Dark marketing can be traced back to 2012 when Facebook first enabled advertisers to create “dark posts,” which are posts that are only shown to carefully targeted audiences. Soon thereafter, dark posting was made available on LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter and YouTube, and the tactic evolved into an all-encompassing, multichannel strategy we call dark marketing.
Today, 90% of Twitter ads, 85% of Facebook ads and 60% of YouTube ads are “dark” or hidden from public view.