Connect your Meta ad account to Blackbox
Bring Facebook and Instagram campaign spend and results into your reporting, and approve budget or status changes from one place.
Before you start
Admin on the ad account
The Facebook login you use needs admin access to the ad account itself, not just to the Page it advertises.
A Business Manager you can see
The ad account should sit inside a Business Manager your login is a member of. This is what makes it appear in the list at the end.
Know which accounts to pick
You choose the ad accounts for this brand at the last step. Anything you do not tick stays invisible to Blackbox.
Step by step
- 01
Open Data in Blackbox
Sign in to Blackbox and click Data in the left menu, then Connect a channel at the top right.
- 02
Pick Meta Ads
Open the Provider dropdown and choose Meta Ads. This is the advertising connection — Instagram & Facebook, further down the list, is the separate organic one. Then click Connect.
- 03
Approve on the Meta screen
A Meta window opens and lists what Blackbox is asking for, including managing ads for accounts you have access to and reading your ad statistics. Choose the Business and the ad accounts to share, then continue.
- 04
Choose the ad accounts for this brand
Back in Blackbox you see every ad account that login can reach, grouped by Business Manager. Tick the ones belonging to this brand and save. Leaving the list empty means every account the grant can see is monitored.
- 05
That's it
The connector shows as connected and Blackbox pulls the last 30 days of campaigns, ad sets and spend. Bigger accounts take a few minutes.
Blackbox can read
- Your campaigns, ad sets and ads, and their spend, impressions, clicks and conversions
- Daily performance history, so trends and comparisons work
- Which organic post a paid ad is boosting, so paid and organic line up in one report
Blackbox will not
- Change a budget, pause, resume or launch anything unless you approve that exact change in Blackbox first
- Touch ad accounts you did not tick
- Post to your Facebook Page or Instagram through this connection
If something doesn't work
- The list of ad accounts is empty
- This is almost always a login that is a personal profile which was never added to the Business Manager holding the ad account. Add yourself there, then connect again.
- Will Blackbox spend my money?
- Not on its own. Blackbox proposes changes — a budget, a pause, a new campaign — and each one waits for you to approve it. Nothing reaches Meta until you do.
- I picked the wrong ad accounts
- Use the ad accounts button on the connector on the Data page to change the selection. You do not need to reconnect.
- Does this cover my Instagram posts too?
- No. This reads advertising only. Organic Instagram and Facebook posts come from the separate Instagram & Facebook connection.
- How do I disconnect later?
- Open Data in Blackbox, find the connector and choose Disconnect. Blackbox hands the access back to Meta at the same time, so it disappears from your connected apps there too. Your existing reports stay.
Stuck at any step? Send us a message and we'll do it with you on a call.