The short version
- Own one business on each platform and open a separate ad account inside it for every product. Runner ties one ad account to one product.
- Each connection is four checkpoints on the product's Ads page: sign in, the platform's approval of Runner, the ad account, and go live.
- On Meta, LinkedIn and Reddit, approved changes reach an ad account only after an organization owner allows live changes and a product admin switches the product on.
- Most platforms review Runner itself before they accept changes, a review that covers every customer at once; on Reddit your sign-in is the approval. The Approval step shows where each stands.
Give every product its own ad account, under one business you own
An ad account spends one product's money, so Runner treats it that way. Each product has its own Ads page, with a lane for Google Ads, Meta, LinkedIn and Reddit, and each lane holds one ad account for that product.
The tidy way to set that up is the same on every platform, under different names: one business your company owns, with a separate ad account for each product inside it. People, billing and pages stay in one place, and each product's spend stays in its own account.
- Google Ads: a manager account, with a Google Ads account for each product linked under it.
- Meta: a business portfolio that owns each product's ad account, Facebook Page and Instagram account.
- LinkedIn: a Business Manager that holds each product's ad account, each one tied to that product's LinkedIn Page.
- Reddit: one business in Reddit's Business Manager, an ad account for each product, and a Reddit account for each brand to post its ads as.
Picture this
A company runs a store and an app. On Meta, one business portfolio owns two ad accounts, two Pages and two Instagram accounts. In Runner, the store's Ads page uses the store's ad account and the app's Ads page uses the app's, so every budget, report and approval belongs to one product.
Connecting takes four checkpoints: sign in, approval, ad account, go live
Open the product's Ads page and press a platform's lane. A panel opens over the page with the four checkpoints across the top and the same four as steps beneath them. Connecting leaves the page only for the platform's own sign-in, which brings you back to the same panel.
Sign in is the platform's screen, where you allow Runner to manage that platform's ads for the product. Approval is the platform's review of Runner itself: it runs alongside your steps rather than after them, and while it waits the step says Waiting on that platform. Ad account lists every account your sign-in can open, and you press Use this account on the product's own. Go live is two switches, covered below.
Each step needs a particular role, and a step you lack the role for says who has it, so you know who to ask.
- Connect a platform: an organization admin, or the product's owner.
- Choose the ad account a product spends from: a product admin.
- Allow live changes on a platform for the organization: an organization owner, and nobody else.
- Approve a change: the product's owner or an admin, who confirms it's them.
Google Ads: sign in once, and Runner finds the accounts under your manager account
On Google's side, each product needs its own Google Ads account, with billing set up in Google Ads. If you run several, link them under a manager account, so one Google login reaches all of them.
In Runner, open Google Ads on the product's Ads page and press Connect Google Ads. Google asks you to sign in and allow access to your Google Ads accounts, then sends you back. There is no account ID to type: Runner lists every Google Ads account that sign-in can open, including the ones under a manager account, and labels the manager itself.
Under Choose the Google Ads account for your product, press the product's own account rather than the manager above it. The panel then reads Connected — first update on its way, and the account's figures arrive with Runner's next daily update. Connecting Google Ads keeps any other Google access the product already has, such as Analytics.
If Google hasn't cleared an installation of Runner to read live ad accounts, the panel says so the moment you sign in, and your sign-in is kept.
Meta: connect the business portfolio that owns the product's ad account
Facebook and Instagram ads run from one Meta ad account, so Runner treats them as one platform, Meta Ads. Instagram is a set of placements for the same campaigns and budget, never a second account.
On Meta's side, the product's ad account, Facebook Page and Instagram account belong to your business portfolio. Whoever connects Runner is an admin of that portfolio and is assigned to the ad account with permission to manage ads, not only to view reports. Payment details stay with Meta.
In Runner, press Connect Meta Ads, sign in with Facebook and allow what Runner asks for, including access to your business and to managing your ads. Back in the panel, the Ad account step lists every ad account that login can open. With many, search by name or ad account ID, then press Use this account.
If the panel says Meta is connected but without permission to manage ads, that connection was made for posting or messages. Press Reconnect Meta Ads and allow ad management on Meta's screen.
