A dark post is a paid ad that runs through a social account but doesn't appear on that account's public profile or feed — it's only visible to targeted audiences seeing it as a sponsored post. Dark posts are used for A/B testing ad variants (you don't want 10 versions of the same ad cluttering your public profile), targeting specific audience segments with different messages, and whitelisting campaigns run through influencer accounts.
For example, you might run 5 dark post variants testing different headlines for the same ad — each shown to different audience segments — without any of them appearing on your company LinkedIn page as public posts.
We use dark posts for all paid social A/B testing — keeping the brand feed clean while running efficient multi-variant creative tests.
Related Terms
Relevant Cactus Services
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Book a free strategy call →Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is partnering with content creators who have an engaged audience in your target market to reach that audience through authentic content — as opposed to traditional ads.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a performance-based partnership where affiliates (publishers, influencers, review sites) earn commissions for referring customers.
Creator Economy
The creator economy refers to the ecosystem of independent content creators who monetize their audiences through brand deals, affiliate revenue, subscriptions, and merchandise — operating as media businesses.
User-Generated Content (UGC)
UGC is content created by customers, users, or fans of a product — reviews, social posts, testimonials, case study videos — rather than the brand itself.
Micro-Influencer
A micro-influencer is a creator with a smaller but highly engaged audience — typically 1,000–100,000 followers.
Macro-Influencer
A macro-influencer has a large following — typically 100,000–1M+ — and broad reach across a general or semi-niche audience.