A big part of marketing is understanding the channels and campaigns that have the highest return and creating informed tactics around them. That can be a challenge, though, when dark social comes into play.

If you’re worried about where to put your marketing dollars, understanding the power of dark social can be a step in being strategic in your budget spend.

Dark social is less sinister than it sounds—although for marketers, not having data can be a scary place. The phrase refers to web traffic from shared links with no tracking information, caused by sharing from private communications tools like texting and e-mail. Your analytics software can’t detect where these views and engagements came from, so it leaves a big question mark in your acquisition reporting.

So how can you still take advantage of these shares in a way that has a positive impact on your marketing strategy?