Meta access: the eight places it goes wrong, and the fix for each.

Our Business ID, the only thing you ever paste for partner access:

1. Partner access did not work

Follow Step 2 first. If you are on this page, one of the four situations below is what you saw.

You gave us the Page, but we still cannot see the ad account

This is the most common one. Partner access is per asset, and the Page and the ad account are separate assets. Nothing is wrong with what you did; it is just half done.

1. Go to business.facebook.com → Business Settings → Users → Partners and click The Growth Bully.
2. Click Share assets (on some accounts Assign assets).
3. In the left column choose Ad accounts. Tick your ad account. Under permissions choose Manage campaigns.
4. Still in the same window, click Pixels (or Datasets) and tick yours with View and manage. Then Instagram accounts with Create ads.
5. Click Save changes and reply "Done" to your onboarding email.

How you know it worked. Open The Growth Bully under Partners: the right-hand panel lists the ad account, the Page, the pixel and Instagram, each with the permission you chose.

If it fails. If the ad account is not in the list to tick, read the next two fixes. Otherwise send a screenshot of the Partners page with the whole window visible.

The partner shows "No business asset" or the ad account is not in the list

Two causes. Either your business has no ad account yet, or the ad account exists but is not connected to this Business Manager (it lives on a personal profile or in someone else's portfolio).

1. Go to Business Settings → Accounts → Ad accounts. If the list is empty, you have no ad account in this portfolio. Do not create one yet: currency and time zone lock permanently at creation, so we do it together. Follow the ad account setup guide, or add stephen@thegrowthbully.com as Admin under Users → People and we create it inside your portfolio.
2. If an ad account is listed but greyed, click it and check People. If your own name is missing, click Add people, add yourself with Manage ad account, then go back to Partners and try again.
3. If the ad account you use is not in this list at all, it belongs to a different portfolio or a personal profile. Go to Ad accounts → Add → Request access to an ad account if another business owns it, or Add an ad account if it is on your own personal profile. Claiming from another business needs their admin to approve.
4. Refresh the Partners page and assign the account as above.

How you know it worked. The ad account appears under Business Settings → Ad accounts with your business name as owner, and it is tickable in the partner window.

If it fails. Send us the ad account ID (the number after act= in the Ads Manager address bar) and a screenshot of the Ad accounts page. Do not create a second account to get around it.

"Unable to assign" when you tick an asset

The asset is in your portfolio but not connected at the business level, so the partner window cannot hand it over.

1. Go to Business Settings → Accounts → Business asset groups. If a group exists for your business, open it, click Assign assets, tick the Page, ad account, Instagram account and pixel, and save.
2. If there is no group, open the asset directly (for example Accounts → Pages → your Page) and check the Connected assets tab. Connect the ad account and the Instagram account there.
3. Return to Users → Partners → The Growth Bully → Share assets and tick the asset again.

How you know it worked. The tick sticks and Save changes completes without a red message.

If it fails. Screenshot the red message with the asset name visible. This one is quicker for us to finish on a five-minute screen share than by email, so say so in the reply.

Add Partner is greyed out, or you are Employee rather than Admin

1. At facebook.com, check the top-right corner shows your own name, not the business. Meta shows a different Business Manager depending on which profile is signed in.
2. Go to Business Settings → Users → People and find your name. It must say Admin access. If it says Employee access, you cannot add partners.
3. Ask an existing Admin to promote you (People → your name → Edit → Admin access) or to do the partner grant themselves with the Business ID above. Previous agencies, developers and family members are the usual hidden admins.
4. If nobody you know is Admin on the portfolio, stop. Do not create a new Business Manager. Tell us who set the original one up and we will write the request to them, or start Meta's claim process, which takes days to weeks.

How you know it worked. Your row under People reads Admin access and the Add button under Partners is blue.

If it fails. Send a screenshot of the People page. If the Business Manager does not appear in your selector at all, ask us for a direct link of the form business.facebook.com/settings?business_id=…; if it errors, your profile is not on it.

2. Your Facebook Page

The Page is owned by a personal profile, not the company

A Page that sits on someone's personal profile sends every access request to that person's personal notifications, where it is missed for months. We have seen a request sit unanswered for the best part of a year. Claim the Page into the company's Business Manager, which gives you admin control without changing who created it.

1. Sign in to Facebook as the person who is admin on the Page.
2. Go to business.facebook.com → Business Settings → Accounts → Pages → Add.
3. Choose Add a Page (on some accounts Claim a Page). Paste the Page name or its address.
4. Confirm. The Page now appears in the Pages list with your business as owner.
5. Then Users → Partners → The Growth Bully → Share assets → Pages, tick the Page, choose Ads (and Content if we post for you), save.

How you know it worked. Under Accounts → Pages the Page shows "Owned by [your business]" rather than "Owned by individual people".

If it fails. "You are not an admin of this Page" means the signed-in profile is only an editor or moderator. Find the actual admin under the Page's Settings → Page access. If the admin has left the company or cannot be reached, tell us before doing anything else.

