Quick answer

Track AI referral traffic from Scrunch's AI Referrals tab.

AI referral traffic shows you how many people click through to your website from AI platforms. Here's how to track it:

Go to the AI Referrals tab for overview metrics:

• AI Views: Every page loaded during a session that originated from an AI platform
• AI Sessions: Every visit to your site that originated from an AI platform
• AI Views Over Time: A breakdown of views by AI platform over a selected time period
• Total Views: A stack-ranked count of total views by AI platform over a selected time period

Drill down for session-, view-, and page-level insights:

• Session Source by Breakdown: How many sessions and views originated from each AI platform, with optional columns for Transactions and Purchase Revenue
• AI Landing Pages: Which URLs are receiving AI-driven traffic and whether volume is trending up or down month over month
• AI-Originated Views and Sessions: Time series chart of AI-originated views and sessions over a selected time period

Track changes over time: Use the date selector (default: last 12 weeks) to monitor traffic trends and spot changes.

Bottom line: AI referral traffic is typically smaller than general web traffic, but it's among the highest-quality traffic you can get.

Start here

Why you should track if AI search is sending traffic to your website

AI referral traffic—aka traffic to your website that originates from AI platforms—tells you how many people are clicking through to your site from AI search. This number is likely to be smaller compared to general web traffic (most AI users do research within an AI platform versus on a brand’s website) but highly qualified.

Here’s how to track it using Scrunch.

Before you begin:

• Log in to Scrunch or sign up for a free 7-day trial to follow along.
• Connect your Google Analytics account to Scrunch’s AI Referrals feature.

Step 1: Track AI search traffic in the AI Referrals tab

Log in to Scrunch and navigate to the AI Referrals tab.

Select AI Referrals from left-hand sidebar

This page shows you how much human click-through traffic your website receives from AI platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and others via integration with your Google Analytics 4 account.

Any time a human being clicks a link inside an AI platform, lands on your website, and generates a session tracked in GA4, it will be displayed here.

Keep in mind that this doesn’t include AI bot traffic. That can be seen in the Agent Traffic tab in Scrunch.

You can use the date selector at the top of the page (it’s set to the last 12 weeks by default) to customize your time frame.

Click the “Last 12 weeks” button to view your options or set a custom date range.

View date options

You can also use the “Customize View” button at the top of the page to add or remove panels for analysis.

Click the “Customize View” button to view your customization options.

View customization options

It’s also possible to switch between GA4 properties using the dropdown menu in the top right of the page.

At the top of the page you’ll see:

• AI Views: Every page loaded during a session visit
• AI Sessions: Every visit to your site from an AI platform

View AI Views and AI Sessions

Further down you’ll find panels for AI Views Over Time and Total Views.

The former shows you views that originated from specific AI platforms over a selected time period. The latter shows you a stack-ranked count of total views by each AI platform over a selected time period.

View AI Views Over Time and Total Views

Below this you’ll see a panel for Session Source by Breakdown. This shows you how many sessions and related views originated from specific AI platforms.

You can also add columns for Transactions and Purchase Revenue (if configured in your GA4 property) using the “Columns” button in the upper right.

All columns can be sorted in ascending or descending order by clicking on the column name.

View Session Source by Breakdown

Below this you’ll see a panel for AI Landing Pages, which shows you which URLs are receiving AI-driven traffic, including the number of sessions over a selected time period and whether the number is up or down month over month.

If you click on the “See page details” button next to a URL, it will take you to that URL’s Page Details page in Scrunch’s Site Maps feature.

You can also search for specific URLs using the search bar above the panel.

Use this data to understand which prompts and citations may be driving the most human traffic to your site.

View AI Landing Pages

To the right is a panel for AI-Originated Views and Sessions, which shows you a time series chart of AI-originated views and sessions over a selected time period.

View AI-Originated Views and Sessions

This gives you all the information you need to track if AI search is sending traffic to your website and measure it over time.

What’s next

Start increasing AI search traffic volume:

1. Run a site audit: Fix access, delivery, or content issues hurting your visibility.
2. Prioritize technical updates: Make sure AI bots can access and read website content before focusing on content updates or creation.
3. Focus on citations first: They're the biggest driver of AI search visibility.
4. Update or create content: Review competitive sources and update or create content to exceed content quality.

AI referral traffic is a key metric for measuring AI search performance, but it’s important to remember that most AI search users won't click right away. Users are likely to discover, research, and compare brands in AI responses and then search for a brand’s website or visit it directly when they’re ready to convert.

Scrunch recommends also tracking brand presence, citations, and AI agent traffic to get a complete picture of how AI represents your brand and crawls your website.

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