Meta partnership ads: what the permission covers, and what it doesn't

Two permissions, two places

Partnership ads (formerly branded content ads) run from your ad account but show both your brand and the creator. To make one, the creator has to give you access on Meta, either by approving your brand as a partner or by sharing a partnership ad code for a specific post.

That access is technical. It decides whether Meta lets you build the ad. The usage license is commercial: the dates, channels and fee you agreed with the creator, usually in a contract or an email. The two are set up separately, by different people, and they don't update each other.

What happens when the permission is removed

Removing a partnership permission blocks new ads from being created with the creator's content. Ads that are already running keep delivering until someone on the brand side pauses them, and that includes duplicates of the ad in other ad sets and campaigns.

Since September 2026, Meta also lets a creator put an expiry date on the permission in Creator Marketing Hub. That helps, but at the time of writing Meta hasn't published what the expiry does to ads that are already live. Don't rely on it to stop delivery.

Where partnership ads and licenses drift apart

Even with a permission in place, these are the common ways a live ad ends up outside the license:

• The permission was granted for longer than the license, or with no end date at all.
• The video was downloaded and re-uploaded as an ordinary creative, so no partnership permission applies.
• A winning ad was duplicated, and only the original was paused at the end date.
• The license covers Meta for 90 days, but the footage was also cut into ads for other channels.
• The ad runs in a second ad account, such as a regional or agency account, that nobody checked.

How to keep partnership ads inside the license

A few habits close most of the gap:

• When the creator grants access, ask them to set the permission's end date to match the license, if the option is available.
• Record the end date of each licensed asset in one tracker, not only in the contract.
• 2 weeks before an end date, decide: renew or pause. Ask for renewal pricing while there's time.
• On the end date, pause every ad that uses the content: the partnership ad, its duplicates and any re-uploads.
• Check live ads against licenses on a schedule, because ads get duplicated after launch.

Partnership ads and whitelisting

Partnership ads are Meta's current way of running ads through a creator's handle, which the industry calls whitelisting. Whitelisting access is often priced and timed separately from the right to use the content, so a contract can give you 90 days of usage but only 30 days of running ads through the creator's handle. Check both dates.

Common questions

Does a partnership ad stop when the creator's license ends?

No. Meta doesn't know your license dates. The ad keeps running until you pause it, even if the creator removes your permission.

If the creator removed our permission, are we covered?

Removing permission stops new ads, not the ones already live. If the license has ended, pause the live ads too, including duplicates.

Can the creator see the ads we run with their content?

Anyone can look up active ads in Meta's public Ad Library, and creators do check it for their own videos.

Is a partnership ad code the same as a contract?

No. The code gives technical access to one post. The dates, channels and fee you agreed with the creator are what decide how long you may run it.