This New Meta Partnership Ads Setup Is Working For Shopify

If you get overwhelmed by doing Facebook ads, this video is for you. The old way of doing the full ad creation process yourself is dead, and I don’t mean because of AI.

So in this video, I show you the new, easier, and cheaper way to make ads using Meta Partnership Ads, so you can scale your Shopify brand fast.

Why This Ad Must Be Part of Your Meta Ads Workflow

The old way of doing Facebook ads is doing the whole ad creation process yourself. From ideation to scripting, briefing, shooting, and editing. You then spend as much money as you profitably can on the ad. The method works, but you can only make a few good ads per month doing this. It consumes your time.

One of the most important ways to scale Facebook Ads today is making lots of ads so you discover what gets sales.

Another problem is a lot of Shopify brands are finding that ads today are expensive. You have to pay to beat out an increasing number of competitors in the ad auction.

The New Solution: Meta Partnership Ads

So here’s the new and better way that solves these problems. True Classic sells clothing and recently expanded into a kids line. In the Facebook Ads library, I click on Branded Content from the top. Here you can see what’s called a partnership ad. These used to be called branded content ads and even whitelisting ads. Today they’re called partnership ads and I’m going to show you why doing more of them increases profit and the one simple tactic with partnership ads that works incredibly well for Shopify brands to blow up sales.

On Nov 20, there’s a creator called The Blumers with brand partner True Classic. If I click to view the Instagram Reel, you can see “Paid partnership with True Classic”. Most brands do partnership ads through an Instagram post because that’s where creators get the most views. This isn’t a problem as you can still run an Instagram Reel on Facebook.

Want to know what’s insane about this type of ad? Meta has designed the auction so it costs less to run partnership ads AND it gets in front of new people wanting to buy. It’s crazy. When you run partnership ads, the ad uses signals from both accounts to improve performance.

Advantages of Meta Partnership Ads for Shopify Brands

You get access to new niche audiences through your influencers, similar to how Facebook ad targeting works when Meta learns from broad signals. That’s new potential customers which is a big challenge for brands spending $10,000 or more a month on ads. This is another big advantage of partnership ads when done right. The less audience overlap you have, the more likely you are to get better results for less spend.

How to Utilize Meta Partnership Ads Effectively

When someone sees a creator posting about your store, it instantly makes you look more legit. Your ads reporting metrics will likely look better. If a shopper sees your ad, then a few days later sees an influencer “posting” about it, it feels less like a coincidence and more like a trend. That repetition tips people over the edge to finally check you out.

Also, the best way to access new audiences is to have ads of people that look and sound like your target audience. In another True Classic partnership ad, you’ll see they have a young lady for their clothes in order to grow their female customers. Very important.

The Cost Efficiency of Meta Partnership Ads

Meta gives you a discount through a bid multiplier, which overcomes a common sticking point that keeps Shopify Facebook ads from scaling. So let’s say the ad would normally enter the auction at a $25 CPM. This means you’d normally pay $25 to get in front of 1000 people. For the partnership ad, it gets an automatic discount bonus in the auction, so you pay something closer to $18 or $15.

This isn’t a hack. Meta has biased the system. I believe they do this to incentivize brands and creators to make better content. When better content is made, creators, brands, viewers, and Meta all win.

Finding Influencers and Creators for Your Meta Partnership Ads

First, you need to look beyond your usual list of creators. Ask yourself what other audiences can your product serve? You’ve got to answer this question first because knowing your audience is the real power of partnership ads.

Instead of pouring budget into one big creator to begin with, split your test budget across a few creators with different audiences. Fitness coaches, book reviewers, even someone local with a loyal following. A part of success with partnership ads comes down to picking creators who connect on camera.

The best ones make you feel like they’re talking right to you, not just performing for anyone who will watch. You’ll notice this with great YouTubers and short-form storytellers. That one-to-one feeling is a factor that grabs attention and gets people to watch longer.

