Why brands run ads from someone else's handle
- Nectar's head of marketing put it simply: if an ad from Nectar says Nectar is the best mattress, people shrug, because of course Nectar would say that. The same words from a creator land differently.
- Ketone-IQ's CEO wants an ad with Jon Jones to come from Jon Jones's own handle, because buyers take it differently than the same ad from the brand.
- Ridge's founder says Meta gets better signal and better targeting when there are two handles on an ad. He said he wouldn't be surprised if half of Ridge's Q4 money went to partner ads.
“Right now across my entire portfolio, whitelisting ads have just been the best performers, no question.”
Marketing Operators, May 2024
Whose handle to run it from
- The name on the handle matters less than you'd think. Ridge has run ads from famous golfers, actors and musicians, and from accounts it made itself, and couldn't find a clear difference.
- So the follower count doesn't decide it either. Your ad budget pays for the reach.
- Often the brand sends the content and borrows the account to run it.
- Ridge sources new faces by gifting: out of 100 free wallets, maybe two people make something worth spending ad money on. Those get paid to make more.
- A brand Ridge's size only needs a roster of 30 to 50 creators. Paying them for content also gets the brand access to whitelist their accounts.
Source: Sean Frank, founder and CEO of Ridge, Open Residency, December 2025
How creators get paid for it
| Who | How they pay the creator |
|---|---|
| The usual deal | A fee for the video, plus access to the creator's handle for a set time |
| Ketone-IQ | The partner gets a portion of what the brand spends behind their whitelisted ads |
| Zach Stuck's advice | A small percent of what the brand spent behind the creator's ad that month, paid as a bonus |
- The share of spend is what keeps a creator wanting to shoot more for you. Their pay goes up when their ad works.
Source: Michael Brandt on Open Residency, April 2026, and Zach Stuck on Marketing Operators, November 2024
How the ads are set up
- Wait for the post to prove itself. True Classic let a post have its viral moment, then put paid behind it about a week later.
- Give the creator ads their own campaign. Herrmann runs them as one, with the audience cap set at 20%, and treats it as both the middle of the funnel and a way to reach new people.
- Read each creator's numbers. Running a creator's post as an ad gives you how much of the video people watched and what each customer cost, which a screenshot from the creator never will. That tells you which creators belong at the top of the funnel and which close sales.
- Move the money to what sells, and ask those creators for more.
Source: Bryan Cano on Marketing Operators, April 2026; David Herrmann on Marketing Operators, May 2024; a talent agency founder on Net Influencer, August 2026
Where we'd start
- List the posts about your brand that already did well on their own.
- Get the rights and handle access in writing before anything runs.
- Test each creator as its own ad, then put the budget behind the ones that bring in customers.
See what Meta partnership ads show for how brands like Onnit and fatty15 run them today.