Meta ads export

Meta ads export sends images and videos from Focal’s asset library to one or more Meta ad accounts, where they are ready to use as ad creatives on Facebook and Instagram. Use it when creative work is approved in Focal and the media buyers need the final files in Meta, without anyone downloading and re-uploading them.

You start an export from the selection toolbar, sign in to Meta once, pick the ad accounts, and Focal uploads a copy of every selected asset to each of them. The asset in Focal does not change. Meta ads export is one of the destinations described in Exporting assets.

Connect your Meta account

Focal needs your permission to upload to Meta, so the first export asks you to sign in to Meta. The sign-in is personal: it belongs to you, not to the space or the organization, and every teammate who exports to Meta connects their own Meta account.

1. Open Assets, select one or more assets, and click the export button in the selection toolbar (Export assets).
2. Choose Meta. The Export to Meta dialog opens and reads “Please connect Meta Ad account to continue.”
3. Click Connect your Meta Ad account. A Meta sign-in window opens.
4. Sign in to Meta and allow Focal access to your ad accounts and businesses.

When the sign-in window closes, the dialog moves on to the ad accounts your Meta login can use. Focal remembers the connection, so later exports skip this step until you disconnect or the sign-in expires; then the dialog asks you to connect again.

Note: The Meta sign-in opens in a pop-up window, so allow pop-ups from Focal in your browser.

Export assets to Meta

Exporting to Meta uploads the selected assets to the ad accounts you tick. Meta groups ad accounts by business, so the dialog first lists your businesses and then the ad accounts in the one you open.

1. Open Assets and select the assets to send. Hold ⌘ (Ctrl on Windows) and click to add more, or hold Shift to select a range.
2. Click the export button in the selection toolbar (Export asset or Export assets) and choose Meta.
3. Connect your Meta account if the dialog asks you to (see the previous section).
4. Click the business that holds the ad account. Each business has “Business Manager Account” under its name; an ad account that doesn’t belong to a business is listed on its own, with “Ad Account” under its name.
5. Tick the checkbox next to each ad account to export to. You can tick several.
6. Click Continue to review the export.

Continue stays greyed out until at least one ad account is ticked. Click Back to return to the list of businesses and open another one. The review step and the end of the export are described in the next section.

Review and start a Meta export

The review step of the Export to Meta dialog shows what is about to be sent before anything leaves Focal.

• Under What will be exported, a thumbnail of every selected asset, after “The following media files that will be exported to” and the business’s name.
• Under Target destination, the ad accounts you ticked, which receive the assets.

1. Check the assets and the destination. Click Back to change the ad accounts.
2. Click Export.
3. The dialog shows “Export Started”: “The export process to meta for” the business “has been initiated”, with the number of media assets being uploaded.
4. Click Close Modal.

Focal uploads the assets in the background, one after another, so you can keep working. Each asset goes to every ad account you ticked, under the asset’s name in Focal, and appears in the ad account in Meta once its upload is done.

Find exported assets in Meta

An exported asset lands in the media library of each ad account it was sent to, where it can be picked as the image or video of a new ad in Meta’s ads tools. Focal also keeps a link to it.

• In the asset view, open the Attributes tab. Under External Links, the Meta link opens the ad account’s media library on Meta, for the most recent export of that asset.
• In the asset library’s Grid mode, add the Meta URL column with Configure columns to see the same link for every asset at once. See Asset library for Grid mode.

Disconnect your Meta account

Disconnecting removes your Meta account from exporting in Focal. Do it to export with a different Meta login, or when you no longer want Focal to upload on your behalf. Disconnecting does not change anything already exported.

1. Select any asset in the asset library, click the export button and choose Meta.
2. On the list of businesses, click Logout at the bottom of the dialog.

The dialog returns to “Connect your Meta Ad account”. The next export asks you to sign in to Meta again, with whichever account you choose. Disconnecting affects only your own sign-in; teammates who connected their own Meta accounts are not affected.

Who can export to Meta

Space owners, space members and organization admins can export from the asset library. Space guests work with assets through the boards shared with them. See Roles and permissions.

Assets in a board’s tasks can be exported to Meta from the board’s selection toolbar too, by people with Full Access, Edit Access or Upload Access to the board’s view. See Sharing boards.

On Meta’s side, the dialog lists the ad accounts your Meta login has access to; ad accounts are created and shared in Meta. When your Meta login has no ad accounts, the dialog reads “Focal was unable to connect to your export account. This could be due to a permissions issue with your account. Please try again later.” Ask the business’s admin in Meta to give your Meta login access to the ad account, then try again.

Formats and limits of Meta exports

Meta export takes a fixed set of file formats and a set number of assets at a time:

• Formats: JPG, BMP, PNG and GIF images, and MOV and MP4 videos.
• Count: up to 100 assets per export. Split a larger selection into several exports.
• Assets you can see: an export only includes assets you have access to in Focal.

Meta export, ad accounts and workflows

Focal connects to Meta in three places, each with its own sign-in:

• Meta ads export, this article: your personal sign-in, used to send assets from the library or a board.
• Ad accounts, in organization settings: ad accounts connected for the whole organization, so their ad performance shows in reports. This connection is separate from the one used for exporting. See Organization settings: Ad accounts.
• Upload to Meta, a workflow step: sends assets to a Meta ad account automatically, for example every asset approved in a review. See Actions.

TikTok and YouTube exports work the same way as Meta ads export; see TikTok export and YouTube export.