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Transcript
- Lucas: So here's a number that still surprises me every time I see it: according to a 2025 study from the marketing analytics firm ShareThis, roughly 84 percent of all social sharing happens in channels that are invisible to most analytics tools. That means private messages, group chats, emails, texts, and any platform where the link goes out without a public post attached. Luna: Right — the stuff marketers call 'dark social.' I think the name is a little dramatic, but the concept is huge. Lucas: It's huge and it's also the oldest form of sharing, right? People have been emailing links to friends since the nineties. But the reason it matters more now is that public social feeds have become noisy, algorithmically throttled, and increasingly pay to play. When someone actually takes the time to copy a link and send it privately to a friend, that signal is incredibly strong. Luna: And yet most brands still optimize for retweets, shares, and likes — the public metrics. Which makes sense because they can measure those. But if 84 percent of sharing is invisible, you're basically flying blind on word of mouth. Lucas: Exactly. So let's look at a company that's actually built a strategy around dark social. Rad Power Bikes — the e-bike company — they noticed a few years ago that a huge chunk of their new customers were arriving through referral links, but they couldn't figure out where those referrals were coming from. Their UTM parameters were clean, so they knew the link was being shared, but the source was just 'direct traffic' or 'unknown.' Luna: That's the classic dark social black hole. You know someone sent a link, but you don't know where. Lucas: So they did something clever. They created shareable discount codes that were tied to specific channels. For example, a code like 'WHATSAPP20' — and they'd test different codes across different platforms. By tracking which codes were used, they could reverse-engineer where the sharing was happening. Within a year, they found that nearly 15 percent of their new orders came from WhatsApp groups and direct messages — not from Facebook, not from Instagram, not from any public feed. Luna: Fifteen percent. That's not a side channel — that's a major acquisition engine. And they would have missed it entirely if they'd only looked at public social metrics. Lucas: Right. And they doubled down. They started creating content specifically designed for dark social — short video explainers, one-click share buttons that pre-filled a WhatsApp message, referral incentives that only triggered when someone actually made a purchase from a private share. They essentially redesigned their sharing experience for the invisible web. Luna: I think a lot of brands are scared of dark social because it feels uncontrollable. But Rad Power Bikes showed that you can influence it — you just need to meet people where they're actually sharing. Which, by the way, is increasingly in messaging apps. Lucas: Yeah, and the shift is accelerating. In 2025, WhatsApp hit three billion monthly active users. WeChat is at over a billion. Messenger, Telegram, Signal — these are the new town squares. And they're almost entirely private. So if your brand's sharing strategy still revolves around a Twitter share button, you're missing the point. Luna: Let's talk about the tools that do exist. How do you actually measure dark social in 2026? Because I know a lot of marketers who just shrug and say 'we can't track it.' Lucas: There are a few practical approaches. First, the simplest: dedicated landing pages with unique UTM parameters for different sharing contexts. That's what Rad Power Bikes did with their codes. Second, you can use shortened links with tracking — services like Bitly or Rebrandly — and then analyze the referrer data. If the referrer shows as 'direct' but the user came through a link that was only shared in private, you can start attributing it. Luna: But that still doesn't tell you the channel. Just that it was a private share. Lucas: Correct. That's where some newer tools come in. There are services like ShareThis and AddThis that use a technique called 'social link resolution' — basically, when someone shares a link, the tool appends a unique identifier to the URL that gets resolved when the link is clicked, even if it came from a private message. It's not perfect, but it gives you a much clearer picture. Everlane, the clothing brand, started using this a couple of years ago and discovered that 40 percent of their referral traffic was coming from dark social — mostly from iMessage and WhatsApp. Luna: Forty percent. That's huge. And it changed how they thought about content. Instead of pushing for public shares, they started creating content that felt more intimate — like 'share this with a friend who'd love this jacket' messaging. Lucas: Exactly. And that's a key behavioral insight. Dark social sharing tends to be higher-intent. When you send something privately, you're vouching for it. You're saying, 'I thought of you specifically.' So the conversion rates from dark social links are often two to three times higher than from public social posts. Luna: That makes sense. If a friend texts me a link, I'm way more likely to click than if I see it in my feed. The trust is built-in. Lucas: Right. Now, there's a tactical shift that matters here. Instead of asking 'how do we get more public shares?', brands should ask 'how do we make it effortless for customers to share privately?' That means optimizing your mobile sharing experience — making sure the share button opens a native share sheet, not just a Facebook or Twitter dialog. It means