Meta reports that partnership ads deliver 19% lower CPAs and 13% higher CTRs on average vs standard brand ads.
Thatโs why the most advanced Meta accounts are now allocating 20โ50% of spend to partnership ads as a core growth lever.
So weโve just released our Partnership Ads Playbook (Updated for 2026) built off what weโre seeing actually scale inside Meta accounts right now.
Inside, we break down:
- Why partnership ads outperform (and why itโs not about creators or follower count)
- How Meta actually interprets identity, creative, and signals
- The creative diversity multiplier and how identity unlocks incremental reach
- Benchmarks for CPA, CTR, FTI, frequency, and what โgoodโ really looks like
- When to use founders, team members, existing creators, or persona pages
- How to source creators using Metaโs own tools (without wasting time in DMs)
- What to brief creators so content performs and still feels native
- Exact setup flows inside Ads Manager (including dynamic identity)
- Contract terms, usage rights, and what to negotiate (so you donโt get burned later)
- A full measurement framework to know what to scale, what to kill, and when
- Real examples from brands doing this well and why they work
Want it?
Retweet this post
Comment โpartnershipโ and Iโll send it over
17+ years in marketing and NO ONE TOLD ME THIS?! ๐คฏ
According to science: ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ป ๐ถ๐ป๐ฐ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐๐ฒ ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐ฐ๐ต๐ฎ๐ป๐ฐ๐ฒ๐ ๐ผ๐ณ ๐๐ผ๐บ๐ฒ๐ผ๐ป๐ฒ ๐ฏ๐๐๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐๐ผ๐๐ฟ ๐ฝ๐ฟ๐ผ๐ฑ๐๐ฐ๐ ๐ฏ๐ ๐ฏ.๐ฏ๐ซ ๐๐ถ๐บ๐ฝ๐น๐ ๐ฏ๐ ๐ฎ๐๐ธ๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐๐ต๐ฒ๐บ ๐๐ผ ๐บ๐ฎ๐ธ๐ฒ ๐ฎ "๐๐ต๐ถ๐ ๐ผ๐ฟ ๐๐ต๐ฎ๐?" ๐ฐ๐ต๐ผ๐ถ๐ฐ๐ฒ ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐น๐ ๐ถ๐ป ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐ท๐ผ๐๐ฟ๐ป๐ฒ๐.
The choice doesn't even have to be related to your product. Something as simple as:
"Are you an ๐ or a ๐ฆ?"
Causes people to switch from "should I buy?" mode to "which one should I buy?" mode.
In this study people also rated the products more favorably (0.33 vs. โ0.19 on a โ5 to +5 scale), showing a shift toward positive evaluation simply from the order of consideration.
TLDR; Prompting consumers to choose โwhich oneโ instead of โwhether toโ primes a buying mindset that can 2โ5ร their likelihood to purchase, even across unrelated product categories.
Science is bonkers. ๐คฉ
Source:
https://t.co/G5a7OZkPJV
As Amazon's #1 drinkware brand, we'll sell 5 million units in 2023.
Lifetime, we've spent $14 million on Amazon ads.
Our learning? Millions were a waste.
Donโt trust Amazon ads data.
How we've learned to drive actually profitable sales:
The Problem:
Amazon ads takes credit for sales that would've happened organically. Like 40%. Dramatically inflating performance.
Ads convert on relevant keywords. Good products organically rank on relevant keywords. Almost all ads are capturing some organic sales.
More Amazon ads shenanigans? They show your ads on your other product listings. You pay for customers to click between your listings while Amazon ads takes credit for the sale.
How do we know?
Tests. In 2022, we shut our ads off for 3 months.
Did our revenue drop? Yes.
By the ad sales amount reported by Amazon ads? Not even close.
Revenue dropped slightly at first. As our organic placement dropped (due to slower sales velocity), sales drifted down.
This plus more tests have informed our current ad strategy.
Fundamental Ad Strategy:
It's impossible to know a campaign's true performance if all keywords are together. Some keyword ads are 90%+ additive, others are less than 20%.
Group ads keywords into 3 buckets: Competitor, Generic and Branded search.
