What Meta partnership ads are, and when to run creator content through them
A Meta partnership ad is an ad you pay for and control in your own Ads Manager that runs under a creator's Instagram or Facebook handle. The top of the ad names the creator alone, or the creator and your brand. Running the same creator video from your own page is an ordinary ad: only your brand's name is on it, and nothing in Meta needs the creator's say-so.
The difference is mostly about who has to grant what, and who can change the ad once it is live. A partnership ad needs the creator's permission, given in Meta's apps, and the creator can withdraw that permission. In return you get their name on the ad, and with the broader permission, an audience built from people who engage with their account.
Our rule of thumb: if the creator's name and following are part of why the ad should work, make it a partnership ad. If the creator is a face delivering your script, run it from your own page.
What is a Meta partnership ad?
A partnership ad is a Facebook or Instagram ad that a brand runs from a creator's (or another business's) account, with up to two accounts shown in the ad's header. Meta used to call these branded content ads and renamed them (Instagram Help Center, About partnership ads). Many marketers still call running ads through a creator's handle "whitelisting". That is industry shorthand, and it is not the name Meta uses on these pages.
The name at the top. In Ads Manager you choose, under Identities, whether the header shows both accounts, the creator only, or "dynamic identity", where Meta picks between those two based on what it predicts will do better. Dynamic identity is on by default (Meta's setup guide for partnership ads).
Ranking. Meta says the ad is ranked on signals drawn from both accounts, whichever header you pick (About displaying accounts in partnership ads header).
Permission. You need the creator's permission, granted inside Meta's apps, before the ad can run from their handle (About partnership ad permissions).
On Meta's third quarter 2026 earnings call on 21 October, CFO Susan Li said: "Our partnership ads product grew over 97% year-over-year and surpassed $15 billion in annual revenue run-rate." (Meta Q3 2026 earnings call transcript). That figure is revenue to Meta. It says how much advertisers are spending on the format, and nothing about whether it will lower your cost per purchase.
How is a partnership ad different from running a creator's video from your own page?
If you work with UGC creators, you may already do the second thing: the creator sends a file, you upload it to Ads Manager, and it runs as your ad.
| What changes | Creator video from your own page | Partnership ad |
|---|---|---|
| Name in the ad's header | Your brand only | Creator only, both accounts, or Meta's pick (dynamic identity) |
| What you need from the creator inside Meta | Nothing. You need the file and the right to use it, which is a matter for your agreement with them | A permission: an ad code or boost toggle for one post, or an account-level permission for their handle |
| Can the creator stop it? | Not through Meta | Yes. Removing your account-level permission in the Instagram app pauses ads already running, and they can stop any single live ad there |
| Comments | On your ad, managed by you | You can hide comments on the ad and on their original post. They can unhide them, and hide or delete comments themselves |
| Audiences you can add | Your own | With account-level permission, also people who engaged with the creator's Instagram account, and lookalikes built from them |
| Who must be eligible | You, as any advertiser | The creator too: a professional account and an established presence on the platform |
| Who sees results in Ads Manager | You | You. What the creator gets back is something to agree with them in writing |
Sources for the partnership column: About partnership ad permissions, Stop an advertiser from running partnership ads, Use creator audience sharing for partnership ads, Eligibility requirements. The own-page column is our description of an ordinary ad, not a Meta page.
A partnership ad does not appear on the creator's profile, although their original post stays there unless they archive it, and the ad is listed in the Meta Ad Library (Meta's page on partnership ad codes). You can also edit the content for the ad without changing the creator's original post (About partnership ad permissions).
What does the creator have to grant, and what does each permission let you do?
Meta has two levels of permission. The level the creator gives you decides what you can build. Content-level permission is the creator's approval for you to promote one specific post, story or reel of theirs as a partnership ad.
| What changes | Content-level permission | Account-level permission |
|---|---|---|
| How the creator grants it | Shares a partnership ad code for one post, story or reel, or turns on the boost toggle on a post whose paid partnership label names you | Accepts your request in the Instagram app, the Facebook app or Meta's partnership ads hub |
| What you can run | That one piece of content | Any of their posts that tag your brand, plus new ads from their handle using footage they never posted |
| Creator's audience for targeting | Not offered | Yes, people who engaged with their Instagram account, and lookalikes |
| Suits | A single post, a one-off campaign | An ongoing relationship with a creator you trust |
Sources: About partnership ad permissions, Manage content-level permissions, Use creator audience sharing.
