Dark Funnel
Dark Funnel is The invisible portion of the buyer's journey that happens in channels your analytics can't track: Slack communities, podcasts, word of mouth, private social, and peer conversations.
The dark funnel is everything that influences a purchase decision but never shows up in your attribution reports. A prospect hears about you on a podcast, asks their Slack community for opinions, reads an untracked LinkedIn post, and then types your URL directly into their browser. Your CRM says "direct traffic." The reality is a multi-touch journey you'll never fully see.
This matters for RevOps because it breaks traditional multi-touch attribution models. If 60-70% of the buyer's research happens in channels you can't instrument, your attribution data only tells part of the story. Self-reported attribution ("How did you hear about us?" on the demo form) is crude but often more accurate than software-based tracking for top-of-funnel influence.
What RevOps Can Do
- Add self-reported attribution fields: "How did you hear about us?" on every form, with free-text and dropdown options
- Track branded search trends: Rising branded search volume correlates with dark funnel activity even if you can't attribute individual touches
- Measure community engagement: Proxy metrics like community membership growth, event attendance, and podcast downloads
- Accept the gap: Not everything is measurable. The best RevOps teams balance data rigor with the humility to acknowledge what they can't track
Dark funnel awareness is especially important for teams investing in demand generation and content marketing, where the ROI often flows through unmeasurable channels. See also multi-touch attribution for the models that try to capture what they can.
Frequently Asked Questions
What percentage of the buyer journey is in the dark funnel?
Research from Forrester and 6sense suggests 60-70% of B2B buying research happens before a prospect ever engages with your tracked channels. The exact number varies by industry and deal size, but the takeaway is consistent: most of the journey is invisible to your analytics.
How do you measure something you can't track?
You use proxies and self-reported data. Add 'How did you hear about us?' to demo request forms. Track branded search volume as a leading indicator. Monitor community growth metrics. Compare pipeline sourced by channel against total pipeline to estimate the attribution gap. It won't be precise, but it's better than ignoring the dark funnel entirely.
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