Connect Facebook Ads
Updated October 2, 2026
Connect Facebook Ads (Meta Ads) so the daily spend of your ad accounts is deducted in your profit. You need this if you advertise through a Meta ad account and want your dashboard to show profit after ad costs.
- Where
- In the sidebar, open Integrations, then Facebook Ads
- Who
- Owners, admins and members with access to the whole account. Viewers and members limited to single stores cannot connect. You also need a Facebook user that can see the ad accounts
- Time
- About 2 minutes to connect. The first import then runs in the background
- Updates
- Ad spend is imported every night and each time you open a shop's dashboard. The first import goes back up to 36 months
What Is Imported#
For every ad account you select, Profitario imports one row per day and campaign:
| Data | Where you see it |
|---|---|
| Spend | Ad Spend on the dashboard, and Reports > Ad Spend in a shop |
| Impressions and clicks | Reports > Ad Spend |
| Purchases, as reported by Facebook | Reports > Ad Spend, column Conversions |
| Campaigns, ad sets and ads with their names and status | Reports > Ad Spend |
Profitario only reads from your ad accounts. It never changes a campaign, a budget or an ad.
How far back. The first import of an ad account covers up to 36 months before the day you start it.
How often. Each selected ad account is updated once a night, at about 1:00 in the time zone of its shop, and again whenever you open that shop's dashboard or click Refresh there. Every update fetches the days from the day before the last successful update until today.
The nightly update runs for accounts with a paid subscription or with activity in the last 30 days. If nobody has opened Profitario for longer, the spend catches up the next time you open the dashboard.
Before You Start#
- At least one Shopify store is installed in Profitario. Without one, Connect Integration is disabled and shows Connect a Shopify store before adding integrations.
- You can sign in to Facebook with a user that has access to the ad accounts you want to import.
Connect Facebook Ads#
The connection takes seven screens, from the first click to the spend on your dashboard. One of them is at Facebook.
What Facebook Asks For
At Facebook you log in and then confirm what Profitario may access. Facebook words the permissions in its own way. Profitario asks for three:
| Access | Why Profitario asks for it |
|---|---|
| Read your ads and their results | Spend, impressions, clicks, purchases and the names of your campaigns, ad sets and ads |
| Manage your ads | Facebook requires this permission for full reporting access. Profitario only reads. It never changes a campaign, a budget or an ad |
| See your businesses | Shows the business name below each ad account |
- Which user. Log in with the Facebook user that has access to the ad accounts you want to import. Profitario sees the ad accounts this user can see.
- Permissions. Leave every requested permission switched on. Without the access to your ads, Profitario cannot read the ad accounts and asks you to sign in again.
- Ad accounts. If Facebook asks which businesses or ad accounts to share, select every ad account you want to import. An ad account you leave out is not listed on the setup page.
- Cancelling. If the approval is cancelled or does not complete, you see Failed to connect to Facebook Ads back in Profitario. Nothing was connected. Click Try Again.
Choose the Ad Accounts
The page Set up Facebook Ads in detail:
In the screenshot, three ad accounts are ticked and assigned. Nordwind Outlet EU is billed in EUR and assigned to a USD shop, so its spend is converted. Nordwind Wholesale is unticked and is not imported.
What Happens Next#
- First import. It covers up to 36 months before the day you start it and runs in the background. The more campaigns and history an ad account has, the longer it takes.
- Dashboard and reports. The spend appears as soon as the import of an ad account is done, for every day of the imported period. Nothing has to be recalculated.
- Updates. From then on the account is updated every night and each time you open the dashboard of its shop.
- Next: track orders from your ads. Spend alone does not say which orders an ad brought. Add URL parameters to your Meta ads so Profitario can match each order to its ad, see Add UTM Parameters to Meta Ads.
Manage Your Ad Accounts#
After connecting, the Facebook Ads page lists every imported ad account.
To work with the Facebook login itself, click Manage Connections in the top right corner of the Facebook Ads page. Each row is one Facebook user you connected with.
To add ad accounts that a different Facebook user manages, sign in to Facebook as that user and click Connect Integration again. Each Facebook user becomes its own row under Manage Connections.
Choose the Currency of an Ad Account#
Every ad account has its own currency, the one Facebook bills it in. Profitario deducts the spend in the currency of the shop. When the two differ, the ad account needs a Target Currency: the currency its spend is converted into.
| Ad account | Shop | Target Currency | What the Currency column shows | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USD | USD | Not needed | USD | Connected |
| EUR | USD | USD | EUR → USD | Connected |
| EUR | USD | None, or another one | EUR, or EUR → the other currency | Wrong Currency |
Default: when you assign an ad account on the setup page to a shop with another currency, the shop's currency is set as target currency automatically. You only have to set it yourself if the status reads Wrong Currency, for example after you moved the ad account to a shop with another currency.
