Understand dark traffic, its sources, and how it impacts hotel website analytics and attribution.
Dark traffic refers to website visits whose source cannot be accurately identified by analytics tools. This often happens when referral information is lost, such as when a user clicks a link from a secure (HTTPS) site to a non-secure (HTTP) site, or when links are shared through private messaging apps, emails, or native mobile applications.
For hotels, understanding dark traffic is important because it can obscure the true effectiveness of certain marketing efforts. For instance, if a hotel runs a successful email campaign that generates many clicks, but these clicks show up as dark traffic, the hotel might underestimate the ROI of that email marketing. Robust UTM parameters can help shed light on some of these hidden sources.
Related terms
- Direct traffic
- Referral traffic
- Attribution model
- UTM parameters
