Differences between boosted posts and ads

Define your advertising goals

Meta offers you the possibility to advertise on Facebook and Instagram, some goals are achieved by boosting a post and others by creating an ad (ad campaign). The key is to set an advertising goal aligned with your marketing strategy.

If your goal is to generate more engagement on your account, probably the best option is a promoted post, however, if you are looking for another type of interaction such as direct purchases or visit to another website, it would be better to choose an ad, since you can select different call to action options (CTA).
We explain the main details to differentiate them.

What is a boosted post?

A boosted post is a post that you apply money to to increase its visibility. This is the easiest way to get your post to reach more people on Facebook or Instagram. Unlike ads, boosted posts are not created in Meta Ads Manager (or from the ads tab in Metricool) and do not have the same customization features.

You can boost your posts from Metricool, check the step by step here.

In the analytics section you will be able to see the results of your boosted posts.

💡 To see the results of boosted posts on Instagram, you must have the Meta Ads account connected in the connections dashboard.

You can also check the results within the Meta Ads campaigns list. To differentiate a boosted post from an ad campaign, you will see that "post" is indicated and also part of the text of the promoted post is displayed.

What are ads?

An ad or ad campaign allows you an advanced level of customization. For example, you can select the locations and segment the audience more precisely. In addition to designing the ad (using the carousel format or adding a call-to-action button, among others) to fit the following advertising objectives:

The Meta Ads structure has three levels: Campaign > Ad Sets > Ads.

In Metricool you can see the results at campaign level in the Meta Ads analytics, with the name assigned in the campaign creation. It is possible to create reports with ad-level data with the Looker Studio connector (included in the Advanced and Enterprise plans).

What is known as "Dark Posts"?

It is possible to create an advertisement from an existing post, in these cases it will not be considered a boosted post, it will be an advertisement. The content can be the same, but in the moment we edit some settings of the post, such as including a call to action button or performing a detailed audience segmentation, it will automatically create an additional post to the original one.

The results will not be reflected in the original organic post, as it is created as a "dark post", the result will be displayed in the Meta Ads campaign list.

💡 To know more, you can read the published article in Meta "The difference between boosted posts and Meta ads".