Competitor Search:
My favorite group of ads to run. It's very hard to organically rank on these terms, they're usually 90%+ incremental.
These ad sales are truly customer acquisition. We're willing to run close to breakeven to flip competitor's customers.
Generic Search:
The most complicated ad keywords. How additive are ads if you have the #1 organic ranking? What if organic ranking is #10?
We base spend on competition for generic search. "Water bottle" is a highly competitive keyword, ads alongside the organic placement help us stand out. However, less competitive keywords don't need ads to help organic listings harvest demand.
Licensed keywords like "Dallas Cowboys" and "Frozen Toys" are perfect for ads. We can convert well but it's tough to organically rank well.
Generic ads are about 70% additive (30% is organic demand). A target ROAS of 3 requires a 4.3 ROAS to compensate for the non-incremental sales.
Branded Search "Simple Modern Tumbler":
Only 20% of sales from branded ads are additive! Fool's gold.
Don't run best sellers, customers see them organically. Run ads for new products or small listings. Merchandise products customers don't know you sell to increase AOV. Box out competitors with low click rate listings.
Targeting a 3 ROAS, run branded campaigns at a 20 ROAS because 80% of sales are capturing organic demand.
Final Thoughts:
View Ads as Investments: If you get a better return buying inventory or in product development, shift your ad budget there.
Embrace competition: Dependance on Amazon ads is a weakness. If you have to over spend, make your product or listing better to rank well organically. The ultimate advantage is a brand that customers value.
As Jeff Bezos famously said...
โAdvertising is the price you pay for having an unremarkable product or service.โ
***
Thanks for reading. If you found it helpful, please comment, like or retweet so other can see it.
Follow me for insights co-founding and operating a 9-figure brand: @jbryanporter
The most overlooked and underrated marketing asset.
Hereโs why:
Welcome emails typically get:
+80% open rates
+25% click rates
+12% reply rates
Itโs an engagement gold mine hidden in plain sight.
No other email you ever send will outperform this one.
So can you afford to ignore it?
Think of the conversations you could start.
Think of your first impression.
Think of your relationships with subscribers.
This email holds so much untapped potential.
Use my guide here to write a perfect one that:
- creates trust
- positions you as a leader
- encourages more engagement
Itโll be a great start for ya.
Join me and @motionapp_ on March 12th @ 2pm ET for a FREE live training!
๐ Dissecting my top ads
๐ Tricks for filming on an iPhone
๐ When to iterate vs create new ads
๐ Tips for working with creators & editors
๐ Ad hooks you need to test right now
https://t.co/Q4Ix1DCZD5
Join me and @motionapp_ on March 12th @ 2pm ET for a FREE live training!
๐ Dissecting my top ads
๐ Tricks for filming on an iPhone
๐ When to iterate vs create new ads
๐ Tips for working with creators & editors
๐ Ad hooks you need to test right now
https://t.co/Q4Ix1DCZD5
My Ultimate Competitor Ad Spying Toolkit:
โ Unicorn Ads
โ PiPi Ads
โ Ad Spy
โ Big Spy
โ Minea
โ Atria
โ FB Ad Library
โ TikTok Top Ads
Did I miss anything?
One thing I learned from this yearโs Super Bowl ads:
Marketers are 100% convinced that authority (celebrity) proof delivered to a wide audience must = impact.
In reality, only the ones that invoke the deepest emotions will be remembered. ๐
DTC Skincare Brands:
Forget your "TikTok made me buy it" or "I'm obsessed"
Test out these 6 scroll-stoppers for your next batch of ad creatives:
[Make sure to save this]
A rock solid vision from a founders translates into great product.
Often founders start with one, but get distracted midway as the product scales and decision making becomes decentralised. Then the team begin to optimise for metrics that doesn't matter.
Thread 1/3
Chrome has restricted third-party cookies for 1% of users from January 4th, 2024.
For DTC businesses, acquisition from PPC ads is going to get trickier.
If you're not focusing on these things, you'll lose out.
A thread ๐งต
@eliweisss@TheGrowthTribe_ This is really embarrassing for me @eliweisss. Allow me some time to check with my content team and fix this. If your claim is correct, will send an apology to all our readers for the same in the next edition with a due credit to your content.