pre-populating message text that feels personal, not promotional. Sephora does this well: when you share a product on their app, it generates a short, friendly message like 'Hey, I found this lipstick — thought you'd love the shade.' No discount, no urgency — just a personal recommendation. Luna: And they track those shares, I assume, via unique links? Lucas: Yeah, they use a combination of UTM parameters and their own attribution system. But the beauty of it is that the message itself is designed to feel like something you'd actually send to a friend. That's the litmus test — if your share copy looks like an ad, it will die in the dark. If it looks like a note from a real person, it thrives. Luna: I've noticed that a lot of brands are now creating content specifically for the 'share to a friend' moment. Like, short looping videos without any branding, just a helpful tip or a funny observation. The idea is that you'd send it to a friend without feeling like you're spamming them. Lucas: Yes — that's a rising format. I saw a great example from a DTC mattress brand, I think it was Tuft & Needle, where they made a 15-second clip of someone setting up the mattress in 30 seconds with a time-lapse. No logo, no call to action. Just 'this is cool.' That clip got shared through iMessage thousands of times. Luna: So the content itself has to earn the share. It's not about a sharing incentive — it's about making something that people genuinely want to send to someone they know. Lucas: And that brings us to the metrics you should actually track. I'd argue there are three key numbers for dark social in 2026. First: share rate on private channels — how many people who view your content actually click the share button and send it via a private channel. Second: conversion rate from dark social visits — you need a way to identify those visitors, even if you don't know the exact source. Third: referral coefficient — how many new customers come from each existing customer's private shares. Luna: That third one is basically a viral coefficient, but for dark social. And it's harder to measure because you need to connect the dots between the sharer and the recipient. Lucas: Right, which is why a lot of brands use referral programs as a proxy. But the best approach is to give each user a unique referral link that works across all channels — including private ones — and then track the resulting purchases. That's what Rad Power Bikes does, and they've been able to calculate that their dark social referral coefficient is about 0.3, meaning every three customers generate one new customer through private sharing. Luna: That's a solid number. And it compounds over time. If you can improve that coefficient by just 0.1, you're looking at significant organic growth. Lucas: Exactly. And the cool thing is, you can improve it by optimizing the sharing experience, not by spending more on ads. That's why I think dark social is one of the highest roi channels for most brands right now — it's under-invested, under-measured, and it taps into genuine human behavior. Luna: It's also worth noting that dark social isn't just for DTC or e-commerce. B2B brands benefit too. I've seen studies showing that something like 60 percent of B2B content shares happen via email or private messaging. That's huge for lead gen. Lucas: Absolutely. And if these marketing conversations have sparked something you've actually used — maybe a tactic for your own brand, or a way of thinking about your analytics — I'll just say that a couple of dollars a month is genuinely what keeps these episodes going. It's at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, if you've gotten something out of them. No pressure, just if it's been useful. Luna: Yeah, and I think the reason that matters is that it lets us stay independent and keep digging into topics like this without worrying about ad revenue. So thanks to anyone who does. Lucas: Alright — back to it. So one more angle I want to touch on: the privacy implications. As more sharing moves to encrypted channels like Signal and WhatsApp, brands have to be careful not to over-track. Apple's App Tracking Transparency and similar regulations make it harder to follow the user across apps. But the smartest brands are using first-party data — like asking customers to opt in to a referral program — rather than trying to track every share programmatically. Luna: That's actually a better approach from the customer's perspective too. If someone opts into a referral program, they're explicitly saying 'I want to share this brand.' That's a more engaged user. Lucas: Exactly. And with the phase-out of third-party cookies accelerating in 2026, dark social actually becomes more valuable, not less. Because the sharing is driven by genuine relationships, not ad targeting. It's the most privacy-compliant growth channel there is. Luna: So what's the one thing a marketer should do this week to start tackling dark social? Lucas: I'd say: audit your share buttons. Go to your website or app and see what happens when you click the share icon. If it only offers Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, you're missing WhatsApp, Messenger, SMS, and email. Update your share sheet to include the most popular messaging apps in your target market. That's a fifteen-minute change that can unlock a channel that's probably already driving traffic you can't see. Luna: Simple, cheap, and immediately actionable. I love that. And start tracking those UTM parameters — even if you can't see the source, you can start seeing the volume. Lucas: Exactly. The era of ignoring dark social is over. It's not a mystery — it's just a channel that requires a different lens.