How to track referral traffic from AI platforms like ChatGPT in Google Analytics 4

In the past year alone, the AI landscape has undergone a seismic shift, with a proliferation of AI tools flooding the market. Among their many capabilities, these tools can generate links and channel user traffic to your websites. If you’re keen on dissecting and understanding this AI-driven referral traffic, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) provides a straightforward solution. With some – though not all – AI platforms now sharing their referrer data, it’s simply a matter of locating the source/medium data in your GA4 reports.

As you may already know, GA4 equips you with the means to track and analyse traffic sources, including those stemming from AI platforms. Here is how you can navigate and scrutinise this particular type of referral traffic within GA4:

Setting up your exploration in GA4

1. Start in GA4: Navigate to your GA4 account and select “Explore” from the left sidebar to access the exploration tools.

2. Create or choose a report: You can select an existing report or create a new one. For a new report, use the “Free Form” tile to start from scratch.

3. Configure dimensions and metrics:

• • Drag the “Source / medium” dimension to the rows in your report setup area.
  • Choose metrics such as “Sessions,” “Active Users,” and “Engagement Rate” to measure the impact of AI traffic.

Filtering AI traffic

4. Add a filter for AI traffic:

• Under the filters section, add a new filter.
• Choose “Source / medium” as your dimension.
• Set the match type to “Matches Regex” and enter the following regex to filter for various AI platforms:

Regex code:

.*(\.ai|\.openai|copilot|gpt|chatgpt|neeva|writesonic|nimble|outrider|perplexity|google.*bard|bard.*google|bard|edgeservices).*

• Apply the filter to isolate traffic from these sources.

5. Analyse the data: With the filter applied, your exploration will now display traffic specifically from the AI platforms in your regex. You can analyse how this segment compares to others in terms of user engagement, session quality, and conversion rates etc.

Ongoing tracking and analysis

As you track and analyse AI referral traffic, it’s important to continuously update your regex queries and filters as new AI platforms emerge and are identified. Engage with the community to share insights and updates, ensuring your tracking methods stay current.

While these tools are currently in their infancy, and the volume of traffic they channel to your website may be relatively modest, this development is undeniably intriguing. It empowers marketing teams to pinpoint AI sources and devise strategies to optimise performance.

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To find out how Oban can help you get the most out of Google Analytics 4, please get in touch.

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