Dark social dominates
Posted: Tue Dec 17, 2024 6:08 am
Measurability. That is one of the most important pillars of a (digital) marketing strategy. We measure, test and 'hack' ourselves to a successful campaign. Yet we have a huge blind spot: dark social . This type of traffic will be one of the biggest challenges for marketers worldwide in the coming period. It is increasing in use and it cannot be measured. In my opinion, it is at the same time the best traffic you can get. By the way, it is also the most difficult to get moving. High time for a strategy!
What is it?
Dark social is, in short, sharing content via private channels such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and email. These private channels do not provide any 'referrer data' that tells a website's analytics tool where the traffic is coming from.
Google Analytics shows such traffic as direct traffic. People often think that direct traffic is only formed by people who have typed the URL in full, but the popular tool puts everything under 'direct' that it does not know where it comes from. The result is that marketers cannot measure the conversion from these dark channels. Many therefore ignore it. Wrongly so.
The term “dark social” was coined by journalist Alexis Madrigal of The Atlantic in 2012. Madrigal says that in our analytics, we only see the tip of the iceberg. All of our A/B tests, hacks, and other adjustments to our campaigns and online content are based on that tip.
Dark social is the most important channel for website traffic. High time for a dark social strategy.
84% of online traffic is dark social
In 2016, RadiumOne calculated that 84% of (shared) south africa telegram dataonline traffic is dark social. This figure is reflected in almost all articles on the subject. No one mentions that this American company gives advice on how to deal with the phenomenon. The danger is that we are dealing with a butcher who says that eating meat is healthy.
In terms of website traffic, I come to a small 30% from tests with various B2B websites. A lot less. But even with targeted campaigns that I looked at, the share that is not traceable is still 15%. Moreover, that only concerns website traffic. If you consider how many e-mails and WhatsApp messages are sent that never end up on a website, but whose content is simply copied from a website, you can imagine that those 80% could be close to the truth. Reason enough to take the phenomenon seriously.
More impact
Not being able to measure traffic is one thing, but remember that for the recipient, a WhatsApp or a personal email from someone you know has much more value than any campaign. Sending someone a message to draw their attention to a message is a conscious choice that is worth more than a quick 'like' on a public social medium. As a result, the impact of this untraceable traffic is many times greater. Anyone who shares something in a closed group or via a private message is, as it were, signing the content that he or she is spreading. There is no better influencer marketing than using someone's friends, colleagues and family.
What is it?
Dark social is, in short, sharing content via private channels such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and email. These private channels do not provide any 'referrer data' that tells a website's analytics tool where the traffic is coming from.
Google Analytics shows such traffic as direct traffic. People often think that direct traffic is only formed by people who have typed the URL in full, but the popular tool puts everything under 'direct' that it does not know where it comes from. The result is that marketers cannot measure the conversion from these dark channels. Many therefore ignore it. Wrongly so.
The term “dark social” was coined by journalist Alexis Madrigal of The Atlantic in 2012. Madrigal says that in our analytics, we only see the tip of the iceberg. All of our A/B tests, hacks, and other adjustments to our campaigns and online content are based on that tip.
Dark social is the most important channel for website traffic. High time for a dark social strategy.
84% of online traffic is dark social
In 2016, RadiumOne calculated that 84% of (shared) south africa telegram dataonline traffic is dark social. This figure is reflected in almost all articles on the subject. No one mentions that this American company gives advice on how to deal with the phenomenon. The danger is that we are dealing with a butcher who says that eating meat is healthy.
In terms of website traffic, I come to a small 30% from tests with various B2B websites. A lot less. But even with targeted campaigns that I looked at, the share that is not traceable is still 15%. Moreover, that only concerns website traffic. If you consider how many e-mails and WhatsApp messages are sent that never end up on a website, but whose content is simply copied from a website, you can imagine that those 80% could be close to the truth. Reason enough to take the phenomenon seriously.
More impact
Not being able to measure traffic is one thing, but remember that for the recipient, a WhatsApp or a personal email from someone you know has much more value than any campaign. Sending someone a message to draw their attention to a message is a conscious choice that is worth more than a quick 'like' on a public social medium. As a result, the impact of this untraceable traffic is many times greater. Anyone who shares something in a closed group or via a private message is, as it were, signing the content that he or she is spreading. There is no better influencer marketing than using someone's friends, colleagues and family.