B2B marketers, the following line is going to scare you a little…
Most of your buyers are making decisions inside channels and places you can’t track - and you probably aren’t even aware it’s happening!
It’s called dark social, but is it bad news for your marketing spend?
The opposite! It just means you’ll need to keep a closer eye on which channels and tactics are giving you a return for your efforts.
For large marketing teams under pressure to attribute every cent of budget, dark social can seem like a black hole. That’s why we will go deeper into the “darkness” and shine a light on what it is, why it matters, and how you can use it to your advantage.
Grab your torch, and let’s dive into the dark. 👇
You might have overheard the term whispered by B2B marketers in the shadowy corners of Zoom calls and marketing meetups.
Or, you know, just from posts on LinkedIn.
But, wherever you heard it, you’re likely wondering:
What is dark social?
Dark social refers to sharing content through private channels that are difficult or impossible to track with traditional web analytics tools. These include messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, email, text messages, and even Slack or Discord. When someone copies a link and shares it in a private conversation, it generates web traffic without any referral data, making it invisible to marketers.
The term was coined in 2012 by journalist Alexis C. Madrigal, who noticed that a significant chunk of referral traffic in analytics showed up as “direct,” even though it wasn’t from people typing full URLs into their browsers. It was content being copied and pasted into private channels, being shared from peer to peer, without leaving a referral trail.
This behaviour has only increased over time as users move to more private digital spaces. Senior decision-makers don’t browse product pages after clicking paid ads.
They ask a colleague in a Slack thread and forward your LinkedIn post to a private WhatsApp group of CMOs. They read your newsletter but forward it to their procurement lead with a note: “Worth a look?”
The result? Influence without attribution.
Dark social media doesn’t just skew your attribution models — it fundamentally changes how your B2B marketing strategy must be designed.
Marketers love neat funnels. But dark social means your buyer might never touch a tracked link before speaking to sales.
In fact, 77.5% of buyers share links through dark social channels.
That whitepaper download or webinar signup might have been triggered by a Slack conversation you’ll never see. The journey still happened, just not on your radar.
It’s challenging for B2B marketers to track the referrer data or source of dark traffic. Chris Walker, CEO of Refine Labs, has spoken extensively about this when referring to the dark funnel.
As a result, you may be underestimating the performance of your content because dark social shares don’t show up in your analytics.
Watch Chris Walker, CEO @ Refine Labs, and Alice de Courcy, CMO @ Cognism, discuss the dark funnel 👇
Dark social is modern word-of-mouth at scale. And in the B2B world, nothing beats trusted peer recommendations.
When a CFO asks their network, “Who’s the best data compliance provider in the EU?” and your brand gets shared in five private messages, you’ve already won. But good luck attributing that to an ad campaign.
As a result, campaigns might seem ineffective simply because conversions or traffic aren’t attributed correctly.
Enterprise buying teams increasingly use dark social for collaborative research. The most influential content isn’t always the most trackable.
A founder’s personal LinkedIn post may spark dozens of private conversations across C-suites. You may never see the metrics, but your brand’s credibility is being built there.
When marketing leaders are expected to justify budget using direct attribution alone, dark social presents a challenge.
It forces CMOs to champion brand-building activities that don’t convert directly, but move the needle in stealthy, statistically untrackable ways.
That said, deciding what content to create and promote for better results without precise data is hard.
The prevalence of dark social highlights a significant opportunity for marketers: understanding your audience on a deeper level. When you recognise that users prefer sharing content through private channels, it encourages the creation of high-value, share-worthy assets.
By analysing the types of content that typically encourage private sharing, marketers can tailor their strategies to better align with audience preferences. This could mean focusing on content that addresses specific pain points, offers novel insights, or entertains effectively.
Dark social shares can act as powerful trust signals. Unlike public shares or comments, which might be influenced by social proof or performative motives, private sharing indicates genuine belief in the content’s value.
When people choose to share an article, video, or infographic in a private message, they often do so for its authenticity and relevance. This behaviour reflects a deeper level of trust and personal endorsement, which can drive more meaningful engagement and consideration among recipients.
Understanding the mechanics of dark social encourages a shift in focus from mere audience reach to deeper relationship-building.
Dark social embodies the concept of community-led growth, where the strength of your brand is amplified through trusted networks rather than broad, impersonal outreach. By prioritising relationship-building over traditional metrics, brands can foster communities that champion their message organically.
This approach cultivates a loyal audience base that is more likely to engage in word-of-mouth marketing through dark social channels.
Each of these opportunities underscores the shift towards a more nuanced view of audience engagement, emphasising the importance of creating genuine connections and understanding the subtle dynamics of private sharing.
Dark social isn’t a buzzword—it’s happening daily in ways that directly influence enterprise deals. These interactions don’t appear in your attribution reports but often represent some of the most powerful endorsements and decision-driving moments in the buying journey.