The old Page cannot be found, was hacked, or its admin is gone

Recovery through Meta can take weeks and often fails. The faster route, used successfully more than once, is a new Page inside your own Business Manager, created today, that you own outright. Followers do not transfer; the ads and the leads do not care. If the old Page is ever recovered, Meta offers a merge.

1. Business Settings → Accounts → Pages → Add → Create a new Page. Use your registered business name.
2. Add your logo, cover, address, phone, website and an About paragraph. A blank Page gets ads rejected.
3. Assign it to the partner as above.
4. Tell us the date the new Page went live. Ads relaunched on a new Page restart Meta's learning phase (about five to seven days of unsettled cost per lead), and likes and comments on the old ads do not travel. We time the switch so that reset happens once.

How you know it worked. The new Page is listed under Pages with your business as owner, and we confirm a test campaign can select it.

If it fails. Meta occasionally blocks Page creation on a new or unverified portfolio. Complete Business Verification first and try again.

Giving us a second Page (a group brand, an event Page)

Same partner window, one more tick. Users → Partners → The Growth Bully → Share assets → Pages, tick the extra Page, Ads and Content, save. If the second Page is owned by a different Business Manager, its admin does the same grant from that portfolio, or claims it into yours first.

3. Your ad account

Ad account disabled for an unpaid balance ("UNSETTLED")

Meta stops everything on the account, and if it is left, the restriction can spread to the Page and the whole portfolio. Only the account's payment admin can clear it.

1. Open Ads Manager → Billing and payments (or business.facebook.com/billing_hub) and select the ad account.
2. Read the outstanding balance. Click Pay now and settle it in full with a working card.
3. Under Payment settings → Payment methods, add a valid card and set it as primary. Remove any expired card.
4. Reply to us with a screenshot of the Payment activity page showing the balance at zero.

How you know it worked. The red banner in Ads Manager disappears within a few hours, up to a day, and campaigns show Active rather than "Account error".

If it fails. If the card is refused, try a second card or a different browser with ad blockers off, then stop after two attempts. Repeated failures flag the account. Send us the exact refusal message.

Card refused with a country or currency error

An ad account's currency and time zone are locked forever at creation. A euro card on a sterling account, or the other way round, is refused every time, and there is no setting that changes it. The fix is a new ad account with the right settings, and your history moves with us rather than with the account.

1. Confirm which currency your card bills in and which country it is issued in. That decides the new account.
2. Add stephen@thegrowthbully.com as Admin under Business Settings → Users → People, so we make the irreversible click, or follow Part 2 of the setup guide yourself and check both fields twice.
3. Settings for a Maltese business: currency Euro (EUR), time zone (GMT+02:00) Europe/Malta, used for My business. A UK-billed business uses GBP and Europe/London. Meta also treats a card in the account's own currency as a trust signal, which shortens the warm-up.
4. Add the card: Billing and payments → Payment settings → Add payment method. Meta charges a few cents and refunds it; your banking app shows a short code, which you enter to confirm.
5. Assign the new account to The Growth Bully with Manage campaigns, and assign your Instagram account to it (section 4).

How you know it worked. The card shows as primary with no warning, and a test campaign we build (never launched) accepts the Page and the Instagram account.

If it fails. An unverified portfolio is capped at one ad account, so you may not be able to create a second until Business Verification is done. Do not delete the old account to free the slot; deletion does not free it and removes your right to appeal anything on it.

Migrating to a new EUR ad account without losing anything

Nothing that matters lives in the ad account alone. Audiences are rebuilt from your pixel and your customer list, creatives are re-uploaded from our files, and the pixel stays where it is. What does reset is the learning phase, so we move on a date we agree, hold the next set of ads until the move is done, and take the reset once. Expect three to five working days from confirmed access to the first ad live on the new account.

You keep landing on the old ad account

Bookmarks and the Ads Manager home button open whichever account you used last. Use the account selector at the top left of Ads Manager, or open adsmanager.facebook.com/adsmanager/manage/campaigns?act= followed by the new account's number. If the new account is not in your selector at all, you are not a person on it: Business Settings → Accounts → Ad accounts → the account → Add people, add yourself.

Ad spend and the card on the account

Ad spend is yours, paid from your card straight to Meta inside your own ad account. We charge no percentage of it and we cannot see the card. Keep one valid card as primary and a second as backup; a declined card pauses every campaign, and each day paused costs performance that takes days to win back. If a card is cancelled or replaced, tell us the same day.

4. Instagram

Instagram is the asset most often left out, and the gap is invisible until launch day, when every ad set with Instagram placements fails with error 200, subcode 1815199, "Ad account has no access to Instagram account". Three things must be true: the account is a professional account, it is inside your Business Manager, and it is connected to the ad account.

Make the account a professional (business) account

1. In the Instagram app, open your profile, tap the three lines top right, then Settings and activity.
2. Tap Account type and tools → Switch to professional account. Choose a category, then Business (not Creator).
3. When asked, connect it to your Facebook Page. Choose the Page that lives in your Business Manager.

How you know it worked. Your profile shows a category line under the name and a Professional dashboard button.

If it fails. If the Page offered is not yours or is missing, finish section 2 first, then repeat this.

