What's the difference between creating a dark post versus an organic post for Facebook ads, and which should I use?

A dark post is created directly in Ads Manager and only lives as an ad - it can only be seen by people in your ad targeting, and once you turn the ad off, it’s gone forever. Most people create separate dark posts for each ad group, which means if you’re testing three audiences on Facebook and Instagram, you end up with six different posts to monitor and build social proof on. Instead, create one organic post on your Facebook page first, then use that same post (via its post ID) as the ad unit across all your different ad groups in Ads Manager. This way, all the social proof accumulates on one post instead of being split across multiple posts, charging it up much faster and requiring less time to monitor.

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Asked by an artist setting up Facebook ads · Answered by Patrick Shanahan · art-marketing-podcast · 2018-11-08