# Traffic from ChatGPT is nice. Sales from it are better. Source: https://databull.app/ai-traffic-analytics Updated: 2026-10-29 · Author: Ahmed Gagan (maker of DataBull) > DataBull gives ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and other assistants their own channel, then follows those visitors to Stripe, Polar, Dodo or Creem. You see which assistant sends buyers, not just clicks. **Short answer:** Visits from AI assistants arrive with a referrer such as chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai or claude.ai, and ChatGPT search links also carry utm_source=chatgpt.com. DataBull files all of them under an AI channel and connects each visitor to their Stripe, Polar, Dodo or Creem payments, so you see revenue and lifetime value per assistant. Links opened from apps without a referrer still show as Direct. ## An AI channel, next to Search and Social Every visit in DataBull gets a channel: Organic Search, Organic Social, AI, Referral, Email, Paid, Affiliate or Direct. A visit lands in **AI** when its referrer or its `utm_source` is one of these assistants: | Assistant | Recognized as | | --- | --- | | ChatGPT | `chatgpt.com` (old `chat.openai.com` links are folded in) | | Claude | `claude.ai` | | Perplexity | `perplexity.ai` | | Gemini | `gemini.google.com` (and the old `bard.google.com`) | | Microsoft Copilot | `copilot.microsoft.com` | | Others | `you.com`, `phind.com`, `chat.deepseek.com`, `deepseek.com`, `grok.com`, `meta.ai`, `chat.mistral.ai`, `poe.com`, `kimi.com`, `notebooklm.google.com` | Tagged links count too: `?utm_source=chatgpt`, `?utm_source=perplexity` or `?ref=claude` on a link you share map to the same sources. Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode send visitors from google.com, so they stay in Organic Search, which is also how Google Analytics files them. ## What each assistant actually sends An AI visit is only visible if the click carries something that names the assistant. Here is what you can count on: - **ChatGPT** adds `utm_source=chatgpt.com` to links in its answers, according to OpenAI's publisher FAQ, and the web app usually passes `chatgpt.com` as the referrer as well. Either one is enough. The full walkthrough is in [how to track ChatGPT traffic](https://databull.app/track-chatgpt-traffic). - **Perplexity, Claude, Gemini and Copilot** show up through the referrer of their web apps. See [tracking Perplexity traffic](https://databull.app/perplexity-traffic). - **Mobile apps and copy-paste** are where it breaks. A link opened from an assistant's app can arrive with no referrer, and a URL someone copies out of an answer into a browser never has one. Those visits look like any other unlabeled visit. DataBull doesn't pretend to know more than the browser tells it. A new visitor who lands on a deep page with no referrer goes to **Direct · shared link**, not into one mystery bucket, so you can at least see how much unlabeled traffic arrives on the pages assistants tend to cite. ## Revenue per assistant, not just visits Visits from AI answers are often small in number and high in intent: someone asked for a tool like yours and clicked the one that was recommended. Whether that's true for your site is the thing worth measuring. Connect Stripe, Polar, Dodo Payments or Creem and every payment is credited to the visit that brought the buyer, so the AI channel shows: - **Revenue and sales** per assistant, with conversion rate and revenue per visitor next to Search and Social. - **Lifetime value by first source**: renewals and upgrades stay with the source that first brought the customer, so a ChatGPT referral that subscribes for a year counts as a year. - **Path to purchase**: buyers often find you in one place and buy after a later visit. You see the source that found them next to the one credited with the sale, and the attribution model (last non-direct, first touch or last touch) is your choice per site. - **A Telegram message for every sale**, naming its source, so the day ChatGPT starts recommending you, you notice. Click the AI row on the dashboard and every report filters to it: the pages AI visitors land on, the countries they come from, what they read before paying. ## Crawlers are not visitors GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, Claude-User, PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User and other AI fetchers read your pages, but they aren't people. DataBull drops them before anything is stored, together with headless browsers and data-center traffic, so the AI channel counts humans who clicked through. ## Getting mentioned by assistants in the first place No file or tag guarantees a citation, and anyone who promises one is guessing. What helps, as far as anyone can tell: - **Let the search crawlers in.** OpenAI says blocking OAI-SearchBot keeps a site out of ChatGPT search answers; PerplexityBot does the same job for Perplexity. Check your robots.txt and any firewall rule that blocks bots. - **Answer the question on the page.** A short, direct answer near the top of a page that matches what people ask is easy to quote. - **Be mentioned elsewhere.** Assistants lean on what other sites, forums and comparisons say about you. - **Publish an llms.txt.** A plain summary of your product and its key pages for AI tools. It's a young convention with no promise attached, but it's cheap. [Ours is here](https://databull.app/llms.txt). Then measure. If an assistant starts sending buyers, the AI channel shows it within a day. ## Ask an assistant about your AI traffic A nice loop: DataBull's built-in MCP server lets Claude Code, Cursor or Codex read your numbers, so you can ask "how much revenue came from the AI channel this month, by assistant?" and get the answer from your own data. See [asking Claude about your analytics](https://databull.app/ask-claude-about-your-analytics). Checked in October 2026 against: [OpenAI: Publishers and developers FAQ](https://help.openai.com/en/articles/12627856-publishers-and-developers-faq), [OpenAI: crawlers and user agents](https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/bots), [Perplexity: crawlers](https://docs.perplexity.ai/guides/bots), [Google Analytics: traffic-source dimensions](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9756891). ## FAQ ### Which AI assistants does DataBull recognize? ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot, plus you.com, phind.com, chat.deepseek.com, deepseek.com, grok.com, meta.ai, chat.mistral.ai, poe.com, kimi.com, notebooklm.google.com. A visit counts as AI when its referrer or utm_source matches one of them. ### Why does some AI traffic still show as Direct? Because the browser received nothing that names the assistant: a link opened from a mobile app that sends no referrer, or a URL copied out of an answer. No analytics tool can label those reliably. Links you share yourself can carry `?ref=chatgpt` or a UTM tag. ### Are Google AI Overviews counted as AI traffic? No. Clicks from AI Overviews and AI Mode come from google.com and are counted as Organic Search, the same way Google Analytics files them. ### Do AI crawlers inflate my visitor count? No. GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and similar fetchers are filtered out with other bots before anything is stored.