Connecting Meta
Ads

Meta is the most-used integration on Nine·Tails — most agencies connect it first. The OAuth flow is agency-level: one connection on your Business Manager authorizes every ad account that BM has access to.

Before you start

You need:

• A Meta Business Manager account that has administrator-level access to the ad accounts you want to report on.
• Your agency owner Clerk login (the OAuth has to be initiated from your account, not a teammate's).

If you have multiple Business Managers, you'll be asked which one to authorize. You can authorize more than one — Studio will show all the ad accounts visible to all of them on the same connection screen.

The flow

1. Open Integrations in the left nav (or /integrations directly).
2. Find the Meta Ads card, click Connect.
3. You're redirected to Facebook's OAuth dialog. Confirm the BM you're authorizing and review the permissions:
   • Read ads insights — daily and lifetime metrics for the ad accounts.
   • Read campaign metadata — campaign / ad-set / ad names, objectives, statuses.
   • We don't request any write permissions in Phase I. Studio cannot move budgets, edit creative, or change targeting on Meta. That's Phase III work, and it'll be a separate, opt-in re-authorization.
4. Approve. You're redirected back to /integrations with the Meta card showing a green dot and a list of ad accounts.
5. Click Manage on the Meta card to map ad accounts to clients. Each Nine·Tails client can have one or more Meta ad accounts attached; the report rolls up across them.

The first sync runs immediately and pulls the last 90 days of metrics. Subsequent syncs run automatically every six hours; you can also click Sync now to force one.

What you'll see in a report

A connected Meta account contributes:

• Spend, revenue, ROAS, impressions, clicks, CTR, CPC, conversions, CPA — all rolled up to the period you've selected.
• Per-channel narrative — Studio writes a paragraph specifically about Meta in the report's "Channel breakdown" section.
• Recommendations that touch Meta — e.g. "hold the current Meta split through Memorial Day."

If a client has Meta connected but no other platforms, the report renders Meta-only. Multi-platform clients get a blended-ROAS letterhead that combines all connected channels.

Common issues

"We can't reach the Meta API right now." Meta's API has occasional regional outages. Studio retries with exponential backoff for two hours; if it still hasn't synced, an alert lands on the dashboard. Click Sync now to retry manually after the alert clears.

"Insufficient permissions" on a specific ad account. Your Business Manager has access, but the ad account itself isn't sharing data with the app. Open Meta Business Manager → Settings → Apps → Nine·Tails → and grant access to the missing ad account. Then Sync now in Studio.

An ad account I expected isn't showing up. You authorized the wrong Business Manager. Click Disconnect on the Meta card, then Connect again, and pick the right BM in the dialog.

Spend looks too high for the period. Studio reports on paid date by default (Meta's date_start field), not the campaign attribution window. Some agencies prefer attributed-conversion-date — write to hello@ninetailsagency.com if you'd like that toggle prioritized.

What's next

• Voice profiles — pick how Studio writes about Meta for each client.
• Connecting Google Ads — coming soon as its own guide; the flow is essentially identical (OAuth at the agency level, ad accounts mapped to clients) with one extra step for Google's developer-token approval.

Questions, write to hello@ninetailsagency.com.