Dark social is exactly what it sounds like – mysterious off-the-grid social sharing often unintentionally overlooked by marketers. It’s like an underground link sharing world.

This mysterious sharing method is one that leaves many marketers “in the dark” when it comes to accurately measuring website visits.

What is dark social?

Have you ever shared a dinner recipe in an email? Have you spent lunch hours browsing gossip news sites and shared links to the stories with your co-workers in a group text?

If you have shared a website link anywhere but directly on social media, you have contributed to dark social.

The term ‘dark social’ first came about in 2012 from Alexis Madrigal, a contributing writer for The Atlantic. Madrigal describes it as “traffic that is invisible to website analytics”. This means your website analytics tools are not accurately tracking information shared through messaging apps, emails, or texts. These are private communication channels not automatically tracked by analytic data.

Don’t worry, we’ve all done it.

Sharing a link to your intended recipient’s Facebook wall isn’t always going to be your first choice. This means that marketers must do a little extra dissecting on the analytics side.

Here’s why you need to care:

Dark social is the most popular link sharing method. Think of all the articles you see shared on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. We are constantly sharing information. However, this method of sharing still rules them all. In fact, 84% of shares happen globally through dark social.

That’s too big of a number to ignore.

Messaging apps are swarming the social scene at a rapid pace. With messenger pioneers such as Slack, Facebook Workplace, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp, we now have more ways than ever to share information. All of the links shared over these apps are categorized as dark social.

Where does dark social tracking happen?

Dark social results are recorded in Google Analytics. Uncovering the data requires a little more digging. To review, Google Analytics has two main analytic categories – direct and organic traffic. Direct traffic is any source that can be attributed to a manual search or a visit from a bookmarked page. Organic traffic is defined by visitors coming to your page through a search engine.

When Google can’t determine the exact source of a website visit, the data is dropped into the direct traffic category. Direct traffic becomes the junk drawer of your analytics. Instead of batteries, hot sauce packets, and directions to electronics you probably no longer own, it’s a slough of untrackable analytics that Google dumps into the direct traffic category – including dark social.

You can track dark social. Here are a few ways it can be done.

Dark social tracking apps

Luckily, there are companies who have heard our tracking concerns. Sites like GetSocial.io provide a way to track dark social through a WordPress plugin or a specific code to add to your site. Po.st gives insights that allow you to track analytics from copy, paste, and interactions with text and URLs from your website.   

Google Analytics

Though Google Analytics doesn’t automatically segment this type of data, there is a way to set up advanced segments. The custom segments allow you to track dark social. It’s simple to do, but you want to make sure you are setting up the conditioning correctly. Your data will be incorrect otherwise.

Start tracking your dark social today. You’ll be surprised at the data you’ve been missing out on.