Meta now lets brands amplify a creator’s live Instagram broadcast as a paid advertisement, extending a feature that already exists on Facebook to Instagram and turning real-time creator content into targetable ad inventory for the first time. The tech company announced the rollout last week at the IAB’s first Global Creator Week, alongside the global launch of its consolidated Meta Creator Marketing Hub.

Paired with Partnership Ads, Instagram Live Video Ads let a brand put paid spend behind a creator’s active stream rather than relying solely on the creator’s existing followers to find it organically. Meta described the format as a way to turn “high-intent, real-time engagement” into measurable results across the funnel.

Image source: Meta

A Single Hub for Discovery and Activation

The Creator Marketing Hub, which Meta first detailed at Cannes Lions in June as a plan to merge Creator Marketplace and the Partnership Ads Hub, is now live globally, with additional features rolling out through the rest of 2026. New capabilities include discovery filters for known and predicted affiliate content, content-level permissions with expiration dates, one-click ad creation from inside the Hub, and ad-readiness editing tools that can strip copyrighted music or stickers from a post so it qualifies to run as a Partnership Ad. Meta is also folding partnership messaging directly into the Hub, so brands no longer have to leave the tool to contact creators.

On the API side, Facebook creators are joining Instagram creators in the Creator Marketplace API, and Meta is launching a new Messaging API for creator outreach and expanding its Content Discovery API to match the recommendations and filters available in Meta’s own tools. The company is also integrating its Meta AI business assistant into the Hub and bringing Partnership Ads to the Meta Ads MCP connector, letting advertisers manage creator campaigns and permissions through an AI agent of their choice.

Meta cited figures from the “2025 IAB Creator Economy Report” and its own “Q4 2025 Modern Shopper Research” showing creator recommendations influence 45% of consumer purchases and that Creator Economy ad spend has reached $37 billion, growing four times faster than media spend overall.

Live Content as a Second Revenue Layer

The shift gives creators a new lever to negotiate with brands beyond the appearance fee itself. Meta’s own creator-facing guidance already encourages talent to pitch partnership ads as a standard add-on to brand deals, arguing that because a brand’s spend extends a post’s reach beyond a creator’s own following, creators can “advocate for higher pay given the extended usage rights.” Extending that logic to live video means the stream itself, not just the finished clip, becomes an asset a brand can pay to amplify.

Early interest is coming from brands already using Instagram Live to reach specific audiences. “When connecting with our core audience of Gen Z and K-Beauty enthusiasts, interactive communication via Instagram Live has proven to be a pivotal engagement channel for us,” said Woosung Kim, Performance Marketing Manager at eBay Japan. “We are excited to drive even deeper and more dynamic interactions using the diverse upcoming features of Instagram Live Video Ads.”

The announcement lands as creator content takes on a larger role in paid media generally. A recent CreatorIQ report found creator content now makes up 44% of paid media creative on average, with 92% of paid media leaders using creator content in campaigns, up from roughly half that a year or two ago. 

Meta’s own figures, cited in that report, show creator content delivering a 20% lower cost per acquisition and 50% higher click-through rates than standard brand creative, a performance gap that helps explain why Meta is building infrastructure to move creator partnerships, now including live broadcasts, further into the paid-media pipeline.

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