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Referral traffic is the wrong metric for AI search, so here's what to measure instead
Quick one this week, as I'm away on a family break, but I didn't want the week to go by without telling you that Mike and I are running a free live webinar at 3pm UK on Tuesday 17 November called Why referral traffic is the wrong metric to measure AI search, and what you should measure instead.
If you read last week's edition you'll know where I stand on judging AI search by referral traffic, and this is the practical follow-up. We'll go through the metrics that actually matter to your business, and how to handle it when your C-suite is pushing you for answers on what AI search is doing for them.
For a sense of what referral traffic misses, BCG's recently published research on AI search in banking and insurance found that one in four consumers changed which provider they chose because of something they read in an AI answer. None of that shows up in GA4.
On the day we'll cover:
Why referral traffic under-represents AI search. What it can see, what it can't and why that gap keeps getting wider.
The four metrics you should be measuring. What they are, why they matter and how to track them.
How to talk about AI search with your CEO. Turning those metrics into a story the business cares about.
It's open to anyone, there'll be time to put your questions to us live, and everyone who joins leaves with Obsero's Content Experimentation Playbook, which pulls together 12 months of learnings on using your own channels to grow your AI search visibility.
Save your spot
Live with Mike and me at 3pm UK on Tuesday 17 November. Free to join, with the Content Experimentation Playbook for everyone who signs up.
There was plenty going on in AI search this week as well, so here's the round-up, starting with Reddit going logged-in only.
🗣️ This week's stories
What caught my eye in AI search this week.
Reddit is going logged-in only, and blames Google's AI for it. Reddit lost 2.5 million US daily users in a single quarter, almost all of them logged-out visitors arriving from search, and Steve Huffman said Google simply isn't sending people to Reddit the way it used to. Its answer is to start testing a logged-in-only experience in select international markets this quarter before rolling it out everywhere, which sent the stock down 29% on Friday, its worst day since listing. Given how heavily AI platforms have leaned on Reddit as a source, what a login wall does to citations is one to watch. CNBC
Google admits AI search ads earn less, so it's selling more of them. On the Q3 call Google said ads in its AI search experiences monetise less than traditional search ads, as growth in the services business that includes search slowed to its weakest rate since early last year. The same week it took ads in AI Mode to ten new markets including Australia, Canada and India, with the UK, Brazil and Mexico due before the end of the year, and launched multiturn ads in the US that can appear in follow-up questions. Search Engine Land
Publishers are selling ads that only AI agents can see. Time has been serving sponsored FAQs to the AI crawlers it allows on its site, built with ad tech startup Mobian, and says it has since had more than 30 meetings with brands wanting to do the same. Agent developers are less keen, because they worry marketers will use these ads to steer agents without users ever knowing. Digiday
Amazon fights shopping agents by bringing other stores inside its own. Rather than letting outside agents like Meta's Muse onto its site, Amazon has grown Shop Direct to around 250 million listings that link to products sold elsewhere, roughly 2.5 times as many as in March. Set against Walmart opening its doors to agents last week, the two biggest retailers are taking opposite routes to the same threat. eMarketer
The fight over how AI agents pay has started. Stripe has taken an early lead in agent checkout by issuing single-use virtual cards, which leaves Visa and Mastercard with less visibility of who is buying what, so it was notable that Shopify adopted the card networks' own agent payment tokens for Shop Pay days later. The Information
Anthropic doesn't run ads, but it certainly buys them. Its IPO filing shows ad spend rising from $33 million in 2024 to $147 million last year, while Claude itself stays ad-free, which is a very different route to the one OpenAI is taking with ChatGPT ads. Digiday
That's it for now. Until next time.
Have a good one.
Andy
