How Dark Social Can Boost Your Business Online

Guide To Dark Social

For the uninitiated, Dark Social isn’t some sort of Illuminati-type deal; nor does it have anything to do with the Dark Web or Deep Web. In fact, it’s one incredibly useful aspect of effective social media marketing.

Simply put, Dark Social or Dark social media refers to social sharing that web analytics platforms aren’t able to accurately track.

What do you do?

You copy the link, paste it into Facebook messenger or WhatsApp, and hit “send”.

Bingo – you’ve just engaged in Dark Social.

Because links shared this way lack referral tags, the traffic contributed via these links typically gets lumped into the “direct traffic” category in publishers’ analytics platforms. As you might imagine, this is pretty problematic for marketers and companies.

If you can’t attribute traffic to various channels accurately, then how are you going to optimise these channels, and increase the effectiveness of your campaigns?

After all, digital success depends on data.

What is Dark Social?

Dark social refers to online content that is shared through private channels, such as direct messages, email, and messaging apps, where tracking and measurement are not easily possible. Unlike traditional social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter, where shares and interactions can be directly traced, dark social traffic comes from sources that are harder to track, making it challenging for businesses to attribute traffic and conversions accurately.

This phenomenon often includes links shared via private messages or emails, which don’t leave clear digital footprints that can be measured by traditional analytics tools. As a result, the exact source of this traffic can be elusive, leaving businesses with a gap in understanding how users are discovering and engaging with their content.

Despite being difficult to measure, dark social is a significant part of online sharing, and it can have a major impact on brand awareness, customer engagement, and traffic. Marketers need to find innovative ways to monitor and track dark social interactions to fully understand the effectiveness of their content and optimise their strategies for maximum reach and impact.

Leveraging employee advocacy to tap into dark social

With dark social, links are shared privately through channels such as messaging apps, email, or direct social shares, meaning marketers can’t track their origins through traditional analytics tools.

One of the most effective ways to tap into dark social is through employee advocacy. When employees share content within private conversations, it reaches engaged audiences in a more trusted and personal way. Encouraging your team to share valuable industry insights, company updates, and thought leadership pieces in their networks can organically extend your brand’s reach—without relying on standard tracking methods.

Why Dark Social is challenging?

Dark social presents a unique challenge for marketers because it refers to the traffic that comes from private, non-public sharing of content, which is difficult to track and measure. Unlike conventional social media platforms, where interactions and content shares can be easily tracked, dark social often takes place through private messaging apps, email, and other direct communication channels. These types of interactions don’t leave behind clear, traceable footprints, making it difficult to attribute website traffic or conversions to specific sources.

As a result, businesses struggle to accurately measure the true impact of their content and campaigns. Without clear insights into the channels driving traffic, it becomes challenging to optimise marketing efforts, target the right audience, or determine the effectiveness of particular campaigns. Marketers often rely on general metrics like direct traffic, which may not fully reflect how users are discovering and sharing content. This lack of visibility can lead to inefficiencies in marketing strategies and hinder overall growth.

Moreover, the increasing use of encrypted messaging apps and private sharing tools adds another layer of complexity, as these platforms continue to grow in popularity, making dark social harder to track than ever before. Despite these challenges, understanding dark social and implementing strategies to indirectly monitor and capture these interactions is essential for businesses to stay competitive and refine their digital marketing strategies.

Should marketers care about dark social?

The short answer is yes, marketers should be attentive to dark social. Dark social significantly influences how content is shared and consumed online. Dark social refers to the sharing of content through private channels—such as messaging apps, emails, and direct links—that don’t provide referral information to analytics tools. This means that traffic generated from these sources often appears as “direct” in analytics, making it challenging to track and measure the effectiveness of social sharing.

Understanding dark social is crucial for several reasons:

• Unseen Traffic: A significant portion of web traffic comes from dark social, yet it’s often invisible to traditional analytics. Recognising this helps marketers understand the true reach of their content.
• Audience Insights: Monitoring dark social can provide valuable insights into audience preferences and behaviors, allowing for more targeted and effective marketing strategies.
• Attribution Challenges: Dark social complicates the attribution of conversions and traffic sources, making it harder to assess the ROI of social media efforts. Addressing this challenge is vital for accurate performance measurement.

By acknowledging and addressing the impact of dark social, marketers can develop more comprehensive strategies that account for all channels through which content is shared, leading to a more accurate understanding of their audience and the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns.

Who coined the term Dark Social?