Which rate. Each day's spend is converted with the exchange rate of that day.
Example. The ad account Nordwind Outlet EU is billed in EUR and assigned to a USD shop. On September 12 it spent €200.00. If the rate of that day is 1 EUR = 1.17 USD, the dashboard deducts €200.00 × 1.17 = $234.00 for that day. On a day with a rate of 1.16, the same €200.00 counts as $232.00.
To set or change the target currency:
- What happens next. You see Target currency updated successfully. The spend that is already imported is converted again in the background, each day with its own rate. No new import is needed. Dashboard and reports show the converted amounts when the conversion is done.
- None (use source currency). This entry in the list removes the target currency. If the ad account's currency differs from the shop's, the status goes back to Wrong Currency.
- While an import runs. Change the currency when all ad accounts read Connected. If a Facebook import is running at that moment, the new currency is saved, but the spend already imported is not converted.
- One change at a time. While a conversion is running, a second change is refused with A currency conversion is already running for this ad account.
Import the Spend Again#
Restart Import fetches the spend of one ad account from Facebook again. Use it when:
| Situation | What to do |
|---|---|
| Days are missing in the middle of the imported period | Restart Import with Full Import on |
| Facebook corrected the numbers of older days after they were imported | Restart Import with Full Import on |
| The status reads Pending and you do not want to wait | Restart Import with Full Import on |
| You reconnected with a different Facebook user | Not here: tick the ad accounts on the setup page and click Start Import, see below |
The dialog Restart Import in detail:
Do I Have to Renew the Connection?#
No. Profitario renews its access to Facebook by itself. It checks every day and renews the access before it runs out. There is nothing to renew on a schedule.
You only have to reconnect when Facebook ends the access:
| What happened | What you see | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| You changed your Facebook password, or removed Profitario from your Facebook account, or Facebook declared the access invalid | Notification Integration expired, status Expired on all ad accounts of that Facebook user, and the bar Ad spend is missing on the dashboard | Reconnect |
| Access to one ad account was withdrawn from your Facebook user | Notification Ad account access lost, status Expired on that ad account only | Get access to the ad account again on Facebook, then reconnect |
| A permission was removed while signing in | The Facebook Ads connection is missing required permissions. | Reconnect and leave all permissions switched on |
| Facebook restricted your Facebook user | Notification Integration access denied | Log in at facebook.com and follow Facebook's prompts to confirm your account first. Then reconnect |
To reconnect, click Reconnect in the bar on the dashboard, or open the Facebook Ads page and click Connect Integration. Sign in with the same Facebook user as before. On the setup page your existing ad accounts are listed unticked: click Skip. They keep their shop and their history.
The gap is filled automatically. After a reconnect with the same Facebook user, the next update imports every day since the last successful update, so the days without access are added. The next update runs when you open the dashboard, or during the night.
If you reconnect with a different Facebook user, tick the ad accounts on the setup page and click Start Import. This imports their full history again. Spend that is already in Profitario is not counted twice.
Limits#
- History. At most 36 months back.
- One shop per ad account. An ad account cannot be split between two shops.
- New ad accounts. Ad accounts you create later are not added automatically. Use Sync Accounts.
- Days follow the ad account. Facebook reports spend per day in the time zone of the ad account. If your shop uses another time zone, the ad spend of a day and the orders of that day cover slightly different hours.
- Later corrections by Facebook. An update fetches the days since the last update. If Facebook corrects the numbers of an older day afterwards, the change is not picked up. To import the full history again, use Restart Import with Full Import turned on.
Troubleshooting#
| What you see | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Connect Integration is greyed out | No Shopify store is installed in Profitario | Install Profitario on your Shopify store first |
| Failed to connect to Facebook Ads after returning from Facebook | The connection could not be completed | Click Try Again |
| No accounts found on the setup page | Facebook returned no ad accounts for the Facebook user you signed in with | Connect again with a Facebook user that has access to the ad account |
| Failed to fetch accounts and the dialog Reauthentication required | The connection has expired or a permission is missing | Click Continue to Facebook Ads, sign in and leave all permissions switched on |
| Please assign a shop to all enabled accounts before importing. | A ticked ad account has no shop | Pick a shop in the Store column, or untick the account |
| An ad account is missing from the setup page | It was created after you connected, or another Facebook user manages it | Manage Connections > Sync Accounts, or connect with the other Facebook user. See Missing ad account |
| Status Expired, or the bar Ad spend is missing on the dashboard | Facebook ended the access | Reconnect, see above |
| The ad account is connected but the dashboard shows no or wrong ad spend | Several possible causes | See Why Is My Ad Spend Not Showing or Incorrect? |
Still stuck? Write to support@profitario.com and include the name of the shop, the Account ID of the ad account (shown on the Facebook Ads page, it starts with act_), the status the account shows, and the exact message you see.
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