SOCIALMEDIA.ORG/SUMMIT2016ORLANDOJANUARY 25–27, 2016

What in the world is dark social?

BREWSTER STANISLAWSIMPLY MEASURED

What  in  the  world  is  dark  social?  

1  

Brewster  Stanislaw  Head  of  A8ribu;on    

@brewws  

#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?  

 

#LIFTSocial

What in the world is dark social?

#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.

#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?

#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

#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

#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?

#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

#LIFTSocial

Sounds like a lot work. Do I really need to?

of  social  sharing  is  DARK  

#LIFTSocial

Sounds like a lot work. Do I really need to?

of  your  social  traffic  is  DARK  

#LIFTSocial

Sounds like a lot work. Do I really need to?

of  your  digital  sales  are  DARK  

#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  

#LIFTSocial

#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

#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  

#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

#LIFTSocial

What about social shares from my audience?

UTM  parameters  are  sHll  your  friend!    Add  a  brand  menHon  for  extra  love.      

#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      

#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      

#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?

QUESTIONS?

#LIFTSocial

Brewster Stanislaw Head of Attribution Simply Measured brewster@simplymeasured.com @brewws

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SOCIALMEDIA.ORG/SUMMIT2016ORLANDOJANUARY 25–27, 2016