The term “Dark Social” was coined by Alexis C. Madrigal, a journalist and former senior editor at The Atlantic, in 2012. He used it to describe the type of web traffic that comes from private sharing methods like email, messaging apps, and direct links that don’t have tracking parameters. Unlike traditional social media shares, which can be easily measured through analytics tools, dark social traffic often appears as “direct traffic” in website analytics, even though users may have arrived from a shared link rather than typing in a URL manually.

For businesses and marketers, dark social presents both a challenge and an opportunity. It makes it harder to track where traffic is coming from, but it also highlights the importance of word-of-mouth marketing through private channels like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Slack, and SMS. Many companies are now looking for ways to better understand and leverage dark social to refine their digital marketing strategies.

Why does Dark Social tracking matter for my business?

Oh, you’ll be surprised – Dark Social is a huge phenomenon worldwide, and the amount of online traffic driven by Dark Social is constantly on the rise.

More specifically, back in 2014, Dark Social accounted for between 59% to 77% of online traffic. In 2016, this figure jumped to a whopping 84%.

Now, there aren’t any updated statistics for 2017 or 2018… but bearing in mind that instant messengers such as Facebook messenger and Slack are growing in popularity, we wouldn’t be surprised if Dark Social now contributes to 90% or more of online traffic.

There’s no easy way to track these private shares and attribute them to your marketing efforts.

To address this challenge, marketers can leverage smart URL shorteners that track engagement, even when links are shared in private messages. Additionally, implementing UTM parameters in campaign links enables businesses to tag sources and gain deeper insights into which dark social channels are driving traffic. While it won’t solve the tracking gap entirely, these strategies provide a more structured approach to measuring hidden referral traffic.

How to measure Dark Social

1. Better Dark Social tracking and optimisation

As mentioned previously, without transparency on where website visitors are coming from, it’s tough for marketers to optimise and fine-tune their content strategy.

Let’s say you’ve invested a ton of effort into coming up with an SEO bumper guide which you’re sure your target audience (small business owners!) will love. You publish the article, post it on all your socials, and cross your fingers.

Sure enough, you get a ton of traffic from your article… but 80% of your traffic is classified as “direct”. This means that you can’t work out whether you should prioritise Facebook or Twitter over the other, and you won’t know where to focus your optimisation efforts. Talk about frustrating!

2. Identifying intent and value

If you consider the fact that Dark Social is a lot more intimate and intent-driven as opposed to normal link sharing, then this makes tracking Dark Social all the more important.

Think about it: people share fairly generic content on their social media channels, including #bucketlist travel listicles and all that good stuff. But when you chance upon a piece of content or a link that’s particularly valuable to someone whom you’re close to, you’re much more likely to send this to them directly (in other words, via Dark Social!)

On the flip side, when you’re looking at a link that someone sent you personally, this will probably carry much more weight than something you chance upon in your news feed.

Dark Social functions as an effective form of word-of-mouth marketing. Since it’s more intent-driven than regular social sharing, this makes it exceptionally valuable to marketers.

How do you track Dark Social?

1. Segment your Google AdWords traffic

Now, this only isolates your Dark Social traffic from your direct traffic – it doesn’t actually break down your Dark Social traffic and tell you how much of this comes from which channel.

That having been said, it’s still useful for marketers who want to gauge how much of your traffic is driven by Dark Social shares!

Log into your Google AdWords account and click on “Behaviour” on the left menu. Under the drop-down list, click on “Site Content”, and finally, “All Pages”. Next, look at the search bar on the right side of the screen, and click on “Advanced”. Change the first parameter “Include” to “Exclude” and check that “Page” is the chosen dimension.

In the search box that’s on the right, type all your website URLs that are easy to remember. (These are the standard ones such as /account, /new, /new-in, /demo, and so on).

After you’ve excluded these URLs, click “Apply”, and you’ll be left with data corresponding to the URLs which are longer and tougher to remember. In other words: the traffic that you’re looking at is likely to come from Dark Social.

2. Sharing buttons

To encourage people to share your content via trackable ways (rather than copying and pasting a link), make sure you’ve got highly visible sharing buttons all the pages on your site.

Of course, these have to come with UTM parameters so that your Dark Social tracking is sound. At the same time, you’ll want these to be formatted in a “sticky” banner, so that they always remain at the top (or bottom!) of the article regardless of how far your reader has scrolled.

Don’t make your reader scroll all the way to the top to find the share buttons – if that’s the case, they’ll probably just copy and paste the link instead!

3. Dark Social tools

Given the prevalence of Dark Social, it’s no surprise that quite a few Dark Social tracking tools have popped up over the past few years. One example is Po.st – this social tracking tool allows you to share your content more easily and track a good chunk of messages which would previously have fallen under the Dark Social category.

With Po.st, you get to automatically include a Linkback URL for any content which has been copied and pasted from your website.

