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Whitelisting is the permission a creator gives a brand to run paid ads from the creator's own profile. Meta's formal tool for this is called Partnership Ads (formerly Branded Content Ads), and TikTok's is called Spark Ads — both require explicit permission from the creator, which is either time-limited or revocable, and both let the ad keep the creator's name, post and existing likes/comments. It is a different thing from buying UGC usage rights to run the raw files as an ad from your own account.
Whitelisting is the permission a creator gives a brand to run paid ads from the creator's own profile — not the brand's. Meta has a formal tool for this called Partnership Ads (formerly Branded Content Ads), and TikTok has its own called Spark Ads. Both let the ad keep the creator's name, avatar and — crucially — the likes, comments and shares the post has already earned organically, because it is technically still the creator's post. The brand only controls budget, targeting and flight dates, not the content itself.
That's a different thing from buying UGC usage rights to run the raw files as ad creative from your own account — see how to turn influencer content into Meta ads for that workflow. This article goes deep on the whitelisting mechanics themselves: how permission is granted, how long it lasts, and when it's the right choice instead of a full UGC license. If you haven't found the creator yet, TikTok's and Instagram's own free, native discovery tools are usually the starting point — see TikTok Creator Marketplace vs Instagram Creator Marketplace. Note that this authorization is a separate step from the disclosure label itself — see Meta's Paid Partnership label vs TikTok's Branded Content toggle, explained for how a creator turns that label on in the first place, which has to happen before a brand can request whitelisting access at all.
Most brands end up using both formats — but they solve different jobs, and confusing the two is one of the costliest mistakes in the list further down.
| Licensed UGC as an ad (from your own account) | Whitelisting / Partnership Ads / Spark Ads (from the creator's account) | |
|---|---|---|
| Who the ad appears to come from | The brand | The creator — name, avatar and handle are theirs |
| Organic engagement kept? | No — the ad starts from zero likes/comments | Yes — existing likes, comments and shares carry over |
| What it requires | A paid usage right to the raw files (see UGC usage rights explained) | A platform-specific authorization from the creator (a code or a granted permission) |
| Duration | As long as the usage right runs — often months to years | Time-limited and revocable — see the table below |
| Can you edit the content? | Yes, within the license's terms — cuts, captions, cropping | Effectively no — the ad runs the approved version, not a re-cut |
| Best for | Always-on scaling, full creative control, long-term reuse | Cold-audience prospecting, where the creator's identity and social proof are the point |
Meta has centralised the process in Partnership Ads Hub inside Ads Manager. Every partnership ad needs an authorization or granted permission from the creator for that specific post, Reel or Story — without it, the ad cannot launch. Meta works on "content-level permissions": the creator approves individual pieces of content, not the whole profile at once. The creator can revoke permission at any time, and if they do, the ad stops running.
TikTok uses an authorization code (a "post code") that the creator generates themselves in the app: open the video, tap the three dots, select "Ad settings", and tap "Generate". From there the creator chooses how long the code should last — 7, 30, 60 or 365 days — and shares the code with the brand or agency. A brand can batch-authorize up to 20 video codes at a time, and an account can run up to 10,000 Spark Ads in total, per TikTok's own Ads Manager documentation.
Two things worth knowing before you build a campaign around a Spark Ads code: a private video becomes public the moment it's used in a campaign, and its privacy setting cannot be changed while the promotion is running. And the video can't really be edited while the code is active — it's the approved, original version that runs.
| Meta (Instagram/Facebook) | TikTok | |
|---|---|---|
| Tool name | Partnership Ads (formerly Branded Content Ads) | Spark Ads |
| How permission is granted | Content-level permission/authorization per post, Reel or Story, managed in Partnership Ads Hub | An authorization code ("post code"), generated by the creator per video |
| Selectable duration | Not time-limited at the source — but revocable by the creator at any time | Creator chooses 7, 30, 60 or 365 days when generating the code |
| Can the brand edit the video? | No — the approved version runs as-is | No — and a private video becomes public as soon as it's used |
The two terms get used interchangeably, but they describe different things. A dark post is an ad format: an ad that never appears organically — not on the sender's timeline, not in followers' feeds — only to the audience the ad is targeted at. A brand can dark-post from its own account with no creator permission at all, as long as the content is fully licensed.