Add the Instagram account to your Business Manager and to the partner

1. Business Settings → Accounts → Instagram accounts → Add. Sign in with the Instagram username and password when asked. This is the one place Meta needs the Instagram login, and it is you typing it, not us.
2. Select the account, then Assign partners → The Growth Bully (or via Users → Partners → Share assets → Instagram accounts) with Create ads, plus Content if we post for you.

Connect the Instagram account to the ad account

1. Business Settings → Accounts → Instagram accounts, select the account.
2. Open the Connected assets tab, click Add assets, tick the ad account, save.

How you know it worked. The ad account is listed under Connected assets for the Instagram account, and we confirm a test ad set with Instagram placements saves without error.

If it fails. If the Instagram account will not appear under Accounts → Instagram accounts, it is still a personal account or is already claimed by another Business Manager. Check the account type in the app; if it is professional and still missing, another portfolio holds it, and we need to know which.

5. Pixel and dataset

Your pixel (Meta now calls it a dataset) belongs in your Business Manager. If a previous agency created it inside theirs, your conversion history and your audiences sit in an account you do not control, and it needs to be transferred or recreated before we build on it.

1. Business Settings → Data sources → Datasets (older accounts: Pixels). Check your pixel is listed with your business as owner.
2. If it is missing, click Add → Create a new dataset, name it after your business, and tell us the ID. Or, if we hold Admin on your portfolio, we create it for you.
3. Select the dataset, click Assign partners → The Growth Bully, choose View and manage (on some accounts the toggle is Manage dataset), save.

How you know it worked. The dataset shows The Growth Bully under Partners with the permission you chose.

If it fails. If the previous agency owns the pixel, ask them in writing to either share it to your business with full control or transfer ownership. We will draft that request if you send us their contact. Do not delete or replace it until we have checked what audiences depend on it.

Where the pixel fires: on campaign pages we build and host, it fires there and nowhere else. On your own website, it goes in only after you have agreed the tag in writing, usually through Google Tag Manager so you can see and remove it. Standard events only: PageView, ViewContent, Lead, Schedule and, for e-commerce, Purchase.

6. Leads Access (instant-form leads to your CRM)

If we run lead-form ads that write into your CRM, Meta needs to know the partner is allowed to read the leads. This is separate from the ad account and the Page. Without it, forms fill in Meta and nothing arrives in your pipeline.

1. Business Settings → Integrations → Leads Access.
2. Select your Page in the left column.
3. Under Partners, click Assign partners, choose The Growth Bully, save. If the CRM is listed under CRMs, make sure it is ticked too.
4. Then finish the CRM side on Step 5, which connects Facebook to your CRM and maps the form fields.

How you know it worked. A real test submission of the form (not Meta's Lead Ads Testing Tool, which does not sync) appears as a contact in the CRM within a minute.

If it fails. If Leads Access shows "Customise access" with our partner greyed, the Page has not been assigned to the partner yet. Do section 1 first.

7. Verification: business, phone number, restrictions

Business Verification

An unverified portfolio is capped at one ad account and struggles to appeal anything. We ask for verification during onboarding, before there is a problem. The full walkthrough, including which Malta Business Registry document to upload, is on the ad account setup guide.

Meta sends the verification code to a number you cannot receive on

1. Go to business.facebook.com/settings/business-info. Under Business details find the phone number field and click Edit.
2. Change it to a Maltese mobile with the country code +356 and save.
3. Return to the verification screen and request a new code. If the code is for a Facebook login rather than for the business, the same change lives under facebook.com → Settings → Accounts Centre → Personal details → Contact info.
4. If SMS still fails, choose Email as the verification method on the same screen.

How you know it worked. The code arrives on the new number within a minute and the screen accepts it.

If it fails. If the number Meta shows is a US +1 number and your business uses a CRM WhatsApp line, that is the CRM's routing number: the code lands in your CRM under Conversations, not on a phone. Copy it from there. See the WhatsApp page.

Restricted or disabled for a policy reason

Different from an unpaid balance, and the first few hours matter. Do not click Request review more than once, do not create a new account, do not delete the restricted one. The full recovery ladder is in the restricted or disabled section of the setup guide. Send us the screenshot before you click anything.

Someone is running ads you did not approve

Tell us the same day. We pause them, list everyone with access under Business Settings → Users → People and Partners, remove anyone who should not be there, and show you the ads behind the spend. You can check the People and Partners lists yourself at any time; anyone you do not recognise can be removed on the spot.

8. Revoking our access

Two clicks, no permission needed from us, immediate effect, and nothing of yours goes with it.

1. Business Settings → Users → Partners → The Growth Bully.
2. Click Remove (top right of the partner panel). Every asset you shared is unshared at once.
3. If you added any of our people as individuals (an Admin for a first-time build), also go to Users → People and remove them.

How you know it worked. The Growth Bully no longer appears under Partners. Your campaigns, audiences, pixel data and billing stay exactly as they were.

Common questions on this page

Stuck? Email stephen@thegrowthbully.com with a screenshot of the whole window. Never delete, deactivate or recreate anything to make a screen behave.