A partnership ad code is a code the creator makes in Instagram or Facebook for a single piece of their content. You paste it into Ads Manager and that post becomes the ad. A few rules from Meta's page on codes are worth knowing before you build a plan around one (Meta's page on partnership ad codes):
Up to two advertisers can use the same code at once.
If the creator turns the code off, you cannot make new ads from it, but ads already running carry on.
On Instagram, archiving the post does not take away your access to boost it. Archived Facebook posts cannot be boosted.
The creator needs a professional Instagram account, or on Facebook a Page or a profile switched to professional mode.
Whoever published the original post always takes the first slot in the header. If the creator posted it, they come first and you are second (About displaying accounts in partnership ads header).
Account-level permission is a standing approval the creator accepts once, which lets a brand run partnership ads under the creator's handle, including new ads made from footage the creator never posted. It is the permission that changes the work, and it is the only route to their audience (About partnership ad permissions). Meta also notes that if an agency runs partnership ads for you, you have to give the agency access to your ad account, your Facebook Page and your Instagram account (Meta's setup guide for partnership ads).
Who controls the ad, the comments and the audience?
The ad and the budget are yours. You build it in your Ads Manager, set the budget, audience and schedule, and Meta reviews it like any other ad (Meta's setup guide for partnership ads).
The right to keep running it is shared. Meta states that creators can withdraw either level of permission at any time. Meta's steps for the Instagram app say that when a creator removes your account-level permission there, the ads that are running are paused, and that a creator can also stop any single active partnership ad from the same app (Stop an advertiser from running partnership ads). That is the real cost of the format: a winning partnership ad depends on someone outside your company.
Comments are shared too. You can hide comments on the ad and on the creator's original post. The creator can unhide anything you hid, and can hide or delete comments on the ad and their post (About partnership ad permissions). If your product draws questions about price, results or side effects, agree in advance who answers them and what gets hidden.
The audience you can borrow comes with account-level permission. With it, you can build a custom audience of people who engaged with the creator's Instagram account and use it, or a lookalike made from it, in the partnership campaign. The Instagram account you pick as the ad's identity has to be the same one the audience was built from (Use creator audience sharing).
Results sit in your Ads Manager. Meta lists ad performance insights in Ads Manager as one of the advertiser's benefits (About partnership ads). If a creator's fee or renewal depends on performance, write down what you will share with them since they cannot see your ad’s results.
Do partnership ads perform better than ads from your own page?
Meta makes performance claims for the format, and they are Meta's claims. It says partnership ads draw on signals from both accounts "for improved ranking and incremental performance" (About partnership ads).
Meta also says that adding partnership ads to your usual direct response campaigns can raise click-through rate. For that, Meta says the partnership and non-partnership ads need to sit in the same campaign with budget able to move between them, either in one ad set or in separate ad sets under Advantage+ campaign budget (Add partnership ads to BAU campaigns).
The way to find out if partnership ads work for your brand is to test it on your own account. Meta's mixed-campaign setup answers a different question: whether adding partnership ads helps the account overall. In our view, with budget free to move between the two, Meta will spend unevenly, so that setup will not tell you which identity wins for one video.
To answer that, run the same creator video both ways as a Meta A/B test, which you can set up in Ads Manager or the Experiments tool. Meta's A/B test gives each version a separate slice of your audience, so no one is shown both, and Meta recommends giving each version an equal budget (About A/B testing). Judge both versions on cost per purchase, with click-through rate as the early read. A partnership ad that lifts click-through rate but not purchases has bought you cheaper clicks, which is a different thing from a better ad.
When should creator content run as a partnership ad?
Make it a partnership ad when:
The creator has a following that looks like your buyer, so their name in the header means something to the person scrolling.
The video is the creator's own recommendation, in their own words. Meta's own guidance points the creator-only header at exactly this case, and dynamic identity lets Meta use that header when it predicts it will do better (About displaying accounts in partnership ads header).
You expect to keep working with them, which makes account-level permission and their audience worth setting up.
