Dark social refers to social sharing that is hard to track, such as links shared in private messages, email, or closed communities.
Dark social can drive meaningful traffic even when analytics tools cannot identify the original source clearly.
Teams often use UTM links, surveys, and attribution modeling to better understand this hidden sharing behavior.
Dark social often shows up as direct or unattributed traffic, so teams may need UTM discipline, post-purchase surveys, and qualitative feedback to understand its impact.
Because the sharing happens in places analytics cannot see: private messages, group chats, email, and closed communities. The traffic arrives with no referrer data, so its origin is dark to tracking tools.
Studies consistently suggest most link sharing happens privately rather than in public feeds. If your direct traffic is suspiciously high, dark social is often a big part of it.
Imperfectly. UTM-tagged share links, "how did you hear about us" survey questions, unique codes, and watching direct traffic spikes after campaigns all help triangulate it.