Dark Funnel

What is the Dark Funnel in Marketing?

The “dark funnel” is the unseen and untracked part of the buyer’s journey, where potential customers interact with content, brands, and communities without leaving behind digital footprints that traditional marketing tools can easily measure. Any touchpoint you can’t measure with attribution is part of the dark funnel.

There are several ways users can interact with your brand through the dark funnel:

• Using ad blockers and incognito browsing
• Communicating messaging apps (Slack, WhatsApp) and private social media groups (Facebook Messenger) where users can interact without leaving public data
• Researching on third-party websites, consuming content, or participating in industry forums
• Engaging with your brand’s content — blog posts, webinars, or social media posts — without interacting in ways traditional tools like Google Analytics would detect

It’s a concept that addresses the challenge businesses face in tracking leads and understanding the buyer’s decision-making process, especially in an age where so many interactions occur in private or non-trackable channels.

To address it, businesses are starting to rely more on advanced analytics, AI-driven insights, and intent data from third-party platforms. These don’t clear it all the way up, but they give companies a clearer view of buyer activity beyond what traditional platforms can measure.

Synonyms

• Black funnel
• Dark marketing funnel
• Invisible funnel

Importance of the Dark Funnel in Marketing

The dark funnel plays a significant role in influencing purchasing decisions, but because these interactions are untracked, businesses might miss critical insights into what drives conversions. This can result in an incomplete understanding of the buyer’s journey.

That’s why, for B2B marketers, the dark funnel represents a major challenge. It affects how accurately they can assess the impact of their marketing campaigns.

Your customer journey is more complicated than you think.

If you’re just mapping the customer journey based on the data available from sources like Google Analytics, you’re only seeing a fraction of the actual touchpoints your customers have with your brand. These tools are great at measuring direct traffic and conversions through tracking cookies, referral URLs, etc., but they can’t capture the full extent of user behavior.

When they’re not scrolling your website, clicking your ads, or engaging with your social media profiles, what are they doing?

• Going to events
• Reading/watching content from creators who aren’t affiliated with you
• Asking for recommendations from friends and colleagues
• Trying to find information about your competitors
• Discussing your product privately

Since you don’t own these touchpoints, you can’t access the data behind them. And in some cases (like with direct messaging platforms), it would be almost impossible to track even if you could. This makes it difficult to understand the full context of your customer’s decision-making process.

The dark funnel is where you’ll find the missing pieces of the puzzle.

The pre-Awareness stage is another consideration.

In the traditional sales funnel, the Awareness stage is generally thought of as the first step. This is when a potential customer becomes aware of your brand and starts researching their problem or need.

In reality, there is a “pre-Awareness” stage that comes before this. This is when those customers discover your brand through indirect means, like word-of-mouth recommendations or content from third-party websites.

Since you can only measure the point somebody becomes ‘aware’ of your product when they do so through your own channels, you’re missing out on the fact that some of those people in your funnel were already aware of (and possibly considering) your product.

Dark funnel touchpoints can’t be measured to a ‘T,’ but you can purchase intent data that gives you a glimpse into which businesses might be researching and considering your solution. You can also look at traffic to third-party pages discussing your product. And, of course, you can ask the leads themselves how they first discovered you.

Mapping these touchpoints helps you build brand awareness more effectively.

Building trust with your audience through dark funnel channels is different because you can’t just tell people about how great your product is and expect them to convert. In a lot of cases, you actually have no direct control over the narrative (that’s part of why 91% of B2B buyers say they trust word-of-mouth).

When you know, at the very least, what your dark funnel channels are, you can start becoming more present in those places. And you can make sure those areas have content that helps potential buyers research their problems/solutions.

Dark Funnel Marketing Channels

Like we’ve already said, there are several ways customers could be flying under the radar while interacting with your brand.

Let’s dive into each of them more in-depth.

Offline channels

Offline channels are marketing channels that are part of the buyer journey, but aren’t trackable via the internet.

• TV mentions
• Print media advertisements
• Billboards and posters

You might pay for exposure in these places, but there’s no way to measure the level of engagement. The only way to know if your efforts are successful is through surveys and feedback from customers, who may or may not remember seeing those ads.

Events

Events are places where you have the opportunity to interact with leads face-to-face.

• Industry conferences
• Networking events
• Sponsored meetups
• Webinars

Events you’re a part of, whether you or someone else hosts them, are full of people who (a) don’t know a thing about your brand but will, (b) have already entered the funnel and will move further along, or (c) don’t know anything about your brand and won’t.

For the most part, you won’t know who’s who. But you have some control.

At events where you have a booth or a representative is actively networking, they might grab a prospect’s email or phone number, add them to a list, then document the interaction in the CRM. At that point, the interaction is trackable (assuming they document everything correctly).

Organic search

You can manage your own SEO and content marketing performance. You’ll know how much organic traffic you brought in, how much of that traffic converted, and dozens of other metrics. But there are plenty of other sources driving organic traffic that you won’t have access to.

When a potential buyer searches for solutions to their problem, they might find blog posts or product reviews from websites that aren’t directly affiliated with your brand.

If you’re a local business, they might even find out you exist thanks to Google Maps, simply because of their proximity to your location.

User-generated content (UGC)

Especially with TikTok, UGC is the hottest trend in marketing right now. But it goes a lot deeper than that — any kind of content a user creates about your product and publishes themselves is considered UGC.

• Unboxing/unveiling videos
• Tutorials and demos
• Testimonials
• Forum posts
• Podcasts
• Reviews on product review sites (e.g., G2 Crowd)

Any time somebody talks about you on a social media platform or third-party review site, that counts as UGC. There are ways you can facilitate this (more on that later), but the main reason it’s so effective is that it’s organic.