Meta reviews every app before letting it manage ads on a customer's account, and it has not approved Runner for that. So the Meta Ads lane's Approval step reads Waiting on Meta, and no change reaches your account. The review is of Runner, not of you, and covers every customer at once: there is nothing for you to apply for.
LinkedIn: create the product's Page first, because an ad account keeps its Page for good
Every LinkedIn ad account is created for a LinkedIn Page, and that link is permanent. So a product needs its own Page before it gets an ad account. Creating a Page takes a LinkedIn member with more than one connection, who confirms they may act for the company.
LinkedIn's Business Manager is the holding layer: one business holds every product's ad account, their Pages and their billing. An ad account made elsewhere joins it through Claim ownership, and an ad account belongs to one Business Manager at a time.
In Runner, press Connect LinkedIn Ads, read what LinkedIn lists, and press Allow. Connecting for ads is separate from connecting to post on your Page, so if the panel says LinkedIn is connected but without permission to manage ads, press Reconnect LinkedIn Ads. Then find the account by name or Sponsored Account URN, LinkedIn's own name for its ID, and press Use this account.
LinkedIn names things differently. A campaign group is the top level, and a campaign is the level below it, where targeting and budget live. Runner uses LinkedIn's names for LinkedIn changes, and campaigns Runner builds on LinkedIn start paused, so starting one is an approved change of its own.
LinkedIn grants advertising access to apps in tiers. Runner holds the starting tier, under which LinkedIn lets an app change only a handful of ad accounts, each registered with that app; LinkedIn grants the wider tier on request, at its discretion, and Runner does not hold it. So an approved change reaches a LinkedIn ad account only when that account is one of the few registered with Runner.
Reddit: one business, an ad account per product, and a brand account for the ads to post as
Every Reddit ad shows the username of the profile that posts it, and Reddit offers no way to hide it. So each product gets a Reddit account of its own, signed up with a shared team mailbox and named after the brand, before its ads run.
Set up one business in Reddit's Business Manager and pick its country carefully, because Reddit keeps it. A self-serve business holds one ad account; for an ad account per product, a Reddit ads representative makes the business a managed one. Choose each ad account's time zone deliberately too, since it stays.
Invite each brand account into the business as a Member, the lowest role, then give it the Creator role on its own product's ad account: enough to build and pause campaigns, with no reach into billing or invitations. Whoever owns billing adds the card in Reddit. Runner never asks for card details.
In Runner, press Connect Reddit Ads, sign in with an account that has a role on the product's ad account, and press Allow. Choose the account, then go live with the two switches. Skip Reddit's one-click Launch Campaign: anything built directly in Reddit's Ads Manager skips Runner's approvals and stays out of Runner's change queue.
Reddit needs no separate review of Runner: allowing ad management when you sign in is what the Reddit Ads lane's Approval step reads, so it shows Approved by Reddit as soon as you have signed in. Live changes then follow the two switches below.
Runner changes an ad account only through an approved change, or a budget your team switched on
On Meta, LinkedIn and Reddit, going live takes two switches held by two different people. An organization owner turns on Allow live changes for that platform; then a product admin turns on the switch that lets the product send approved changes. Each asks once before it turns on, and turning the organization's switch off turns every product's off with it.
Above both sits a switch Runner holds for each platform, so it can stop every account on that platform at once if something misbehaves. While it is off, the Go live step says Runner is switching that platform on; you can still draft and approve changes, and they go out once it is on.
Every change is drafted, then previewed as an exact before and after with what it does to spend, then approved. By default one owner or admin of the product approves each change after confirming it's them; the product's Ad approvals setting can require two different people, neither of them the person who drafted it. A change edited after approval needs approving again.
A managed ad budget is the one exception, and it stays off until a product's owner or an admin switches it on. Inside the limits they set, Runner sets daily budgets and pauses or resumes the campaigns attached to it. It never creates a campaign or raises the limits.
- Google Ads: connect, choose the account and read its daily figures in Runner; changes go through the same draft, preview and approval.
- Meta: Meta has not approved Runner to manage customers' ads, so Approval waits on Meta.
- LinkedIn: Runner holds LinkedIn's starting tier, which covers a handful of ad accounts registered with Runner.
- Reddit: connect, allow ad management and choose the account; Approval is met by your sign-in.
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