Partnership ads: running ads from the creator’s own handle

A UGC video run from a brand’s Page is an ad that looks like a creator. The same video run from the creator’s own handle, with the brand named as the sponsor, is a creator’s post that happens to be an ad. Meta calls the second one a partnership ad, and it is the format most brands want once they have seen the two side by side. The catch has always been the admin: permissions on Instagram, handles typed by hand, approvals chased over email. This post is how that flow runs inside a campaign here, who does what, and what shows up in Build Ads when it is done.

What a partnership ad is

A partnership ad carries two identities. The first is who speaks: the creator’s professional Instagram account, so the ad shows her handle and her face in the header and reads as her post. The second is the sponsor: your brand, named on the ad. Meta lets the ad show both names, only the creator’s, or decide dynamically per placement, and the builder here defaults to the dynamic choice, the same default the platforms built around this format use. Delivery is on Instagram, where the handle lives.

Because the ad runs from her account with her permission, it needs her consent on Instagram itself, and that permission belongs to the pair of you, brand and creator, not to a single campaign. Once she has approved your brand as an ad partner, every campaign of yours she films for can use it, and she can revoke it from Instagram whenever she wants.

The creator’s side: connect and approve

In the campaign room on her phone, a creator with an approved video sees Partnership ads as an action on the Ads column of her deal. The first step is connecting Instagram: a login with Instagram, for a professional account, asking for the one permission the flow needs. Her handle and her profile picture come back to the platform and show on her profile; nothing about her followers or her posts is read for this.

The second step is the approval, and it happens inside the Instagram app, not on our side. Your request appears for her under Partnership ads in her creator tools, in Ad partners, as a pending request. She confirms it there. The sheet on her phone follows along: it opens Instagram for her, and when she comes back it already says she is connected, because the state is read live from Meta, never assumed.

Your side: request once, then build

On the brand side you need Meta connected to the campaign with your Page and its Instagram account, which is the same connection Build Ads uses. From the campaign you request the partnership for a creator; the request goes to Meta, and the state shows in the campaign as pending, approved or revoked, refreshed on its own. If something on your side blocks the request, such as a Page without an Instagram account linked, the campaign says the real cause and points to Integrations to fix it, rather than a generic error.

In Build Ads, a video from a creator whose approval is live is marked as able to run as a partnership ad, with her handle. When you turn Partnership on for a build, the review shows the ad header as it will read, her name and your brand together. One build can mix: the identity belongs to the creative, so in one ad set a video from an approved creator runs from her handle and the next from your Page. When the picked videos mix, the builder counts the ones that cannot and offers one press to keep only the ones that can.

What changes in the results

The ad is still yours: the spend, the budget and the audience are in your ad account, and the per-ad readings in the Ads tab are the same. What is different is the Analytics view for Meta ads, which has a partnership section when any ad ran from a handle: the readings per ad, watch time, placements and audience from your account, next to the public shape of the creator’s Instagram, so you can see which handles carry a video further than your Page does. The creator share of ad spend works the same as on any other ad built from the platform, as explained in commission-based UGC.

Why run it from the platform

• The handle is verified, not typed. The creator connected the account herself. There is no field where a wrong handle can be entered and a request sent to a stranger.
• One request per creator, not per campaign. The permission is between your brand and her account. Asking twice is an error on Meta’s side, and the platform reads before it asks.
• The approval is read live. Pending, approved and revoked are Meta’s words, shown as they are, and the build checks again at the moment it matters.
• The video and the share travel together. The ad is built from the approved video in your Library, so the creator’s share and the per-creative view work exactly as for any other build.
• The creator stays in control. She approves in Instagram, she can disconnect from the campaign, and she can revoke in Instagram. Nothing runs from her handle without that.

Setting it up well

1. Connect Meta to the campaign with the Page that has your Instagram account linked. Integrations shows which Instagram the Page carries.
2. Approve the video first. The partnership action appears for a creator once she has an approved video in the campaign, so review comes before permissions.
3. Request the partnership from the campaign, and let the creator approve in Instagram. The state updates on its own.
4. Build with Partnership on, keep only the videos that can run from a handle, and read the header in the review before launch.
5. Compare in Analytics after a week: the same video from your Page and from her handle, side by side.

The launch itself, from approved video to ad set, is covered in from approved video to live Meta ad without downloading. The UGC for paid ads page shows the whole path, and the influencer marketing page covers campaigns where the creator’s own audience is the point.