to other users and restrict their access. You can return to 'Business Settings' for editing at any time.

Attention *:

Each Facebook business management platform account can only add one Instagram business account.

If the Instagram business account is already connected to the Facebook page, you also need to transfer the page to the business management platform.

4. Connect Meta Pixel to Business Management Platform

Before starting, please ensure that you have created a Meta Pixel or dataset.

In the "Data Sources" section of the left menu, select "Dataset".

Enter the Pixel name, business name, or Pixel ID in the fields at the top, and then click "Add".

After adding, you can grant access to personnel, assign partners, or add more assets in the right section.

Attention *:

The user permission function of Meta Business Manager has been upgraded. When assigning permissions to new users, the toggle button can be used to flexibly set them to meet different responsibilities and needs. At the same time, different roles and permissions can be assigned to each asset to help efficiently manage the team.

04

Understand the Meta Business Manager interface

Familiarity with the Meta Business Manager interface is key to fully utilizing the platform. It provides an overview of business activities and connects various functions and tools, serving as the entry point for managing Meta asset portfolios. The following are the key parts of the interface:

Box 1: These three lines of menus can be expanded to display all tool options in Meta Business Manager.

Box 2: The left menu lists different functions, such as "Ad Manager", "Audience", "Ad Reports", "Ad Account Settings", and "Event Manager". I will provide a detailed introduction to these contents later.

Box 3: The lower left corner of the screen contains help icons, settings icons, notifications, search buttons, and buttons to expand or collapse menus.

Box 4: This displays a personalized overview of your business assets, as well as any notifications, alerts, and new feature information.

1. Advertising Manager:

Here, you can access and manage advertising accounts. If you create a new advertising account, clicking on it will display a screen for creating new Meta ads, managing daily advertising campaigns, and viewing performance data for campaigns, ad groups, and ads. For more information, please refer to our Meta Ads Manager Basic Guide.

2. Audience:

After clicking on 'Audience', you can create and manage the audience for advertising targeting. You can create the following three types of audiences:

Customized audience: Based on customer lists, website or app events, or interactions on Meta platforms.

Similar audience: By matching common characteristics of existing customers, potential customers can be identified.

Saved audience: Audiences that you can create and save for future use.

3. Advertising report

After clicking on 'Advertising Report', you can create and view reports. Name your custom report at the top of the screen and select the desired segmentation and metrics on the right side.

4. Advertising account settings

Here, you can adjust various settings of your advertising account, including page, payment settings, notification settings, and naming templates. You can also manage user roles, set default beneficiaries and payers (which is very important when advertising in the EU).

5. Activity Manager

This section is used to manage website and app events tracked through Meta Pixel. You can configure these events to track user behavior on the website or other landing pages. If you see this screen, click on 'Connect Data' to start setting up Meta Pixel or dataset.

6. Overview of Tools and Reports

Meta Business Manager provides a variety of tools and reports to help you enhance your online brand image. These tools are divided into several categories: managing business, protecting rights, advertising, analysis and reporting, interactive posts, and selling products and services. These sections cover all areas where brand settings can be controlled on Meta.

05

Create your first advertising campaign

Meta provides multiple ways to easily launch advertising campaigns, allowing you to quickly create your first advertisement. Here are the simple steps:

1. Create an advertising campaign from the "Account Overview" tab

On the account overview page, find the green "+Create" button and click it to open the advertising campaign settings window. If the account still needs to complete some steps before starting to advertise, click the blue "Continue>" button to complete these steps first.

2. Create a campaign from the "Campaign" tag

If you are on the "Campaign" page, simply click the green "+Create" button on the page to start creating a new campaign.

Next, the system will ask you to choose whether to use the recommended settings or manual settings, and then click "Continue".

Afterwards, you can follow the guide to set advertising targets, determine the audience, select advertising ideas, and launch the advertisement!

Through the above steps, you have successfully mastered how to create your first advertising campaign using Meta Business Manager. This is just the beginning, the powerful features of Meta Business Manager will bring more possibilities to your advertising campaigns.