Read the whole article from Curtis Hougland, how his father-in-law was buying a Porsche 911. It is an eye-opener, if and where social (and Dark Social) plays an role in buying decision and the customer journey, although the customer (and we as marketers) don’t even recognize it:
The decision to purchase high average order value products such as automobiles, insurance or furniture is dominated by the interconnectivity of search, social, text and email. These channels constitute what we call dark matter, or what The Atlantic more aptly calls dark social, because these behaviors do not show up as meaningful sales drivers in the sales reports delivered to the desk of the CMO. …
As a result, marketers grossly undervalue the importance of dark social. It is exponentially more complex to think about the dark matter that connects the media rather than big chunks of advertising. Dark social does not easily show-up in rudimentary attribution or surveys. …
And most brands remain blind to the ways their basic channels interconnect to each other through search, social, email and text, because they are all handled by different parts of the marketing organization. The four horsemen of purchase decisions not only inform, they dominate purchase decisions, …
via In The Dark About Social 08/11/2014.