Dark social dominates
In 2016, RadiumOne calculated that 84% of (shared) online 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. job function email database 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.
Gain insight into the behavior of your darksocial fans
The power of the above step-by-step plan lies in repetition. By systematically measuring, you will automatically build up sufficient data that will give you insight into the behavior of your fans on dark social. Because although our ambassadors remain hidden in the darkness of the category 'direct traffic', they have a lot of impact on the target group. Every reason to join the dark side .