What are Meta partnership ads, and how should a DTC brand test them before Q4? They run through a creator’s handle with your brand tagged, so Meta combines both accounts’ engagement signals, and Pilothouse typically sees lower CPMs on them than on ads from the brand handle alone.

Jacob Geary runs Meta accounts at Pilothouse and joins Eric Dyck on All Killer No Filler to lay out how partnership ads work in practice. On the larger accounts his team runs, 30 to 50% of the ads now go out as partnership ads, and most of the creators behind them are micro-creators. You walk away with a test plan for a brand spending $50K to $100K a month on Meta: the budget, the number of creators, the formats to brief, and the metrics that decide what scales.

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WHAT YOU WILL SOLVE

• Your customers have seen your brand ads so often they scroll past them. The same message from a creator’s handle, with your brand tagged, gives them a fresh face and tends to deliver at a lower CPM.
• You don’t know where to find creators. The Partnership Ads Hub inside Meta suggests creators in your vertical, surfaces people already posting about you, and hands you the ad code once both sides approve.
• You don’t know what to brief. Jacob’s starting formats are “why I switched” problem and solution videos, holiday gift guides, and raw unboxings shot on a phone.
• You don’t know what to pay. Jacob’s range is $100 to $300 per creator for a few videos and 60 days of usage, and some creators will take the exposure from your ad spend without a fee.
• You assume you need big names. Micro-creators make up 80 to 90% of what Pilothouse runs, with performance Jacob describes as very similar and a faster testing cadence.
• Your Q4 creator ads die the day the sale ends. Brief creators three to four weeks ahead and have them mention the sale in general terms instead of reading out a discount and a date.
• You don’t know how big the first test should be. At $100K a month on Meta, Jacob puts 10% toward three to five creators with one or two videos each, then builds toward 20% by month three.
• You’re not sure how to judge the results. Use the same purchase conversion rate and ROAS benchmarks as any new creative test, with a little more patience in month one.

ABOUT JACOB

Jacob Geary is a Meta media buyer at Pilothouse, the performance marketing team behind DTC, where he runs paid social for ecommerce brands. To talk partnership ads with his team, go to https://pilothouse.co and ask for Jacob.

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00:49 Intro: Jacob from Pilothouse on Meta partnership ads

01:28 What partnership ads are, versus whitelisting and dark posts

02:53 The Partnership Ads Hub as a creator discovery network

03:53 Why they matter: combined signals and ad blindness

05:17 Are partnership ads incremental?

06:30 Why partnership ads get cheaper CPMs

07:34 Fresh looks, Andromeda and ad sequencing

08:59 Formats that work: why I switched, gift guides, unboxings

10:30 Gifting angles for each creator’s audience

11:24 Usage rights and how creators get paid

12:10 Deal structures: affiliate, paid per video, or free

13:32 Planning creator volume for Q4

15:40 Briefing sale language that won’t expire

16:12 What share of Meta ads run as partnership ads

17:37 Test budgets for brands just starting out

19:38 Micro-creators versus mega-influencers

21:17 Post-click: when a dedicated landing page earns the build

22:06 Creator communities and leaderboards

23:06 Setup steps, and why to get permissions before November

25:11 A test plan for a $5M brand spending $50K to $100K a month

27:58 The metrics that decide a winner

29:43 Close and how to reach Jacob