Who changed this Meta ad? Ads Manager activity history, and what it misses for agency teams

A client asks who launched last week's ads, and nobody is sure. Ads Manager keeps an activity history that answers most of that, per Meta's own documentation. Here is how to read it, and the three places where agency teams find it silent.

Adlio teamPublished 24 September 20265 min read

The short answer

Ads Manager keeps an activity history for every campaign, ad set and ad. Per Meta, "you can see who made changes, what changes were made and when those changes were made." For an agency that answers most "who launched this?" questions, with three gaps: people who leave the account turn into "Meta", the business portfolio's own history logs access rather than ads, and a tool that works through one person's connection makes a whole team look like one person.

Everything Meta-specific below is quoted from Meta's help centre and Marketing API reference, checked on 24 September 2026. Our own recommendations are labelled as such.

How to see who changed an ad

Meta's steps: "Go to Ads Manager. Select Campaigns, Ad sets or Ads. Select the campaign, ad set or ad you want to view. Click Activity history on the right to open the side panel."

The Changed by column can show:

You see	What Meta says it means
Your name	Changes you made yourself
Another person's name	"Changes made by anyone with an admin or advertiser role on your ad account"
A rule name	"Changes made by automated rules"
A business identity	"Changes made by an authorized business identity who has or had an ad account role"
Meta	"Changes made by the ad review system at Meta or someone who has removed themselves or been removed from the ad account", and some status changes such as pending review

To see where an ad was built, find the "Ad created" entry and hover over the name under Changed by. Meta documents two values: "Using: Power Editor" means the ad "was created from Ads Manager", and "Using: Boosted Page" means it "was created from a Facebook Page".

The history can be filtered by type: account, ads, ad sets, audience, bid, budget, campaigns, run status, schedule and targeting. Run status covers "when you pause, resume or delete your ad", which is the entry to look for when a client asks who switched something on.

Three gaps agency teams run into

1. People who leave become "Meta"

Meta's own definition of the "Meta" label includes "someone who has removed themselves or been removed from the ad account". The day a freelancer's access ends, their name disappears from the changes they made. If you need to know later who built a batch, the ad account history will not tell you.

2. Business history logs access, not ads

The business portfolio has its own log. Per Meta, people with full control can "download an activity log for the actions taken within Meta Business Suite", covering actions "such as when new users are added, roles are updated, or partners are granted access to assets". Meta's list of Business history events is all about people, partners and assets; it contains no event for creating or editing an ad. It is the right place to answer "who gave this freelancer access?", and the wrong place for "who launched these ads?".

3. A shared connection has one name

A tool that creates ads through the Marketing API does so with an access token. Meta describes a user access token as "associated with your app user's personal Facebook account", and warns in its system-user documentation that if you act for real people with a shared token, "you cannot link this user to those actions unless you take them through Facebook Login". Meta's activity records do keep a person field and an app field side by side (actor_name and application_name), but Meta does not document what they show when several people use one person's connection.

Our reading, not a Meta statement: when a whole team launches through one person's connection, Meta's history attributes those launches to that one person. Check it in your own account: open an ad created through your tool, find "Ad created" in its activity history and hover over the name.

One login per person in Meta. Give each buyer their own access with the Advertiser role rather than sharing a login. Meta's own advice for that role: "people who need to build and manage ad campaigns but should not control billing or account membership", for example "an agency managing your campaigns".
Put the builder in the ad name. A token for the buyer's initials in your naming convention survives when their access ends and shows up in every report.
Export Business history before offboarding someone. It records who had which access and when, which is the part the ad history loses once they are removed.
If you use the API, store the log yourself. The activities edge "returns one week's data by default", and the Ad object has no creator field (only created_time, updated_time and last_updated_by_app_id), so a nightly copy is the only way to keep a long history.
Launch paused and review before anything goes live. Knowing who built a batch matters most when you can still fix it; see the pre-launch QA checklist.

Where a launch tool fits

We are Adlio, so weigh this section accordingly. On the Team plan, members log in with their own email and launch through the agency owner's Facebook connection, so they need no role in the client's Meta account. That is convenient, and it means Meta's history cannot tell them apart (gap 3). Adlio records who launched each batch itself: the history page shows a "Launched by" column per batch, next to the ad account, the ad set and the result. It covers launches made through Adlio, not edits someone makes later in Ads Manager; for those, Meta's activity history above is still the record.

How team access per client account works is in Meta ad account roles for agencies and on the agency page. The launch itself is described in how bulk upload works.

Frequently asked questions

How do I see who made changes to a Facebook ad?+

In Ads Manager, select Campaigns, Ad sets or Ads, select the item, and click Activity history on the right. Meta: "you can see who made changes, what changes were made and when those changes were made." The Changed by column shows a person's name, a rule name, a business identity or "Meta".

Why does activity history say "Meta" instead of a name?+

Per Meta, "Meta" stands for "changes made by the ad review system at Meta or someone who has removed themselves or been removed from the ad account", and can also mark status changes such as pending review. So once a freelancer or former employee loses access, their past changes stop showing their name.

Does Business Manager show who created an ad?+

No. Business history, which people with full control can download, logs actions such as users being added, roles updated and partners granted access to assets. Its list of events contains no ad, ad set or campaign creation. Who created an ad lives in the Ads Manager activity history.

Can I get this history through the Marketing API?+

Yes, through the activities edge of the ad account, which returns AdActivity records with fields such as actor_name, application_name, event_type and object_name. Meta notes that "this API returns one week's data by default". The Ad object itself has no creator field, only created_time, updated_time and last_updated_by_app_id.

Sources

Adlio team

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