This allows the recipient to click on the URL and view the original source of the text, leading to user acquisition.

On top of that, Po.st also comes with a “ShareURL” feature that allows publishers to “uncover address bar activity”.

Once a reader copies and pastes a URL from an address bar, the publisher will be able to use Po.st to track the engagement of other readers who are interacting with the URL.

Last but not least, Po.st also features a “Share Text” function that helps expedite content sharing.

Here’s how it works: when a reader highlights and copies 8 or more words, the system recognises an intent to share, and triggers an unobtrusive pop-out (the Share Text widget). Using this widget, readers can easily share their copied text, and the publisher will be able to track all activity on their end.

4. Use opt-ins

Got a whole treasure trove of marketing collaterals (white papers, ebooks, infographics, and the like) at your disposal? Consider using an opt-in to monitor the traffic which you get on your pages which are heavily shared via Dark Social.

This is fairly simple to set up – first, determine which page (apart from your homepage!) has the most direct traffic. This is likely to be the page that has gotten the most Dark Social shares, so you’ll want to offer your opt-in here.

Next, go ahead and add a widget on your page to offer a free white paper. Get users to fill up a short form and indicate how they discovered your website, before redirecting them to the download link.

Examples of successful dark social marketing campaigns

Dark social refers to the sharing of content through private channels, such as messaging apps, email, SMS, or direct links, which aren’t easily tracked by traditional analytics tools. This kind of sharing is highly influential but can be challenging to measure. Some businesses have found innovative ways to use dark social for marketing.

Here are a few examples of successful dark social marketing campaigns:

• Netflix: Netflix has used dark social to great effect, especially through word-of-mouth sharing. For instance, their shows like Stranger Things have generated massive buzz on messaging platforms like WhatsApp, where fans share links to episodes, trailers, and related content. Netflix encourages this kind of sharing by providing easy-to-share content and hashtags, capitalising on fan communities for organic marketing.
• Nike: Nike uses dark social by encouraging personalised sharing among users. For example, they’ve created campaigns where users can share their workout results or personalised products via SMS or email with friends. By embedding shareable links in their apps or websites, Nike effectively taps into the power of direct recommendations and peer influence, driving sales and brand awareness through private, non-public channels.
• BuzzFeed: BuzzFeed has taken advantage of dark social by creating highly shareable content, like quizzes, articles, and videos, that encourage users to share the links through private channels. The goal is to make the content so engaging that people feel compelled to share it with friends and family via messaging apps, leading to increased traffic and engagement that doesn’t show up on traditional social media analytics.
• Harry’s: The razor company Harry’s successfully leveraged dark social by using referral programs. Customers who loved their products were encouraged to share links with friends and family through private messaging. Harry’s incentivised this sharing with discounts for both the person referring and the person being referred, creating a viral loop in private communication channels that drove sales.
• BuzzSumo: BuzzSumo, a content marketing tool, ran campaigns where users would share reports or insights with colleagues or within industry-specific messaging groups. By making their content extremely valuable and shareable, they capitalised on dark social channels where decision-makers in businesses were sharing resources and insights within private networks.

These campaigns are effective because they tap into personal, private networks where content is shared in a more authentic and trusted manner compared to traditional social media platforms. By encouraging easy sharing in email, SMS, or messenger apps, brands can reach audiences that may not be accessible through public social media, while maintaining a sense of privacy and personal connection.

Prioritising Mobile Optimisation for Seamless Sharing

Making it easier for audiences to share your content will also boost visibility. Since a significant portion of dark social sharing happens on mobile devices, ensuring mobile optimisation is critical. This means creating fast-loading pages, using mobile-friendly content formats, and simplifying the process of copying and sharing links. The easier it is for users to share content from their phones, the greater the likelihood that your brand will benefit from dark social referrals.

Next steps

Dark Social is just one avenue to explore as you build a digital presence that drives results — A.K.A. more customers and boosted revenue. Is your online digital marketing efforts going the mile? Cataloguing the quick wins and mapping the long term goals begins with an audit.

Your friendly team of Gurus are offering a digital audit, on the house. We’ll audit your website, tell you how you’re performing in comparison with your competitors, and come up with a 12-month digital success plan for you. All for free.

About the Author

Andrew Raso

Andrew Raso, Co-founder and Global CEO of Online Marketing Gurus, has been instrumental in transforming the agency from a start-up into a $15 million global powerhouse. Since co-founding OMG in 2012 with colleague Mehrdad Hedayati, Andrew has leveraged his deep expertise in SEO and digital marketing to drive OMG’s expansion across Australia, the US, and Singapore.