Here are eight real-world examples of how dark social posts manifest in B2B environments:
A Marketing Director sees a thought-provoking post from a vendor about the future of data privacy in B2B. Instead of liking or commenting publicly, they forward it as a LinkedIn DM to their Chief Compliance Officer.
The original author will never see this engagement, but it could initiate internal discussions, product comparisons, or shortlisting.
A Revenue Operations Manager receives your company’s monthly newsletter and forwards it to three regional sales leaders.
No open or click-through is logged beyond the first recipient, but your content is now fueling buying intent across multiple stakeholders.
Within a target enterprise account, an IT team member drops a link to your blog post about GDPR readiness into a Slack thread.
What follows could be a chain of approvals, stakeholder reviews, and quiet research — none of which shows up in your CRM or campaign analytics.
Most dark social shares come from mobile, and they’re said to account for 53% of click-backs; that’s not counting desktop.
In a private WhatsApp group of CMOs from various tech companies, someone asks for a recommendation for a GDPR-compliant lead gen tool for Europe.
Two group members replied with your company’s name, and one included a screenshot of your recent LinkedIn carousel. You won’t know it, but a demo request will likely be inbound within the week.
A stakeholder team is reviewing tech vendors for a digital transformation project. Someone pastes a screenshot and link to your product overview in a shared Google Doc.
Six different people in the buying group view the document. The only visible signal to you is one anonymous direct visit to the pricing page.
After a buyer watches your product demo, they loop in their legal team via email, including a PDF of your terms and a link to your Trust Centre.
The conversation moves forward privately, possibly for weeks, without any trackable signals. But it’s very much in motion.
During a conference coffee break, an IT leader tells another about a security platform teardown they saw on a popular resource website the previous week. After hearing about it, the other comments that they’re looking for a solution like that.
Even though this starts with digital content, it gets passed along through a conversation that won’t appear in analytics or email campaign reports.
These are all forms of dark social posts. They generate traffic, awareness, and potential conversions, but traditional analytics tools will log these visits as “direct” or unattributed.
A compelling dark social image might be a diagram showing public vs. private sharing paths—for example, a funnel where social media posts lead to direct traffic through dark social channels like WhatsApp, Signal, or email.
For Cognism, we’ve noticed a rise in dark social mentions since we moved to a demand gen first strategy. Here are some examples of dark social posts we’ve spotted on LinkedIn:
By now, it should be pretty evident that properly tracking dark traffic is a tall order. Although you can’t eliminate the dark social blind spot, some strategies and tools can help you better understand and measure its impact.
One of the most powerful (and underused) tools for understanding dark social is asking people directly. Add a required free-text field on your high-intent forms and let buyers tell you in their own words. This qualitative data can furnish some real gold nuggets for your strategy.
This data illuminates the misty darkness of that ‘organic’, ‘direct’ referral source that your MAP shows you; it’s the difference between doubling down on investment in your B2B marketing and sales podcast vs. SEO efforts.
Join the groups your buyers are in. That might mean Slack communities, private LinkedIn groups, WhatsApp professional networks, or Discord channels.
While you can’t track shares, you can observe what content gets traction, hot topics, and how your brand shows up in the background.
Traffic that appears as “direct” in your analytics may be dark social.
Add UTM codes to all your shared links. While this won’t help if someone copies and pastes a raw URL, it’s still a good start. Custom UTM parameters allow you to track traffic from specific campaigns, emails, and social media posts.
Look at your website and ensure your follow buttons are differentiated from your share buttons. Use a tool like ShareThis, which creates inline or sticky share buttons. You can track dark social shares via email, Messenger, or over text and measure them through your attribution software.
For example, if an in-depth eBook suddenly gets 500 direct visits without any supporting campaign, someone is sharing it in a private channel.
Use a platform that allows sales and marketing teams to surface buying signals that might remain hidden. If a target account shows an unexpected spike in intent or outreach after zero trackable activity, it could be a dark social ripple effect.
Tools like GetSocial.io and advanced features in social media management platforms like Hootsuite and EveryoneSocial are evolving to offer better insight into dark social activity.
As mentioned above, you can add a tracking code or UTM to your link, but they’re easily removed and can become overly diluted with information with each sharing journey.
Instead, use a link shortener like Bitly or Owly. They’ll track dark share traffic for you and provide accurate dark social analytics.
By adding a dark social segment to Google Analytics, you can find out what percentage of dark traffic is attributed to the wrong source.
You can’t control dark social, and you can’t track it neatly. And that’s precisely why it matters.
As B2B marketers obsessed with attribution dashboards and linear funnels, the dark funnel reminds us that people still buy from people through trust, conversations, and content shared privately among peers.
The takeaway is clear: build your brand, create content worth sharing, and equip your advocates. And stop ignoring the data you can’t measure, it’s shaping your pipeline more than you think.
Dark social media isn’t a gap in your tracking. It’s a gap in your strategy. It’s time to close it.
For more marketing insights, B2B growth strategies, and data-led decision-making tips, follow Cognism on LinkedIn.
Stay ahead of the curve — even in the dark 👇