Working With a Meta Ads Agency: Accounts, Access, Reports

When you work with a Meta ads agency, your ad account, Facebook Page, Instagram account and pixel should stay in your own business portfolio, and the agency should only receive access as a partner. The payment method on the ad account should also be yours. Who owns the measurement setup and which number the report is based on should be discussed in the very first meeting. If these three points are set up correctly from the start, your campaign history, audiences and measurement data stay with you even if you stop working with the agency. Below we go through the questions to ask in the proposal meeting, in order.

The business portfolio: who owns the assets?

The business portfolio in Meta Business Suite (formerly known as Business Manager) holds the ad account, the Facebook Page, the Instagram account and the pixel together. These assets should be owned by your business's portfolio. If the agency opens the ad account or the pixel in its own portfolio, the campaign history, custom audiences and pixel data may stay with the agency when you leave. When you start with a new team, you may also have to rebuild everything from scratch. In the proposal meeting, ask plainly: "Whose portfolio will the ad account and the pixel be in?"

How should you give the agency access?

The right way is to share your assets through partner access. Meta's Help Center explains that you can give a partner access to the assets in your business portfolio and that only someone with full control of the portfolio can do this: Meta's guide to giving a partner access. Access is granted per asset, so give the agency only the assets and permission level it actually needs. When the work ends, you remove the access and the asset stays where it is. Sharing a personal Facebook password, on the other hand, is a security risk and makes it impossible to track who changed what.

Whose name should the payment method be in?

The card or payment method on the ad account should belong to your business. That way you see ad spend directly on Meta's invoices, and the invoices are issued in your business's name. The agency's service fee and the ad spend appear as separate items, so you never confuse what you pay for. An agency paying with its own card and sending you a combined invoice may look practical in some cases, but it reduces transparency on spend. If you choose that route, ask for Meta's own invoices every month as well. Who can raise or lower the monthly budget, and under which conditions, should also be written in the agreement; the budget should not change without your approval.

Who owns the pixel and Conversions API setup?

Performance on Meta depends on the system correctly learning which visitor filled in a form or made a purchase. That is why the measurement setup is usually the first job. Ask the agency which events will fire on which page, how the same event will be prevented from being counted twice and how the setup will be tested. If you are curious about the setup itself, our Meta pixel setup guide explains it step by step. We also covered what changed in measurement after iOS in our pixel, CAPI and attribution article.

Which number will the report be based on?

Ads Manager counts results according to its own attribution setting, while Google Analytics measures visits and conversions with its own method. That is why the two numbers never match exactly, and that alone is not an error. What matters is that the report clearly states which source is used, what the attribution setting is and how the gap between the two sources is interpreted. The main measure in the report should match the campaign objective: forms and cost per form for a lead campaign, sales and return for a sales campaign. We explained the difference between objectives in our Meta campaign objectives article.

How will budget and targeting decisions be made?

Decisions such as whether the budget is managed at campaign or ad set level, and whether the audience is built manually or with Meta's automated options, directly affect results. A good agency can explain these decisions with reasons. There is no single right structure for every account; your product, your budget and the amount of data you have change the decision. The agency should tell you why it chose this structure, how long it will test and which result would make it change the structure. We shared our view on both topics in our ABO or CBO and Advantage+ or manual audience articles.

What will happen in the first month?

If you already have an account, a healthy start is an audit: which objectives past campaigns used, which audiences and ads brought results, whether measurement works correctly and whether the account has any policy warnings. If the account is new, the first month is mostly about setup and testing. Ask the agency: "What will I have in hand at the end of the first month?" An audit summary, a measurement check and a written test plan for the next month are concrete answers. "We will launch the campaigns" alone makes it hard to tell later what the first month was spent on.

How will rejected ads and account restrictions be handled?

Meta reviews ads before they go live; ads that do not follow the advertising policies can be rejected, and repeated issues can lead to restrictions on the ad account. The risk is higher in sectors that touch on health, finance or personal attributes. Ask the agency how it proceeds with a rejected ad, who files the appeal and how you will be informed if the account is restricted. Having the account in your portfolio matters here too: you see account health warnings yourself, independently of the agency.

Who will produce the creatives, and how will approval work?

One of the things that affects results most on Meta is the ad itself: the image, the video and the copy. Ask who will produce the images and videos, how many new ads will be prepared each month and whether ads will go through your approval before they go live. How the brand voice will be protected, and who will answer comments under the ads and how quickly, should also be part of the agreement. Unanswered questions waste the attention the ad has earned.

How will changes be recorded?

Over time, campaigns go through budget, targeting and ad changes. Knowing when and why these changes were made is the only way to understand the ups and downs in results. Ask the agency to list the changes it makes for you in writing on a regular basis. Having the account in your own portfolio also means you can reach this information independently of the agency.

A short checklist for the proposal meeting

When you compare proposals, look for clear answers to five questions: are the ad account, Page and pixel in your portfolio, will the agency receive partner access, is the payment method yours, which source and attribution setting is the report based on, and are creative production and approval written down? With an agency that answers these questions openly, the chance of later surprises is low. We collected similar questions for SEO in our how to choose an SEO agency article. If you would like to discuss your own account through these questions, you can reach us from our Meta Ads page.