Facebook Ads Manager vs. Business Manager: What’s the Difference?

Using Facebook to build an online presence offers incredible opportunities to interact and attract potential buyers. However, when it comes to managing your online objectives, there is a major difference between Facebook ads manager and Facebook business manager.  

These are two types of accounts with different ways to use Facebook’s platform. In today’s article, let’s review how you can use them to maximize your efforts and improve your Facebook advertising management.

Facebook Business Manager

The purpose of Facebook Business Manager is to help business owners manage and organize their Facebook pages and advertising accounts. It allows you to separate your personal Facebook accounts from your online business.

Facebook Business Manager is a free tool provided by Facebook that allows businesses and agencies to safely manage the following:

• Ad Accounts
• Catalogs
• Pixels
• Business Pages

You do now have to share log in credential to access your business accounts. Instead, you can invite team members and managers directly into the Facebook Business Manager dashboard to assist with your business operations.

AGENCY TOP: If you use Facebook to advertise for clients, you can use Facebook Business Manager to give your team access to client accounts using specific roles.

The best way to understand Facebook Business Manager is to think of it as the “control center” for all your Facebook marketing activity. In addition to having control over your Facebook Ads, you can also find detailed analytics to make data-focused decisions for your business.

However, something to keep in mind is that Facebook Business Manager is a massive tool to understand. If you’re a beginner to Facebook marketing, it’s going to take some time to get used to.

Want a comprehensive understanding of Facebook Business Manager? READ THIS GUIDE

Benefits of Facebook Business Manager

Let’s take a look at some of the benefits of Facebook Business Manager:

• Access Management (for Improved Business Security)

Data security is crucial for any business. With Facebook Business Manager, you get complete control over who access accounts so you can eliminate unauthorized access, misuse, and abuse.

If you go to the “Security Center” you can activate two-factor authentication. This results in a security code being required each time a new device tries to access your Facebook business account. Having this added layer of security allows you to grow your business confidently and securely with Facebook.

• Easily Distribute Roles via User Administration

You can allocate two role levels in Facebook Business Manager:

(1) Basic rights for administrator access and employee access;

(2) Appointing employees as Page Admins, Page Editors, Page Moderators, Advertisers, and Page Analysts (capable of managing individual Facebook pages or advertising accounts). A key thing to managing your ads is knowing How To Block Words And Profanity From Your Facebook Page

These roles operate independently of each other. For example, site administrators do not have to be first-level admins with complete access to all accounts. Always remember, Facebook Business Manager Admins have no restrictions. Which means, they can delete, change roles, and do anything else you are the admin can do.  

• Dividing Work According to Role

Facebook Business Manager makes it easy to allocate roles and divide work amongst your team and employees. You can provide them access to roles that suits their skill levels making their work responsibilities clear and transparent.

• Manage Multiple Pages

The greatest benefit of Facebook Business Manager is that you can manage multiple Facebook business pages. Instead of jumping from page to page to manage each account, the dashboard gives you one central control location to all your linked Facebook pages.

• Easily Collaborate with Agencies

Let’s say you hire an agency to assist with the growth and marketing of your Facebook business page. Just like assigning roles for team members and employees at your business, you can do the same thing when working with an agency.

In this situation, you would grant an agency with permissions only to those who will be providing the work. At any time, you will have the authority to revoke access if needed. This is the process of setting up roles as a “partner”.  

• Upgrades to Facebook Business Manager

Recently, Facebook has been introducing a simpler version of Business Manager so that agencies can create client campaigns quickly and easily.

The new updates to Facebook Business Manager will include:

• Seamless process for agencies to onboard new clients;
• Easier process for agencies to manage client’s historical reports;
• Straightforward assigning of roles and organizing assets for teams.
  

For more updates on Facebook’s new changes, read this.

Facebook Ads Manager

Facebook Ads Manager is your go-to interface for creating, managing, and reviewing your Facebook ads. This is different from Facebook Business Manager since the Ads Manager is dedicated entirely to Facebook advertising.

In this case, Facebook Ads Manager is the command center for all your advertising on the platform. Here are a few of the things you can do:

• Create and run ads on Instagram and Facebook;
• Facebook app install ads
• Target your ideal audience and people most likely to interact, engage, and buy;
• Set your budget;
• Analyze the performance of ads, ad sets, and campaigns;
• View your billing settings, payment history, and payment method.

Benefits of Facebook Ads Manager

You should use Facebook Ads manager if you want to:

• Create multiple ads, ad sets, and advertising campaigns for one or more Facebook business pages;
• Edit or duplicate your ad settings, such as targeting and budget;
• Analyze the results of your advertising campaigns and make data-focused decisions for future ads and marketing campaigns;
• Customize graphs and charts to share with important members of your team or business.

You can create multiple ad accounts which can be linked to the same or different billing accounts. Also, you have the ability to invite advertisers and other team members to these accounts. These roles can be assigned from Facebook Business Manager.

Upgrades to Facebook Ads Manager

Ready for an easy-to-use Facebook Ads Manager?

Facebook just released a new version of the Ad Manager interface which includes:

• Simplified navigation features
• Cleaner overall design
• New campaign management process

The new navigation bar will highlight tools to provide you with greater insight into ad performance and reporting.

Need Help with Facebook Business Manager or Ads Manager?

Both Facebook Business Manager and the Ads Manager offer a complete command center, one for your business and the other for your advertising. If you’re not already utilizing these Facebook features, now is the time to learn.

If you need any help advertising or managing your Facebook accounts, we’re here to help — say hello! We’d love to chat.