Public relations

PR is one of the biggest ways people can discover your brand online. Any time you win an award, publish thought leadership pieces, or reach a big milestone (e.g., raising a Series A or developing a new product), people are going to write about it.

Some of these are paid (by you). And, in those instances, the firm or platform handling the publishing will report on engagement-related metrics.

For those that aren’t, you’re in the dark about how people are interacting with and interpreting your brand. You might have referral traffic come in from those articles, but you still won’t know anything beyond the referral source.

Internal communications

When people talk about your brand through private channels, that counts as dark funnel.

• Email
• Social media DMs
• Private forums

Anything that happens within the walls of private discussion is part of the dark funnel. It could be a prospect asking their friend about your product via email or sharing UGC content with your product that sparks discussion. The possibilities are practically endless.

Measuring the Dark Funnel

Of course, the hardest part about mapping your dark funnel and quantifying the interactions that happen within it is the fact that you can’t directly access the data. After all, you didn’t produce the content.

You also don’t know where it begins, or what’s involved exactly. There are some obvious components (clearly, people are going to publish their experiences on third-party review sites). But you won’t be able to map the entire thing.

But first, let’s lay out the ways you can measure dark funnel interactions.

Social media listening

Use a social media monitoring tool to track mentions of your brand and products across the social media landscape.

Referral traffic

Keep an eye on referral traffic in your website analytics to see where people are coming from and what they’re saying.

Surveys

Use surveys to ask customers how they discovered your brand or product, and if they can recall any specific content that influenced their decision. You can also survey random people in your ICP, asking if they’ve heard of Brand A, Brand B, Brand C, and your brand. Then, you could ask which ones they trust or would be willing to consider.

UTM codes

Use unique UTM codes for different dark funnel channels, so you can track the source of any clicks or conversions that come from those sources.

Partner tracking

If you have any partners, affiliates, or influencers, track their activities and interactions with your brand, as well as their customers’.

Cookies, IP addresses, and device recognition technology

This will help you track anonymous website visits, even when the visitor hasn’t filled out a form or identified themselves.

Third-party intent data

Sometimes (like in the case of B2B sales), you can purchase third-party data that provides insight into a potential buyer’s online research and behavior. This will help you identify key touchpoints in the dark funnel.

Attribution software

Attribution tools can’t track buyer behavior in the dark funnel, but they can help you attribute conversions and sales to specific channels. You can piece this information together with your other data to get a better understanding of how the dark funnel is contributing to your overall marketing efforts.

The metrics you want to track through these methods are brand sentiment, brand awareness, engagement rates, CTRs, website traffic (by source), and conversions.

How to Leverage the Dark Funnel

Develop a full-funnel marketing strategy.

Sales funnels need to account for the pre-Awareness stage that often gets overlooked. To accurately reflect your true buying process, you have to recognize the fact that it doesn’t start with your own content 100% of the time.

You also need to remember the dark funnel encompasses touchpoints throughout the entire customer journey.

• They might discover your product through a friend who uses it, so they do their research.
• They read more about their problems on a separate website.
• They see others using your product on social media.
• When they’re ready, they find your website and book a call. To you, this is where the customer journey begins. To them, the process began weeks or even months ago.
• Before converting, they’ll read reviews and listen to testimonials. Sometimes, this might even be the last step in the funnel.

Your marketing strategy needs to account for all of these things.

Optimize for long-tail keywords.

One of the easiest ways to capture some of the dark funnel is through content marketing. Creating content about the problems your product solves and the topics your ideal customer is interested in will help you take some of that traffic from those other websites. 

You can use a keyword research tool to find out what your competitors are doing well with, but it goes a lot deeper than that. You want to create and distribute content that’s relevant to your buyer persona and addresses the topics they’re researching at each stage of the funnel.

Invest in brand awareness campaigns.

Getting exposure earlier and more often is another way to capture some of that dark funnel traffic earlier. If you’re constantly putting out top-of-funnel content, you’re improving your chances of being that first touchpoint. And, if they’re first hearing about your brand from you, trackability throughout the entire rest of the funnel is a lot higher.

Prioritize customer advocacy and insights.

Your existing customers are your greatest asset in the dark funnel. UGC, referrals, and other kinds of advocacy are all ways to reach people you wouldn’t have been able to otherwise.

Normally, these things would have to happen organically, but there are tons of things you can do to take matters into your own hands:

• Ask for reviews, testimonials, and other forms of feedback you can publish on your site.
• Proactively send links or QR codes inviting users to review you on third-party sites.
• Invite them to participate in case studies
• Set up a referral or affiliate program
• Be active on social media to catch mentions from promoters

In addition to all these, getting feedback from your customers can help you understand their experiences and pain points better. You can use that information to improve your product. By extension, you’ll get more positive exposure on the dark funnel channels you can’t control.

Track and analyze your marketing performance.

All of the strategies we mentioned above are trackable. You can measure how many referrals you’re getting, what people are saying on social media and review sites, the success of your brand awareness campaigns, and all those other factors.

You should know which areas are bringing in the most marketing qualified leads (MQLs), engaging customers with your brand, and contributing to conversions.

Use attribution modeling.

Attribution tells you which channels, campaigns, and tactics ultimately contribute to conversions. But it doesn’t tell you the complete story regarding buyer behavior in the dark funnel.

To understand how different touchpoints work together and influence each other, you need to create a model. This method takes into account all interactions a prospect has with your brand before converting and how much weight they had in the conversion process.

You’ve got tons of different ways to do this:

• First-touch
• Last-touch
• Linear
• U-shaped
• W-shaped
• Z-shaped
• Custom models

The more complex your sales funnel, the more factors you’ll have to account for in your model (i.e., the lower down that bulleted list you’ll go). For complex B2B products like enterprise SaaS, you’ll need a custom model.

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