Everybody knows that you can’t track “dark social” with marketing attribution, specifically software-based attribution, right? Right??
Well, in some ways that’s wrong, and in some ways that’s right. There’s certainly “dark social” that can’t be tracked. The stuff that can’t be tracked includes face-to-face conversations about your product, phone calls about your product, conversations in Slack communities, and a few other things.
However, the thing missing from that list above is interactions happening directly on social media platforms like LinkedIn. And the types of interactions we’re referring to here are likes, comments, shares, and direct messages.
Wait… surely, we’re not saying that those things are trackable by software-based attribution, right? Everyone knows that’s not possible.
Nope… we’re saying it’s possible to track those things using software-based attribution. And, we’re going to show you how.
Who is this right for?
Before we get into the how, let’s start with the who. Who should care about this and invest in this?
This solution isn’t designed for organizations that are testing LinkedIn and other social media platforms. This solution is designed for organizations that are going all-in on social media platforms like LinkedIn. That’s because this solution also requires investment.
Organizations that are investing heavily in platforms like LinkedIn need more advanced tracking and reporting capabilities to understand which of their investments and activations on LinkedIn are working and which are not.
Note: We aren’t pitching this as a way to validate that LinkedIn efforts are performing, but rather which investments and activations on LinkedIn are working better than others. We know that LinkedIn is a viable marketing vehicle when leveraged properly.
Expand and Leverage your Tech Stack
To create this solution, you’ll need to add to your tech stack. And in this specific use case, you’ll need to add a platform called Oktopost. Or you may already have this platform, in which case you’ll need to make sure you’re using it to its fullest potential.
The rest of this solution will incorporate Marketo Engage and Marketo Measure. This solution may work for other combinations of marketing automation and marketing attribution. Still, we haven’t built this solution with those yet, so we can’t verify that this works in the same way. So, we’re focusing this article on the solution we built previously, which we know works.
Oktopost needs to be integrated with Marketo Engage. Specifically, you need to leverage the custom activity feature of that integration.
This feature was originally designed for lead scoring purposes. This feature creates a custom activity record in Marketo Engage when someone likes, comments on, or shares one of your posts. It can even create a custom activity record when you or your brand page receives a direct message. The original intention was to incorporate these custom activities into your scoring model. So, you would add 1 point to the behavior score for a like, 5 points for a comment, and 10 points for a share.
But these custom activities can also be used to create Marketo Measure Touchpoints.
A couple of years ago, Bizible (now Marketo Measure) was acquired by Marketo, and then a few months later, both Marketo and Bizible were acquired by Adobe. After that, a new integration was created in Marketo Measure, allowing you to connect Marketo Engage and Marketo Measure directly. One of the features of this integration was to allow you to create Marketo Measure touchpoints from activities logged in Marketo Measure. That includes custom activities. And that’s where this solution comes into play.
Custom Activities for the Win
Let’s set the stage.
Oktopost is tracking likes, comments, shares, and direct messages on LinkedIn. It’s integrated with Marketo Engage, where it creates custom activities to track these interactions. Marketo Engage is integrated with Marketo Measure, allowing you to create Marketo Measure touchpoints from activities, including custom activities.
Voila! There it is!
You have the ingredients. Now, it’s time to bake your cake.
The first thing you need to do is make sure that Oktopost and Marketo Engage are integrated and that you’re leveraging the custom activity feature. This link will give you all the information you need to ensure it is set up properly.
Next up is to make sure that Marketo Engage and Marketo Measure are integrated. That should take you about 10 minutes to complete. Here is a handy link to those instructions.
Once that is complete, you’ll want to navigate to the “Activities” tab under the Marketo Integration section.
There, you’ll set up the rules that allow you to create touchpoints from these custom activities. This link will help you get those set up. But, ultimately, your rules should look something like those in the screenshot below.
Once these rules have been set up, you now have everything in place to create TPs from the interactions that are happening on your social media platforms.
Consistency is Key
Now, there’s one last piece to this puzzle. You have to use Oktopost’s posting capabilities to track this. And, you have to do it consistently. Oktopost’s tracking capabilities–which are the linchpin to this whole solution–only work when using Oktopost to do the posting on your social media platforms. If you don’t use that consistently, this solution doesn’t capture all of those interactions. Please be consistent about posting through Oktopost.
Let’s Talk Limitations
There are some limitations to this solution. Let’s get those out in the open so you can make an informed decision on organizations that are truly leaning into social media through activations beyond traditional paid ads and sponsored posts. This is a great way to incorporate the interactions you’re driving through these efforts. Because those efforts aren’t going to generate clicks, web page visits, and form fills. At least, not at first. Eventually, they lead to people raising their hands and wanting to talk to sales. Until then, the only evidence you’ll have that this work is happening is through those exact comments and shares you’ll now be able to track.
First off, one limitation is that if someone interacting with your posts on LinkedIn isn’t already in your Marketo Engage database, Oktopost can’t create custom activity records. That means that tracking likes, comments, and shares won’t happen if someone isn’t inside your Marketo Engage database. Now, there is some functionality here that is similar to how Munchkin codes cookies in the browser and then fills in information from the anonymous record. It’s currently unclear to us whether historical likes, comments, and shares before a form fill will be backfilled by Oktopost and Marketo. We haven’t had a chance to test that out yet. So, that’s something to keep an eye out for, to see how that functionality works.
Similarly, most folks on LinkedIn have their LinkedIn profile tied to their personal email address, not their professional email address. This won’t be a problem if they’re in your Marketo Engage database under their personal email address… like if they filled out a LinkedIn lead gen form with their personal email address. But, this difference in email addresses could cause some misattribution if you have two different records in your database–one with the professional email address and one with the personal email address. In this case, you may need/want to merge the records once the Opportunity is created.
These are the two primary limitations of this solution. There are things that you do have some level of control over, though. How you handle these is up to you.
That’s it!
That’s it… That’s the whole solution. That’s how you shine a light on the portions of “dark social” that can be lit up.
This gives you full visibility in your software-based attribution for interactions such as likes, comments, shares, and direct messages.
For organizations that are truly leaning into social media through activations beyond traditional paid ads and sponsored posts, this is a great way to incorporate the interactions you’re driving through these efforts. Because those efforts aren’t going to generate clicks, web page visits, and form fills. At least, not at first. Eventually, they lead to people raising their hands and wanting to talk to sales. Until then, the only evidence you’ll have that this work is happening is through those exact comments and shares you’ll now be able to track.
