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Noah
Noah
Jan 19, 2025, 10:08 AM
Forwarded from another channel:
Forwarded thread from another channel:
Nico Brooks
Nico Brooks
Oct 28, 2024, 9:27 AM
I'm wondering if I should start creating a GA4 Primary channel group for "AI". I'm starting to see AI sources show up in the top 10 for some clients. Curious to hear thoughts and if anyone else is doing this? I found as a starting point.
Micah Fisher-Kirshner
Micah Fisher-Kirshner
Oct 28, 2024, 10:20 AM
Was on my list of things to do too, but isn't in our top ten yet to warrant greater focus.
Mika Lepistö
Mika Lepistö
Oct 28, 2024, 11:53 AM
How will you measure/categorize direct from devices where AI is being used in app or implemented on device?
Another thing that might be interesting is trying to understand "user" interaction speed. If the norm is a median of X and AI agents are 10x or more, does it make sense to try and prepare for that?
Edit: Apple intelligence just released publicly in 18.1. Will be interesting to see how that changes things.
Through a free software update available today, iPhone, iPad, and Mac users can access the first set of Apple Intelligence features.
Apple Newsroom (République Centrafricaine): Apple Intelligence is available today on iPhone, iPad, and Mac
Nico Brooks
Nico Brooks
Oct 28, 2024, 2:02 PM
Good questions/observations. Right now I'm mostly curious about AI as a method real people use to find content. I haven't delved into traffic that comes from an app versus a website specifically. I imagine most but not all of it is identifiable by referrer, and that Larry Engel's patterns catch a lot of it, but I don't know for sure.
I would think than an AI agent wouldn't come from the AI platform as a referrer, but I suppose that's up to who/whatever builds the agent. I hadn't really thought about the implications of every yabo with a browser being able to build a crawler in 5 minutes - that's kind of frightening.
Mika Lepistö
Mika Lepistö
Oct 28, 2024, 2:40 PM
I'll have to read up on Larry's stuff. I'm not familiar.
The implications of the agents are like a snowballing onion. We could start talking DDOS, network traffic/bandwidth for the user, site, ISPs, and associated cost. This is one reason I have started forming thoughts around the fact that AI usage of websites would be better replaced with structured data and APIs. AI companies aren't waiting around for people to provide that, but what if we did and they adopted it? They don't need UI bloat.
From an analytics perspective then it could mean tracking authorized agent access of those endpoints. The ifs/hows/etc just kind of keep going for me with this.
Micah Fisher-Kirshner
Micah Fisher-Kirshner
Oct 28, 2024, 2:42 PM
@Mika Lepistö - I think given Apple generally hides their attribution on the iphones, there probably wouldn't be a huge amount of attribution available for their new system that'd show up via a mobile device.
Mika Lepistö
Mika Lepistö
Oct 28, 2024, 2:45 PM
Right, but might we not see an change in direct for supported iOS versions? Ex: possibly a reduction for queries where result is delivered to them.
Micah Fisher-Kirshner
Micah Fisher-Kirshner
Oct 28, 2024, 2:47 PM
Can you expand on what you mean there? Not sure I follow
Mika Lepistö
Mika Lepistö
Oct 28, 2024, 3:03 PM
If Apple Intelligence provides a result on device to an iOS user which satisfies the user's query, then would those queries not show declines in traffic that is currently reporting as direct/iOS (or possibly first going to Google). So couldn't this be monitored by looking at changes based on mobile safari user agent?
Micah Fisher-Kirshner
Micah Fisher-Kirshner
Oct 28, 2024, 3:04 PM
Ah, yes, but I think you'd be hard-pressed to be able to tell it's due to that or some other factor (unless it was an immediate shift)
Mika Lepistö
Mika Lepistö
Oct 28, 2024, 3:08 PM
Agreed it is not without it's challenges, but on-device is going to come with a lot of those for attribution. One thing to consider is iOS updates get pushed out automatically for a lot of people. I don't know what that percentage is, but I wonder if it isn't substantial. There's also the lag for people who don't have AAI (my just made up term for Apple AI) compatible devices so that provides another variable.
Micah Fisher-Kirshner
Micah Fisher-Kirshner
Oct 28, 2024, 3:10 PM
What's the numbers for ChatGPT changes on Google Search? I'd look at something comparable there to get a sense I guess?
(I know I've seen what it's done to Stackoverflow, but I'm assuming that's an exception than the rule)
Mika Lepistö
Mika Lepistö
Oct 28, 2024, 3:16 PM
AAI is opt in currently and not promoted when updating iOS. I didn't consider that. So until/unless that changes, it could have a similar effect as ChatGPT where users have to choose to use it. I was considering a scenario where it just rolls out with the update to the masses and didn't realize it was opt in.
Jon Clark
Jon Clark
Oct 29, 2024, 12:05 PM
@Nico Brooks was actually coming here to ask the same question. Here's a list of LLMs we've commonly identified across clients so far ... any that I'm missing?
Rick
Rick
Oct 29, 2024, 12:10 PM
My agency does this for us. I think it's great.
Nico Brooks
Nico Brooks
Oct 29, 2024, 1:24 PM
@Jon Clark I probably wouldn't put on there. There are a couple on Larry Engel's list that are not on yours and you caught a couple he doesn't have (, ). I expect the ones you are missing don't amount to much - seems like you got the main ones.
Jessica Smith
Jessica Smith
Nov 5, 2024, 8:16 AM
@Nico Brooks when you set up the new channel group for AI did you just use source matches regex with the below to capture all the ai sources?
.*.*|.*perplexity.*|.*edgepilot.*|.*edgeservices.*|.*.*|.*.*|.*.*|.*.*|.*.*|.*.*|.*aitastic.app.*|.*.*|.*.*|.*.*|.*.*|.*.*|.*.*|.*waldo.*|.*.*
Nico Brooks
Nico Brooks
Nov 5, 2024, 9:14 AM
@Jessica Smith I did - and make sure to move it above Referral so the traffic doesn't get caught by that first. I also of the setup steps.
Jessica Smith
Jessica Smith
Nov 5, 2024, 9:35 AM
@Nico Brooks thank you - Moving it above the referral channel was the one step I missed and now have updated. Your video was great!
Mika Lepistö
Mika Lepistö
Nov 5, 2024, 9:53 AM
On the clubhouse chat yesterday, using one search example (wedding dj miami) on searchGPT I noticed all the outbound links were to the GBP profile even though the sources/citations weren't.
Not trackable in any way, but something to be aware of if that stays around / you notice changes to GBP related metrics.
Nico Brooks
Nico Brooks
Nov 8, 2024, 9:49 AM
@Jessica Smith one thing I didn't realize when I recorded the video: the Primary channel group setting is not just saying, "I want this channel group to be my primary channel group", it is its own channel group. So for example, if you create a custom channel group with AI as a channel on November 8th, but don't set it as your Primary channel group right away, then decide to set it as your Primary channel group on January 1st, the Primary channel group will only start assigning traffic to the AI channel on January 1st.
Learning this, I'm on the fence about how I think about the primary channel group. On the one hand, it makes sense to change the definition the minute you decide that certain source/medium/campaign values should be assigned to a different channel so you start collecting data. But on the other hand doing so means that the primary channel group will become an increasingly opaque mixture of channel assignments over time.

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