Shared ads and how to split a campaign with a partner

Shared ads means running an ad campaign together with a company that sells to the same customers but does not compete with you. The two of you split the cost, the creative and sometimes the audience, so each side reaches buyers it would otherwise pay more to find. It works when your products are used together and neither partner's customers are already the other's. It is a deal between two companies, so expect a written agreement and a few weeks of setup.

How to do it

1. List complementary companies. Look for products your customers already use alongside yours, in the same price range and size of customer. A competitor, or a company far bigger than you, makes a poor partner.
2. Pick one offer for the shared campaign. A joint webinar, a bundle, a shared guide or a joint discount gives the ad something specific to promote. See co-marketing campaigns for how to structure the offer.
3. Agree on the numbers in writing. Cover who pays what share of the ad spend, who owns the ad account, who approves creative, where leads go, and who follows up with them.
4. Choose how the ad runs. On Meta, partnership ads let you run Facebook and Instagram ads from a partner's handle. Meta's developer documentation lists two permission levels, post-level and account-level. If you cannot use that, run the ad from one company's account and split the invoice.
5. Handle leads in the open. Say on the landing page that both companies will receive the signup, and tell each lead who has their details.
6. Measure by lead quality. Compare cost per qualified lead against your solo campaigns. Stop the campaign if the partner's leads do not convert for you.

What it looks like in practice

Say you sell scheduling software for clinics and a partner sells patient intake forms to the same clinics. You agree on a webinar called "Cut front-desk work in half". You split the cost of a LinkedIn campaign, 50/50, and both brands appear on the ad and landing page. Each registrant is told that both companies will follow up. After the webinar, each side sends its own sequence and the two of you compare how many leads became meetings. This is a walkthrough of one possible setup, not a result.

Examples

• Meta partnership ads. Meta's developer documentation says partnership ads "allow you to run Facebook and Instagram ads from a creator or other partner's handle." It lists post-level and account-level permissioning. This is the mechanism built into an ad platform for two accounts to run one ad.

There is no public, dated case study of two software companies splitting a paid campaign, so none is listed here.

When it backfires

• Sharing audiences. Meta's Custom Audience terms say you "may not sell or transfer your Audiences" and require that you have "a lawful basis to disclose and use the Audience and Customer List Data." Do not hand a partner your customer list to target. Let each company use its own audiences, or run lookalike or interest targeting.
• Unclear lead ownership. If both companies call the same lead and neither knows the other did, you both lose them. Decide in advance who contacts whom and when.
• Mismatched brands. A partner with a bad reputation or a different price point hurts the ad.
• Uneven spend and results. One company can end up paying more than it gets. Set a stop date and review the split after a fixed number of leads.
• Marketing email rules. If either company emails the leads, CAN-SPAM applies, which has no exception for business-to-business email.

Questions people ask

What is shared advertising? Two or more companies pay for and run one campaign that promotes both of them.

How do I find a partner? Start with companies whose users already overlap with yours: integrations you have built, tools you are often mentioned alongside, and customers who use both products.

Sources

• Meta for Developers: Partnership ads, read Oct 8, 2026
• Meta: Custom Audience Terms, read Oct 8, 2026
• FTC: CAN-SPAM Act compliance guide for business, read Oct 8, 2026