Ads account partner access issue

dailygrind

i love scaling growth and obsessing over CAC to LTV, but nothing drives me up the wall quite like Meta's partner access system. We needed to add a third-party analytics tool to our ad account, so i went through the usual partner setup in Business Settings. Marked the company as a partner, granted access, and it looked fine on my end. but when they try to request access, Meta tells them they already have it-yet the account doesn't show up in their dashboard. Classic Meta bug.

A colleague in the same thread had this exact problem a few weeks ago. Their fix? remove the partner completely from Business Manager and re-add them directly at the ads account level rather than the business level. also check permission levels-sometimes the default is too low for them to actually see the account in their interface. worth a shot.

anyone else faced this and found a permanent fix? also, can someone tell me how on earth you actually create a support ticket with Meta these days? The Business Suite is a labyrinth

metricsmuse

Honestly, Meta Business Suite has been an absolute nightmare lately. I've had my own run-ins with it over the past few weeks, and it just keeps getting worse. First thing I'd double-check: have you accidentally given them access to the business account instead of the actual ads account? It's an easy mistake to make. Might be worth having another look at the partnerships settings on the ads account level and re‑adding them there. Annoying but it's sorted it for me in the past.

dailygrind

Honestly, this is one of those Meta Business Suite gremlins that drives me up the wall. I've run into this exact situation at least three times in the last quarter alone, and each time it's the same bloody loop - you've ticked every permission box, the partner has accepted, yet the ad account refuses to show up in their selection dropdown.

Here's the process I've landed on after a lot of screaming at the screen:

Double-check the role assignment.
Go to Business Settings > Accounts > Ad Accounts. Click on the account in question, then the Partners tab. Ensure the partner's business ID has Manage Ad Account or Ad Account Admin level - not just standard access. The dropdown gremlins seem to ignore anything below Admin.
Resend the invite from scratch.
Remove the partner entirely from that ad account's shared list. Then re-add them, making sure you toggle "Manage Ad Account" on. Have them accept again. Sometimes a fresh invite flushes the cache.
Check the business portfolio hierarchy.
If your partner's Business Manager is owned by a different root business, the ad account might not propagate into their 'Shared with you' list. I've had to get a rep involved to manually sync it on the backend once. Painful, but works.
Test with a secondary user.
Try adding a colleague from your own BM as a test. If they can see it, the issue is on the partner's side - usually a permissions conflict in their own BM settings.

If none of that works, it's likely a Meta platform bug. I've had success opening a chat with support (yes, the dreaded chatbot) and requesting a manual refresh of the ad account's visibility for that partner. Took two days, but it sorted itself out.

Keep us posted if you crack it - always keen to hear what actually does the trick

adcraft

Been through this exact mess. The only way to actually get through to Meta is that support portal - click the question mark icon bottom left, then contact support bottom right. half the time it loops you back to a help article, but occasionally you get a human.

Same screenshots are floating around, but here's the direct paths again if it helps:
https://ibb.co/23nM3CQw
https://ibb.co/Y7KfTYRX
https://ibb.co/jZHQYhnb

Don't expect much. Their "support" is a lottery. still, better than nothing.

datanerd

i've run into this exact loop before-Meta's permission propagation can be flaky when you push the invite from Business Settings. The fix that's worked for me every time: revoke the existing partner access entirely, then have them send a fresh request from their own Business Manager side. Pushing invites from your side often fails because the permissions don't propagate correctly across nested orgs. Doing it inbound via their request tends to bypass the bug.

pixelperfect

Oh, I've been there - it's maddening when you've set everything up on your end and the partner still gets nothing. Makes you feel like you're losing your mind, doesn't it?

What worked for me was scrapping the whole business-level invite and adding them directly at the ad account level instead. Also, double-check the permission level - the default one often looks fine but doesn't actually let them see the account in their dashboard. Bit of a pain, but worth a shot.

dailygrind

had this exact headache a few months ago. the page shows up fine in Business Manager, but the ad account remains invisible to the partner. the platform will happily show a 'successfully connected' status on your end, but that only means the page invite went through - the ad account permissions are a separate step.

Check Business Settings > Ad Accounts > the specific account > Assign Partner. you need to explicitly add them there with at least Analyst role, otherwise they won't see anything beyond the page. It's an easy oversight because the UI doesn't flag it clearly

metricsmuse

honestly, I'd just bin the partnership and set it up again from scratch - and make sure you're doing it from the ads account level, not the business account level. That's caught me out before.

another option that's worked for me: give the person direct access rights instead of setting up a partnership at all. Less faff, fewer headaches

dailygrind

We ran into the exact same wall - granted our ad accounts are at a higher spend tier, but that shouldn't matter. Tried granting access through both Business Manager (adding as a partner) and directly via the ad account settings with a verified user. Still got the "something went wrong" loop. Three things worth checking before you waste another hour:

Make sure the person has an admin role in the Business Manager, not just the ad account. Meta's permissions hierarchy is a dumpster fire.
clear the cache and try a different browser (Chrome vs. Firefox actually made a difference for us).
If you're using a partner agency, they need to be added via the "Partners" tab in Business Settings, not the ad account settings directly.

None of these fixed it fully for us, but it narrowed down the bug. Meta's support is useless so we just ended up creating a new ad account under the same BM and migrated campaigns. painful.

metricsmuse

Honestly, that doesn't track at all. More likely the folks you're adding just aren't sure where they should be clicking - happens more often than you'd think.