Ultimately, you want to get genuine partners, not just content factories for hire. The best creators care about their community, and it shows. You’ll see this authenticity in their comments and how followers engage with their content.

5 Ways to Source Creators for Partnership Ads

To find good influencers to work with, you first need to know how to search them, then rate and filter them. A good source is your existing audience. Does your brand have any big followers already? DM them. A big appeal of partnership ads for these people is that they don’t have to post on their page.

To find new creators, go on Instagram then check the comment sections of creators you already like. Find out who’s attracting a lot of likes on their comments. These can be influencers who tend to support and interact with each other, making it easy to discover new faces who might be a good fit.

I suggest you use tools like Insense to find someone new whose audience fits your target demographic and geographic criteria. You can also use Meta’s Creator Marketplace to find relevant creators. This is free to use.

A third great source of creators for partnership ads is networks. When you work with a creator, I suggest asking them who else they can recommend. They’re often happy to recommend friends from their own networks.

The fourth and easiest starting point is a Founder’s Story ad. Run a personal narrative about your brand’s origin directly through the founder’s personal page. It’s a low-friction way to humanize the brand while mastering the partnership ad process.

Another source is the creators of other brand. Since the “Branded Content” filter in the Ad Library often misses ads, try these workarounds:

• The Keyword Hack: Search the brand in the Ad Library, then use Cmd+F/Ctrl+F to search the page for “with [Brand Name].”
• The General Search: Perform a broad search for the brand or their specific domain name in the ads library. This surfaces ads run by third-party creators or partners that don’t appear on the main brand page.

Working with Influencers and Creators

Now that you’ve got your eyes on a partner, think about what percentage of your ad spend budget you would be willing to trial on this new type of content. After that, break that budget up to decide what to spend on each partner.

Next, you need to send each creator a unique brief. You can modify previous briefs to save yourself time. But if you want the best chance of success, I highly recommend planning the script and b-roll to go with it.

Tell them to get creative within those guidelines and slightly modify the script if it helps them be more authentic. Creativity thrives within restrictions. As for deliverables, ask for 2 main ads with 10 hook variations (first 3 seconds of the ad) to mix and match. That’s 20+ unique ads for you from one shoot.

Hooks matter a lot because the majority of people don’t watch beyond the first 3 seconds. Having different hooks lets you test how to best grab attention and increase engagement.

Expect the total process of creation and distribution to take about 60 days. First 30 days for all steps up to shooting content. Next 30 for running the ad. Do a one-time payment for the 60 days to keep it simple.

How You Create the Ad in Facebook Ads

To create the ad, I’ll quickly show you the process. Let’s say I’m the influencer and I’m going to run ads through Digital Darts. In the Business Manager, from the left I click the Partnership Ads Hub. I go to Partners then click Add Partnership. Search the person’s username for the ad partner.

After that, select the business asset you want to run the ads on, which is Digital Darts for this example. I send the request through. Now, here’s what it looks like from the creator’s perspective. You can’t do this on a computer, so this is what it looks like in the Instagram app.

All I’ve got to do is review the request then accept it. Simple. This process is so much easier than it used to be.

Then in ads manager, when creating the ad, enable “Partnership ad”.

Then the last thing you need to do that’s unique in this type of ad is select the identities.

Since I haven’t linked my personal Facebook page, it’s unavailable so I can just use my Instagram account. If you also get permissions to run from their Facebook page, you can select it here. For the first identity, I suggest you select the person you’re working with as this name appears first at the top of the ad.

Tips to Make Partnership Ads Even More Effective

Once your ad is running, here’s some bonus strategies to really blow up your Shopify brand. When you get a creator who does well, you can make it even better by creating a custom landing page for the creator. This can squeeze out even more profit from partnership ads.

A second tactic is to consider a performance bonus to your creator partner if the spend behind their ad reaches a certain amount per month. For example, they get 5% of spend if an ad goes over $50k+spend/mo. You’ve got to make sure you cover your costs. This incentivizes the person to iterate and spend time making better ads.

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