Definition

Marketing touchpoints occurring outside traditional tracking channels (dark social, word-of-mouth, offline conversations) that influence conversions but remain invisible to analytics. The conversion credit you'll never get.

Example Usage

Our dark funnel probably drives 30-40% of conversions through group chats, word-of-mouth, and word-of-text, none of which we can track or measure.

Origin

Term coined around 2016 by marketers frustrated with attribution gaps; popularized by platforms trying to solve unmeasurable traffic.

Fun Fact

Dark social alone might account for 50% of social sharing traffic; dark funnel includes all channels you can't directly attribute, making ROI calculations pure fiction.

Source: Attribution & digital marketing research

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