ChatGPT is one of the most used AI platforms on the web – and it’s starting to drive more web traffic.
Semrush’s analysis of 17 months of clickstream data found that outbound referral traffic from ChatGPT grew by 206% by 2025.
But how much traffic is coming from ChatGPT you to find out? And are your competitors getting more?
We asked SEO experts what they think about ChatGPT traffic and put together a guide on how to measure traffic from ChatGPT, so you can identify opportunities for improvement.
Why ChatGPT traffic is important
Visitors from ChatGPT arrive differently than visitors from organic search. By the time someone clicks on an AI answer, they’ve already done a lot of research. They probably know exactly what they want and why they want it.
That changes the nature of the lead. Bek Drayton, Founder at BeKonstructive Marketing, sees it firsthand.
In mypersonal experience, the leads we see coming in from AI referral sources just qualify themselves. They don’t ask for a quote. They ask, “When can we start?”
How to track your ChatGPT traffic
You can monitor your own ChatGPT traffic in Google Analytics 4 (GA4).
In GA4, you can see which pages attracted visits from ChatGPT, how engaged users were when they arrived at your site, and whether they completed any conversions (these are called “key events” in GA4).
Note: AI platforms do not always transmit referrer information, so some traffic from AI tools may appear as direct traffic.
Open your GA4 property and go to “Traffic detection” the report.
Click the dropdown at the top of the table and change it to “Session source/central.”
Click on “+ Add a filter” at the top left, and set the “Dimension” down to “The source of the session,” set the “Match Type” dropdown to “exactly the same,” and click the box next to “chatgpt.com” in the “Value” dropdown.
You will see any times that came to your site from ChatGPT.
To see the exact pages visitors from ChatGPT went to, click the plus (+) icon next to the “Session source/medium” dropdown and select “Landing page + query string.”
Knowing which pages visitors from ChatGPT often go to on your site reveals what their intentions are.
Once you’ve set up key events to track conversions in your GA4 account, you can look at the columns “Promised Sessions,” “Key Events,” and “Total Revenue,” to measure how ChatGPT traffic is interacting with your site.
Testing conversions from ChatGPT traffic helps you answer the most important questions.
- How engaged are ChatGPT visitors with the site?
- What pages do they land on the most?
- Is your ChatGPT traffic converting better than traffic from other sources?
- What is the value (in conversions and revenue) of your ChatGPT traffic?
Session statistics and conversion data give you a baseline.
When reporting to management, Jimmy Rippon, Head of Global Research at Swoop Funding, recommends taking one step further to measure the amount of ChatGPT traffic.
Average order value (B2C) and average deal size (B2B) are metrics to think about when it comes to AI tools like ChatGPT. Users come in highly educated and with a high purchase intention; in the cases I see, they bring in about 50% more money per order/deal compared to traditional search. AI tools are emerging and growing rapidly. Imagine if they were 10x their current share of the income mix!
Estimating average order value or deal size by channel often requires going deeper than GA4 – pulling together data from your CRM or ecommerce platform to see how the metrics compare.
How to check your competitors’ ChatGPT traffic
You don’t have access to your competitors’ Google Analytics — but the AI Traffic dashboard in Semrush’s Traffic & Market Toolkit gives you a way to measure what their ChatGPT traffic looks like and compare it to yours.
Open the “AI Traffic” dashboard and enter your domain next to four competitors. Then click “Analyze.”
I “Car Distribution” section gives you a side-by-side view of how much AI traffic (including ChatGPT traffic) each site is getting, so you can see how effectively you’re competing.
Scroll down the “Traffic Trend” graph to see how your competitors’ traffic from ChatGPT has changed over the past few months.
I “The “highest growing pages” section reveals which of our competitor’s pages have grown ChatGPT traffic the most.
Use this report to analyze the types of pages ChatGPT is sending your audience to, whether it’s marketing pages, informational guides, or comparison content.
If a competitor is getting more ChatGPT traffic than you, take that as a sign to look out for.
How to measure and improve your ChatGPT visibility
To get ChatGPT traffic, you must first have ChatGPT visibility.
AI visibility metrics like citations and mentions help you measure your presence before it turns into a click.
William Álvarez, Head of Organic Search at WPP Media, thinks so.
AI quotes without clicks is not a problem to fix. The influence has gone up. If a product consistently appears in AI responses, it forms a shortlist and solidifies decisions before the analytics wake up. Citation sharing and recommendation availability are new metrics. Traffic was not the whole story!
Check your ChatGPT visibility base in the “Visibility Overview” (select the ChatGPT filter to focus on ChatGPT).
Scroll down to Title & Sources to reveal places where competitors appear, but you don’t.
With Product Performance Reports, you can investigate how ChatGPT is talking about you and your competitors in terms of key business drivers.
Use these spaces to prioritize what you need to do. If competitors appear a lot on certain topics, that is a sign that they have created content and updates in that area.
To improve your visibility, focus on off-site referrals, answer questions your audience is already asking, and publish ideas you can only offer.
Further reading: How to track your ChatGPT product visibility with Semrush
How to create a ChatGPT traffic report that pops up
Popup report helps you keep ChatGPT traffic in context. Instead of treating it as a one-off metric, you can monitor it alongside the SEO and conversion data your team is already using.
Automatically send ChatGPT traffic reports with GA4
If you use Google Analytics to measure ChatGPT traffic on your site, you can set up an automatic report to share this with stakeholders.
Go to your filtered Traffic Discovery report, and follow these steps:
- Find the “Share report” button above the graph
- Select “Edit Email”
- Name your report, add recipients, and set the frequency
Now, your recipient will get an email notification about the ChatGPT traffic coming to the site.
Automate your reporting with Semrush My Reports
Semrush also makes it easy to report on ChatGPT traffic with the My Reports PDF builder. The benefit of using these tools is that you can customize a more detailed report that includes ChatGPT traffic and additional AI visibility metrics such as AI visibility results, citations, mentions, and sentiment.
In Semrush, open My Reports and click the GA4 button.
Click on “AI Traffic Overview” widget from “Groups” and drag it to get a base of your ChatGPT traffic alongside traffic from other AI platforms.
The “Top AI Platforms” section shows a breakdown by platform.
Next, focus on the data points you already monitor in GA4, such as key events, landing pages, etc. Drag those widgets, click the pencil icon on top of one, and change the “Traffic Channel” dropdown to “AI transfer.”
Enter additional AI visibility signals
After adding GA4 data, use Semrush widgets to include data from Semrush’s Visibility Overview or Product Performance reports. These AI visibility metrics help explain changes in ChatGPT’s visibility and presence that can lead to increased awareness and traffic.
If you have the Traffic and Market toolkit, you can also include those competitor benchmarks to share how your ChatGPT site traffic compares to the competition.
Related: Create a SEO + AI search marketing report [+ template]
ChatGPT traffic is not the whole story
Traffic is the end result of many things going well. With features like attribution, citations, and AI visibility, you can see how you’re influencing your chances of growing that traffic.
To see the full picture, compare your ChatGPT traffic to competitors with Semrush’s Traffic & Market Toolkit, then use the AI Visibility Toolkit to track the signals behind it.