Before you start
- A Facebook profile with two-factor authentication turned on. Meta will not let you add ad assets without it.
- A business portfolio at business.facebook.com. One per company is enough, even with several apps or brands. See One portfolio or several below.
- A Facebook Page for the brand. Ads always run from a Page, including the ones shown on Instagram. To create one, see Create your social accounts.
- To promote Instagram posts: the Instagram account linked to that Page. Meta runs an Instagram ad through the Page the profile is linked to, so without the link only Facebook posts can be promoted.
- An ad account with a payment method, one per brand.
- Optional: a dataset (formerly Meta Pixel) if you want campaigns that optimise for signups or purchases.
You do not create a Meta developer app or copy a token. You only sign in with Facebook and pick the Page and ad account.
Set it up
Skip any step you have already done.
- Business portfolio. Go to business.facebook.com and create a business portfolio under your company’s legal name.
- Page. In the portfolio, open Settings → Accounts → Pages and add the brand’s Page. Give yourself access that includes Ads.
- Instagram (to promote Instagram posts). On the Page, open Settings → Linked accounts → Instagram and connect the brand’s Instagram account. It has to be the same account you publish to from Sprid. Sprid reads the link from Meta each time you promote, so you can do this later without reconnecting.
- Ad account. Open Settings → Accounts → Ad accounts → Add → Create a new ad account. Pick the currency and time zone carefully: once the account has spent anything, neither can be changed. Choose the currency of the market you advertise in. Give yourself Manage campaigns or full control.
- Payment method. Open Billing & payments for that ad account and add a card. Sprid can connect an account without one, but no campaign can start until it has one.
- Dataset (optional). Open Events Manager → Connect data sources → Web, name it after your domain and copy its dataset id. Sprid only needs the id. The events themselves reach it from your site or app, through the Meta Pixel or the Conversions API, and without events a conversion campaign has nothing to optimise for.
Connect to Sprid
sprid connect meta-ads --account <slug>Replace <slug> with your Sprid account slug. Add --dataset <id> if you created one in step 6. You can also use Settings → Accounts → [account] → Meta Ads in Sprid.
Set it up
- Sign in with the Facebook profile that manages the Page and the ad account.
- Leave every requested permission switched on and click Continue.
- Back in Sprid, pick the Page your ads should appear from, then the ad account. Each list only appears when there is more than one to choose from.
- From the CLI, a profile with several Pages or ad accounts gets a message listing their ids. Run the command again with them:
sprid connect meta-ads --account <slug> --page <page id> --ad-account <ad account id> --dataset <dataset id>
With several brands, connect each Sprid account separately and pick that brand’s own Page and ad account every time.
Check the connection
Run sprid status and check that Meta Ads shows the intended Page name, followed by “(Ads)”.
A campaign Sprid prepares starts paused. Nothing is spent until you confirm the start.
One portfolio or several
Keep one business portfolio for your company and put one Page, one ad account and one dataset per brand inside it.
- A restriction on an ad account stays on that account. The other brands keep running.
- Separate portfolios isolate less than they appear to. Meta links portfolios run by the same people and paid with the same card, so a problem on one is often read as a problem on all of them. You also pay for the split: each portfolio has to be verified and set up separately, and a personal profile can only create a couple of them.
- What one portfolio risks: if the portfolio itself is restricted, every brand in it stops at once. If one brand operates in a regulated category (housing, credit, employment, politics) and draws an enforcement action, move that brand to its own portfolio then.
Give each ad account its own payment method where you can, and add a second admin to the portfolio so you are not locked out if your own profile has a problem.
If something goes wrong
- “No Facebook Pages found”: the profile you signed in with has no Page access. Check the Page in the portfolio, give yourself access and reconnect.
- No ad account to choose, or the wrong ones: only active ad accounts are listed. Check that the account is not disabled or closed in Ads Manager and that your profile is assigned to it.
- “Re-run the connect with —page / —ad-account”: the profile manages several. Copy the right ids from the message and run the command again with them.
- “Already connected to another account”: that ad account is connected to a different Sprid account. Check you picked the right one; move it only if you mean to.
- Campaign refuses to start with a conversion goal: the connection has no dataset. Reconnect with
--dataset <id>. - Campaign refuses to start at all: add a payment method to the ad account (step 5).
- Instagram shows “Not linked” on the Ads page or in Promote: the Page has no Instagram account linked. Link it (step 3), then press I’ve linked it. If the Page is linked to a different Instagram account than the one Sprid publishes to, Meta will only promote that other account’s posts: change the link, or connect the Page that belongs to your Instagram account.
- “Invalid Scopes”, app unavailable or “URL blocked”: contact Sprid support. Only Sprid can fix these.
- Expiring connection in
sprid status: Meta’s sign-in lasts about 60 days. Run the connect again.
Sources and verification
Prefer your terminal? sprid docs meta-ads reads this same guide.