In his Brands-Only Summit Pre-Conference presentation, Simply Measured's Brewster Stanislaw explains what dark social is, why it is important, and how you can measure it. He arms you with the information and tools you need to teach your colleagues about dark social and illustrate the true business impact of your social team.

1. SOCIALMEDIA.ORG/SUMMIT2016ORLANDOJANUARY 25–27, 2016
What in the world is dark social?
BREWSTER STANISLAW
SIMPLY MEASURED

2. What
in
the
world
is
dark
social?
Brewster
Stanislaw
Head
of
A8ribu;on
@brewws

3. #LIFTSocial
Agenda
1. Defining
dark
social:
Does
this
have
anything
to
do
with
wizards?
2. Dark
social’s
growing
importance:
how
can
I
quit
being
scared
of
the
dark?
3. Measuring
dark
social:
How
can
you
measure
something
you
can’t
see?

4. #LIFTSocial
What in the world is dark social?

5. #LIFTSocial
What in the world is dark social (really)?
SM’s Technical Definition:
Website traffic that originates from a shared link, but does
not pass a referrer and thus appears as ‘direct traffic’ in web
analytics (Referrer = the page URL containing the link to the
site that we clicked i.e. www. facebook.com/
simplymeasured)
SM’s “Tell me like I’m five” Definition:
Social shares and traffic that can’t be measured by
traditional website or social analytics.
SM’s “Tell me like I’m a Teenager” Definition:
All that other social stuff in our giant direct traffic bucket.

6. #LIFTSocial
Social Mobile Apps: In many cases, Facebook, Twitter,
Pinterest and mobile apps for other social networks do NOT
pass a referrer – FB has 655 million mobile-only users
Messaging Apps: WhatsApp, Kik, FB Messenger and other
mobile messaging apps do NOT pass a referrer –
WhatsApp has 900M users
Email: Major email providers like Gmail, Yahoo, and
Outlook do NOT pass a referrer – Gmail has 900M users
SMS: Text messaging does not pass a referrer – 300M+
mobile subscribers in the US
How does this happen in practice?

7. #LIFTSocial
Dark social is so prominent (in part) because people don’t
want to share everything publically but instead are sharing
privately with their closes friends and family via peer-to-
peer channels
Some Examples:
A wife might share his desired holiday gift with her husband via
SMS
A friend might email his friends about vacation destination for a
potential upcoming trip
A colleague might email her colleagues a new product
announcement with her team
Public vs private sharing

8. #LIFTSocial
Secure browsing: If you are browsing a site using HTTPS
site encryption and click on a link that is not encrypted
(HTTP), no referrer is passed
Paid and Organic Search: In some browser/device
configurations, google won’t pass a referrer when a user
clicks a link from an organic or paid search (“not provided”)
Mobile apps: Links in mobile apps almost never pass a
referrer
Documents: Links in documents like PDF, word docs, etc.
also do not pass a referrer
Other ‘direct’ traffic

9. #LIFTSocial
You Own Dark Social!
It’s time to start taking credit
Start illustrating the bigger impact your social
team really has
Paint a bigger picture of the web traffic,
engagement and conversions you are driving
Ok I get it, why do I care again?

10. #LIFTSocial
The Importance of Attribution
As a social marketer, you need to understand and measure
the impact your efforts are having on web and conversion
metrics.
You are driving site visits, signups, and sales. This makes
executives happy!
Without attribution, you can’t prove that you are actually
doing this and all of the credit goes to direct.
Illustrate your true business impact by implementing
tracking and attribution tools

11. #LIFTSocial
Sounds like a lot work. Do I really need to?
of
social
sharing
is
DARK

12. #LIFTSocial
Sounds like a lot work. Do I really need to?
of
your
social
traffic
is
DARK

13. #LIFTSocial
Sounds like a lot work. Do I really need to?
of
your
digital
sales
are
DARK

14. #LIFTSocial
A case study: A Leading Beauty Retailer
Challenge:
The
customer
was
experiencing
a
typical
problem
in
social
marke;ng.
They
were
convinced
that
a
significant
percentage
of
purchases
they
were
driving
through
social
media
marke;ng
were
unaccounted
for.
With
exis;ng
analy;cs
solu;ons
they
were
unable
to
prove
their
effec;veness
and
as
a
result,
appeared
to
be
underperforming.
With
significant
investment
made
in
the
social
team,
they
needed
to
prove
their
efficacy.
Results:
• Discovered
that
78%
of
purchases
were
unaEributed,
when
in
fact
they
were
driven
by
earned
social
sharing
(which
had
previously
been
untracked).
• Enabled
the
addiHon
of
hundreds
of
influencers
that
were
previously
unknown
into
exis;ng
social
and
content
marke;ng
plans.
• IdenHfied
the
right
content
to
drive
purchases
and
the
u;lized
this
to
improve
future
social
marke;ng
campaigns.
78%
22%
A8ributed
by
Simply
Measured
Previously
A8ributed
78%
of
social
purchases
were
unaEributed
for
leading
beauty
retailer

15. #LIFTSocial

16. #LIFTSocial
Facebook, Twitter and other mobile apps leave breadcrumbs to help you identify them as traffic
source when a referrer isn’t passed.
This is most commonly done using a user agent string.
Huh? A user agent string is a piece of meta data captured by weblogs that details the visitor’s
device and browser.
Social channels embed network-specific IDs in the User agents to make them trackable
This is helpful, but really hard to use in practice!
User Agent Analysis

17. #LIFTSocial
How to measure dark traffic from your brand posts…
Link
shortening
is
a
good
start
But
it
leads
to
disconnected
and
incomplete
data…
Clicks
do
not
equal
visits
Per-­‐post
aEribuHon
is
Challenging

18. #LIFTSocial
Appending UTM Parameters to the links in your social posts allows you to measure
their impact even when traffic appears direct!
Real attribution for dark social

19. #LIFTSocial
What about social shares from my audience?
UTM
parameters
are
sHll
your
friend!
Add
a
brand
menHon
for
extra
love.

20. #LIFTSocial
But visitors don’t behave the way we want them to!
Visitors
don’t
really
use
share
buEons
55-­‐70%
of
sharing
is
URL
copy
and
paste
-­‐
Especially
true
for
dark
social
channels
Mobile
OS
sharing
pulls
URLs
directly
from
the
browser

21. #LIFTSocial
Behold the URL hash fragment
Allows
you
to
track
social
sharing
AND
aEribute
dark
social
traffic
to
conversions
and
shares
Leverages
your
audience’s
organic
behaviors
Zero
impact
on
SEO

22. #LIFTSocial
Teach your colleagues about dark social and
evangelize its importance in your organization
Start measuring and reporting on dark social
Illustrate your social’s team’s larger impact by shining
a light on dark social and properly attributing traffic,
engagement, and conversions to social!
Now What?

23. QUESTIONS?
#LIFTSocial
Brewster Stanislaw
Head of Attribution
Simply Measured
brewster@simplymeasured.com
@brewws

24. Learn more about past and
upcoming events
SOCIALMEDIA.ORG/EVENTS
SOCIALMEDIA.ORG/SUMMIT2016ORLANDOJANUARY 25–27, 2016