Whitelisting is the permission — the right to run an ad from an account other than your own. A whitelisted Partnership Ad or Spark Ad is, in practice, also a dark post (it doesn't appear organically on the creator's profile beyond the original post), but it runs from the creator's account, not the brand's. So you can dark-post without whitelisting, but you can't whitelist without, in practice, also dark-posting.
Whitelisting/Partnership Ads/Spark Ads access should sit explicitly in the original agreement — not get negotiated after the fact. Agree at minimum:
See what to put in an influencer contract for the full contract checklist. Asking for whitelisting access after a post has already performed well organically puts you in a weaker negotiating position than agreeing it upfront — the creator can now see what the content is worth.
IF you need full editing rights — cutting, captioning, cropping to multiple formats → choose a licensed UGC ad, not whitelisting.
IF the goal is reaching a cold audience, and the creator's identity and existing engagement are part of what's meant to sell → whitelisting/Partnership Ads/Spark Ads is the format built for that.
IF the campaign will run for more than a year, or you don't know exactly how long → agree a long TikTok code (365 days), or build a calendar reminder for the Meta permission, which has no built-in expiry of its own. That matters most for an always-on programme like an ambassador programme, where the same creators' content may need to run as an ad for months at a time.
IF you already hold a full UGC license to the raw files → you don't need whitelisting to use them — it only matters when the ad needs to appear to come from the creator's own account. For the broader question of which platform to prioritise in the first place, see TikTok vs Instagram for influencer marketing. And if you're looking at TikTok's own native commerce format rather than a paid ad, see TikTok Shop LIVE Shopping with influencers, explained. And if you're whitelisting specifically to isolate whether the campaign actually drives incremental sales rather than just visible ones, its geo-targeting also makes it the practical way to run a clean geo split — see geo-lift and holdout testing for influencer marketing.
The numbers below are hypothetical and only illustrate what an expired authorization costs in practice — this is not a claim about a real Make Influence customer case.
A brand plans a 90-day cold-traffic push at DKK 250/day (DKK 22,500 total) on a single Spark Ads asset. The creator generates a 30-day authorization code instead of a 60- or 365-day one — often the default choice, since 30 days is the most familiar option. No one sets a calendar reminder to renew it. On day 31, the code expires and the ad stops delivering. DKK 7,500 (30 × DKK 250) has been spent; the remaining DKK 15,000 of planned budget either goes unspent or has to move to a newly authorized asset that starts with zero accumulated data — impressions, click-through rate and the budget algorithm's learning phase all reset.
In Make Influence's experience, the most common cost of whitelisting isn't the platform fee itself — it's the time lost when access only gets negotiated after a collaboration has already been delivered. We recommend building whitelisting/Partnership Ads/Spark Ads terms into the same brief and contract that cover usage rights and payment — see influencer/UGC campaign brief template — rather than treating it as a follow-up request. It also requires someone to own the job of renewing codes before they expire; without a clear owner, a forgotten renewal is the most common reason a well-performing ad stops without warning. One more thing worth knowing before you launch: once a whitelisted post runs as a paid ad on an EU-designated Very Large Online Platform, EU law requires it to sit in that platform's public, searchable ad repository — see the EU DSA's ad transparency rules and what they mean for influencer marketing for what that means for your whitelisting strategy.
No. Whitelisting is permission to run an ad from the creator's own account with the original post intact. UGC usage rights are a license to use the raw files as creative in your own ad from your own account. They can be used together, but they solve different jobs — see UGC usage rights explained.
No. The code is the technical permission the platform requires — it sets neither price, exclusivity, nor what happens if you want to renew access. Agree the commercial terms in writing, like the rest of the collaboration.
On TikTok, the creator chooses between 7, 30, 60 or 365 days when generating the code. On Meta, there's no built-in time limit at the source, but the creator can revoke permission at any time — so a duration should be agreed commercially, even though the platform doesn't enforce one technically.
No, not in practice. Both platforms run the approved, original version of the content. If you need to cut, caption or crop it into multiple formats, that requires a separate, fully licensed UGC file — see how to turn influencer content into Meta ads.
The ad is tied to that specific post or video, so it stops being able to run. Build that into your campaign plan as a real risk, not a theoretical one — especially on long campaigns where a single post carries a large share of the budget.
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