Meta Partnership Ads Now Make Up 30 to 50% of the Ads on Our Biggest Accounts

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.Get the DTC Newsletter: https://directtoconsumer.coWHAT YOU WILL SOLVEYour 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 JACOBJacob 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.STAY CONNECTEDDTC Newsletter, daily ecommerce marketing and ecommerce growth tactics: https://directtoconsumer.coYouTube: https://youtube.com/@dtcnewsletterLinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/directtoconsumer00:49 Intro: Jacob from Pilothouse on Meta partnership ads01:28 What partnership ads are, versus whitelisting and dark posts02:53 The Partnership Ads Hub as a creator discovery network03:53 Why they matter: combined signals and ad blindness05:17 Are partnership ads incremental?06:30 Why partnership ads get cheaper CPMs07:34 Fresh looks, Andromeda and ad sequencing08:59 Formats that work: why I switched, gift guides, unboxings10:30 Gifting angles for each creator's audience11:24 Usage rights and how creators get paid12:10 Deal structures: affiliate, paid per video, or free13:32 Planning creator volume for Q415:40 Briefing sale language that won't expire16:12 What share of Meta ads run as partnership ads17:37 Test budgets for brands just starting out19:38 Micro-creators versus mega-influencers21:17 Post-click: when a dedicated landing page earns the build22:06 Creator communities and leaderboards23:06 Setup steps, and why to get permissions before November25:11 A test plan for a $5M brand spending $50K to $100K a month27:58 The metrics that decide a winner29:43 Close and how to reach Jacob