Understand business portfolios and ad accounts

Ten minutes to check, twenty if you need a new ad account.

Before you start#

• Your personal Facebook login — the one you use for Business Suite.
• If you manage clients' accounts too, a minute to decide which accounts Madder should never see.

1. The hierarchy#

• Person — your Facebook profile.
• Business portfolio (formerly Business Manager) — the company. It owns the assets and decides who may touch them.
• Assets inside the portfolio — ad accounts (spend and campaigns), datasets (the pixel and app events), Pages and Instagram accounts (where ads appear and where lead forms live), apps.

A pixel created through an ad account — which is how Madder creates it — belongs to that ad account's portfolio. A person can be in several portfolios, and an agency's portfolio can be granted partner access to a client's ad account without owning it.

2. Personal vs business ad accounts#

An ad account created straight from a personal profile has no portfolio. It works, but you cannot share it cleanly, verify a domain for it, or grant partner access. Madder can connect it, but for anything beyond a test, move it into a portfolio: Business settings → Accounts → Ad accounts → Add → Add an ad account, enter the ID.

3. Create a portfolio if you have none#

As of September 2026: business.facebook.com → Create a business portfolio, enter the business name, your name and work email, then Submit. Add your Page under Accounts → Pages so lead forms and ads have somewhere to appear.

4. Create a fresh ad account in the portfolio#

Business settings → Accounts → Ad accounts → Add → Create a new ad account. Name it, and set currency and time zone — these cannot be changed later, so pick the ones you report in. Choose My business as the purpose, then assign yourself Manage ad account (admin). Add a payment method before the first launch (Billing and payment holds).

5. Keep a client's business out of Madder#

Madder connects every ad account the Meta login you use can list. So the control is at connect time:

1. On Home click Connect → Meta. Meta's window shows what Madder asks for (read and manage ads, business management).
2. As of September 2026 the window lets you narrow the grant: choose Edit access (or the ad-account list, when shown) and untick the client accounts you administer. Only the ticked ones reach Madder.
3. If the window offers no list, connect with a Meta user that holds roles only in your own portfolio — invite yourself as a second person from your own portfolio's People page — and use that login for Madder.

Home lists the connected accounts; disconnect any you did not want.

If it doesn't work#

• "No ad accounts found" after connecting — the login has no advertiser role on any account; a portfolio admin must assign you under People → Assign assets.
• The right account is missing — it belongs to a portfolio your login is not in, or it was unticked during connect; reconnect and tick it.
• A client's account appeared — disconnect it on Home, then reconnect following step 5.
• Currency wrong — cannot be changed; create a new ad account with the right one and connect that.