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Dark Social: What It Means for Marketers and How to Track It

  • Gel Studios Content Team
  • Apr 18, 2025
  • 2 min read

You’re tracking everything - UTMs, click-throughs, conversions - but somehow, traffic is showing up without a clear source. Welcome to the world of dark social.


This is where your content travels privately: through DMs, texts, Slack messages, WhatsApp, and even email forwards. And guess what? It’s likely driving more engagement than your tracked campaigns.



What Is Dark Social?

Coined by Alexis Madrigal, “dark social” refers to web traffic that comes from private channels that analytics tools can’t accurately attribute.


Examples include:

  • Links shared via DMs

  • Email forwards

  • WhatsApp conversations

  • Slack channels

  • Private Facebook or Reddit groups



Why It Matters

Marketers are often blind to how much traffic is driven by these private shares. According to RadiumOne, 84% of all outbound sharing happens via dark social channels.


That’s huge.

Ignoring it means missing out on a major part of your marketing funnel.



How to Spot and Track Dark Social

  1. Direct Traffic Audit

    If someone lands on a blog post (not your homepage) and it shows as “Direct,” it’s likely dark social.

  2. Use URL Shorteners with Tags

    Custom short links via Bit.ly, Rebrandly, or UTM.io help you spot hidden traffic.

  3. Encourage Attribution

    Ask users where they heard about your content in surveys or post-form confirmations.

  4. Social Listening Tools

    Some tools like BuzzSumo, Brand24, or Sprout Social can give indirect insight through mentions and conversations.

  5. Dark Social Buttons

    Tools like ShareThis and GetSocial allow you to add “Copy Link” or “Share via WhatsApp” buttons and track them.



What You Should Do

  • Accept that you’ll never capture it all—but aim to capture more.

  • Treat dark social as a signal of trust and brand resonance.

  • Prioritize share-worthy content: value-packed, emotional, or utility-focused.



Dark social is invisible, but powerful.

It’s word-of-mouth in the digital age. As a marketer, your job isn’t to fight it; it’s to feed it.

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