The various accounts
Let's get started with some terminology.
- Your ad platform user profile (e.g., "Josie Smith") is how you log into an ad platform as a consumer, ie your personal Facebook Profile. It may be connected to your company's advertising platform account.
- Your company's advertising platform account ("Shoe Shop Ad Account") is the ad account your company uses to post ads on, and more than likely use to log into, each advertising platform, such as Meta, Pinterest, Snapchat and so on.
- Your ad account at Smartly is company's advertising platform account's "mirror; it is the account that Smartly is impersonating when posting ads. When you connect an ad account to Smartly, you are essentially saying "Yes, Smartly, I would like you to act on my behalf on this advertising platform".
- Your Smartly account is the username and password you use to log into Smartly on a daily basis. This article doesn't talk about that.
So far so good. But here's where it gets complicated, because these accounts need different permissions not only at Smartly but also on the ad platform itself.
Ad Account Authorizer
Your company may have several users posting ads to the same company advertising platform account via Smartly. One of these user accounts is the Ad Account Authorizer; this person has full (Admin) access to the company's advertising platform account.
If a user who acts as the Ad Account Authorizer is removed from the company's control (for example, this person leaves the company), the permissions for the use of the company Advertising Ad account granted to Smartly are withdrawn.
Another employee must then use their user profile to authorize the Ad Account in the original Account Authorizer's place.
The ad platform profile of the Ad Account Authorizer has the permissions required to access all the features that Smartly needs.
- Meta:
-
Ad account permissions: Admin
-
Business manager permissions: Admin
-
Catalog permissions: Manage Catalog
-
Facebook Page Permissions: Admin
-
- Snapchat: Organization Admin level permissions
- TikTok: Business Center Admin permissions
- Pinterest: Business account Admin permissions
- Google: Google Ads Admin permissions
Ad platform account permissions for Smartly
In terms of everyday use, Smartly needs permissions that will let it perform the following tasks:
- Create and preview ads and publish them to the ad platform
- View analytics
- Manage catalogs (if relevant for the platform)
In practice, here's what it means for each ad platform:
- Meta: At least Advertiser permissions.
- Snapchat: Ad Account Admin permissions.
- TikTok: Business Center Admin permissions.
- Pinterest: Business account Admin permissions.
- Google: At least Standard permissions to the Google Ads account.
More information
For more information, see the documentation for the individual ad platforms.
- Meta:
- Smartly: Roles and permissions for Meta
- Meta documentation: Ad account permissions by role and About business account access
- Snapchat:
- Smartly: Connect a Snapchat ad account[Beta] Set up a catalog for Snapchat dynamic ads
- Snapchat documentation: Organization Roles and Permissions and Ad account roles and permissions
- TikTok:
- Smartly: Connect TikTok ad accounts
- TikTok documentation: Add Users to TikTok Business Center
- Pinterest:
- Smartly: Connect a Pinterest ad account
- Pinterest documentation: Share and manage access to your ad accounts
Check and edit a user's ad account permissions
- Log in as your company's Smartly admin.
- In the main navigation, click Users.
- Click a user name on the Users list.
- Review and edit the ad accounts the user has access to. Click Save under each ad platform account group you edited.