Run it from your own page when:
The creator is delivering your script, and the thing you are testing is the idea, not the person. Their handle may matter less than the idea here, and it brings a dependency. If you are unsure, the A/B test described above can tell you.
The creator has a small account, or no professional account, so they may not meet Meta's eligibility rules anyway.
You plan to cut the footage into many versions over months. The fewer outside permissions a winner relies on, the longer you can run and rework it.
If you brief creators yourself, the back and forth may already be the slowest part of your week. A partnership ad adds one more step to that loop, a permission request the creator has to accept. That step is worth taking when their name is doing work in the ad, and not otherwise.
What does that look like in practice?
Illustrative example.
A founder selling a sleep supplement books two creators this month. The first is a UGC creator with a few hundred followers, paid to read three hooks the founder wrote about falling asleep faster. Those videos run from the brand's own page, because the test is which of the three ideas works, and the creator's handle would add nothing.
The second has about 80,000 followers who mostly follow her for night-shift nursing content, and she already takes the product. Her video is her own story, told her way. The founder asks for account-level permission and runs the video as a partnership ad.
Dynamic identity stays on, as Meta sets it by default, so Meta can choose between the creator-only header that suits a personal recommendation and the header with both accounts, instead of the founder guessing which one this audience trusts more. Meta's header page recommends dynamic identity as its best practice (About displaying accounts in partnership ads header).
The founder adds a lookalike built from the creator's engaged audience. Finally, they agree in writing how long the ad can run, who answers comments about side effects, and what results the creator will be sent each month.
What should you set up before your next creator shoot?
Decide, per creator, which route each video will take before you brief them. It changes what you ask for.
For a partnership ad, ask for account-level permission if you expect more than one ad, and an ad code if you only want to boost one post.
Put the usage terms in writing either way: how long you can run the footage, where, and whether you can edit it. For a partnership ad, the same agreement should say how long the creator's permission lasts and what, if anything, you pay for it. Meta's permissions do not replace that agreement.
Agree who handles comments, and what you will report back to the creator.
If you want to know whether the handle helps, run both versions as a Meta A/B test and judge them on cost per purchase.
Whichever route you pick, tag every creator video when it is made with the idea it argues and the route it ran on, so that a month later you can tell whether a result came from the idea or from the creator's name. That is the same habit behind our posts on why yapper ads convert and why raw content outconverts polished ads, and it is how we make Meta ad creative.
Key takeaways
A partnership ad runs from a creator's handle, with the creator alone or both accounts in the header, while you keep the budget and the setup in your own Ads Manager.
It needs the creator's permission inside Meta: content-level for one post, account-level for new ads from their handle and their audience. Creators can withdraw either at any time.
Comments are shared. You can hide them, and the creator can unhide them.
Meta claims better ranking for the format, and a better click-through rate when partnership ads are added to your business-as-usual campaigns. Test it on your account against the same video from your own page with a Meta A/B test, judged on cost per purchase.
Our rule: partnership ad when the creator's name and following are part of the pitch; your own page when the creator is delivering your script.
FAQ
What is a Meta partnership ad? A partnership ad is a Facebook or Instagram ad that a brand runs from a creator's or another business's account, with the creator alone or both accounts shown at the top. The brand builds and pays for it in its own Ads Manager. Meta used to call these branded content ads.
What is the difference between a partnership ad and a normal ad with creator content? A normal ad with creator content runs under your brand's name only, and Meta does not need the creator's permission. A partnership ad shows the creator's handle, needs their permission on the platform, and, if they grant account-level permission, lets you target people who engage with their account.
How do I get permission to run a partnership ad? The creator either shares a partnership ad code for one post, turns on the boost toggle on a post whose paid partnership label names you, or accepts an account-level permission request from you. The code covers one piece of content. Account-level permission lets you run new ads from their handle and use their audience.
Can a creator stop a partnership ad? Yes. Meta says creators can withdraw either level of permission at any time. Removing account-level permission in the Instagram app pauses the ads that are running, and the creator can stop any single active partnership ad from the Instagram app. Switching an ad code off only blocks new ads; ads already made from it keep running.
Do partnership ads perform better? Meta says they draw on signals from both accounts to rank better, and that adding them to your usual campaigns can raise click-through rate. Those are Meta's claims. Test the same video as a partnership ad and from your own page with a Meta A/B test, and judge both on cost per purchase.
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