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Whatever chat GPT traffic you see
in your web analytics, I think
you should multiply by five to 10.
The way people are searching is changing
and analytics tools and the way that we
attribute leads hasn't really caught up
to how quickly this trend is changing.
You can't ignore this anymore
and we have, you know, this
semi-quantitative, semi anecdotal
data suggesting this is a big deal.
Like there's a sizable number of
people coming into chat, GPT, and
your analytics tool cannot measure it.
So that means you need to be doing GEO.
And we are focused on that
with every single account.
Now, what's really changed in
the last year is how people are
discovering and making decisions
about software or services.
They used to mainly use
Google and now they're using.
Multiple different
platforms to make decisions.
So they may start their search on an
LLM, then go into Google and do more
research, then go to your site, then
go back to the LLM and ask follow up
questions, and then come back and convert.
Okay.
Welcome to the Grow and
Convert Marketing Show.
I'm Davis, that's Benji.
Today we're gonna talk about
this discrepancy between.
AI traffic that you see that
seems like AI traffic is low.
It seems like chat, GPT traffic
is low, but how, what we're seeing
anecdotally and also quantitatively
from us and our clients is that
leads are actually coming from.
AI chat, GT Google AI overviews and
why You could be misled into thinking
it's not a big deal because the traffic
looks low, but you're actually just
not able to measure the vast majority
of traffic on LLMs, primarily chat
GT, but also Google AI overviews.
Yeah, and even on the conversion
side, what's interesting is a lot
of the conversions that do are
are self attributed to chat GPT.
When we look at analytics tools,
they're actually coming in
as direct or organic search.
And so the only way that we're
able to know that it comes from
an LLM is just by asking people.
And it's if you don't, if you don't have
that on your forms, you could be misled
into thinking that you're getting a lot
more direct traffic or a lot more direct
conversions or a lot more branded, uh,
organic conversions that are coming
to your site and you just might think.
Maybe my GR brand is growing or
people are going directly to the
homepage and converting that way.
But when we ask them, how
did you hear about us?
In the form, they're actually
saying chat, GPT or Grok, or
Claude, or one of the LLMs.
And so it used to be where we
could use Google Analytics or
HubSpot or a lot of the analytics
tracking tools to measure this.
And we have a whole slew of 'em.
For both ourselves and our
clients that we're using.
Um, but yeah, we're kind of being misled
in terms of what's actually happening.
And the only way to figure out where
people are actually come from coming from
is to ask them, because I think what's
really changed in the last year is how
people are discovering, uh, and making
decisions about software or services.
Uh.
They used to mainly use Google,
and now they're using multiple
different platforms to make decisions.
So they may start their search on an
LLM, then go into Google and do more
research, then go to your site, then
go back to the LLM and ask follow-up
questions, and then come back and convert.
And so that user journey
has somewhat changed.
And I think what's really important
now is to just make sure you're
showing up in all the platforms.
So when someone's asking
a question in an LLM.
You need to be showing up there when
someone's showing up or asking a question
or searching a keyword in Google.
You also need to show up there because if
your brand is not showing up, when people
are running these searches, you're kind
of losing out on those opportunities.
So I want to add some data to this.
This is a spreadsheet that we
shared, uh, a few episodes back.
I believe the title was like AI versus
SEO Traffic, what our Client Data really
Tells Us, and we looked at the data
from seven anonymized clients comparing
Google, just organic, regular Google
organic traffic to Chacha PT traffic.
And for those of you that aren't watching
the video, don't worry, I'll read it out.
Basically the conclusion was the average
percent of Chachi PT traffic as a
percentage of Google, like the ratio
was Chachi, PT was like three to 4%.
Some of 'em as low as 0.2%, some
of 'em as high, one of the seven as
high as 7%, but the average was 3.8%,
meaning like you saw ratios like this.
2000 Google organic
visitors for 51 Chat, GPT.
35,000, Google Organic for 1000 Chat GPT.
So we made the argument in that
video of, Hey chat, GPT is growing.
And we showed graphs and said like,
AI traffic is growing, but it's
still a small fraction of Google.
And I forget exactly how
many months back that was.
Yeah, maybe two or three months ago.
And, and there's a lot of people
who've showed almost the same data.
I know this is a small sample size, but.
I think HFS or GAT or someone else
shared similar findings across the
clients that they're looking at.
That is somewhere around 5% is what
they're seeing attributed in analytics
tools to chat GPT and LMS versus Google.
But what we're saying today, from
what we're seeing in the conversion
data and just getting more experience
and data in the last few months
since that episode is the opposite.
That this is actually a massive
underrepresentation of how many of
your customers are actually using
Chachi PT for product discovery
or you need to be present.
Why?
Simple answer that is trackable
Chachi PT traffic by Google Analytics.
How does Google Analytics know that
someone came into your site via chat?
GPT?
It needs that referral source.
The UTMs.
It needs the UTM parameters in the URL.
Those come if someone clicks a source
in chat t where you're mentioned.
So it where, where, where the, where
you're cited as a source by chat T.
So the question to you, whoever's
listening, is how many times in your
own LLM usage, whether it's chat t clot
or whatever, do you click the sources?
For me, it's like one
in 30, sometimes less.
Yeah.
It's super rare.
Right.
And so what if it's one in 10?
So like there it was 3%, right?
If it's one in 30, you multiply by 30,
you get too close to a hundred percent.
So I don't know what
it actually is, right?
But the point is there is a sizable
amount of people that are searching things
related to your product space that are
trying to discover you via chat, pt.
How else do we know this anecdotally?
Um, we can't share this on the screen,
but you and I, right before we recorded,
looked at the analytics data of a
client that, you know, anecdotally on
the calls is reporting more and more
leads are coming in saying, I heard
about you on Chachi pt. We see in
their tracker data, they are getting
mentions in chat pt, like brand mentions,
and we can talk about that later.
Briefly at the end, how you need
to be tracking brand mentions
versus citations as well.
When you look in Google Analytics,
they're attributable what Google
says, what GA four says is the chat.
BT traffic to our pieces is like
30 to 40 p uh, visitors a month.
Almost nothing.
But they're saying people are hearing
about us and the big reason is you
just can't track it because if you
ask chat, bt, in fact, we can go
into Tracker and look at an example.
So we'll use ourselves
as an example in Tracker.
Content Marketing Agency Chat.
BT mentions us as a brand.
I can click into that as a brand
mention and see in the screenshot where
it mentions Grow and Convert here.
Examples of content marketing
agencies, well-known agencies,
BBB, grow and Convert.
The citation is from some
article by 10 speed, eight best
content marketing agencies.
So if you wanted to reach
out to grow and convert.
If we get a lead from this,
what are they gonna do?
They're gonna copy this name and they're
gonna open a new tab and Google us
and click in through our homepage.
So that may show up as Google Organic.
And so in that previous spreadsheet.
We were showing an example,
lemme go back to that.
In that previous spreadsheet, we're
saying, oh look, chat, BT traffic
is so low, Google Organic is higher.
But in that example I just showed you,
which is probably happening over and
over again for like every business, it's
gonna show up as cha as Google Organic,
even though it actually came from chat.
Bt, because they're just gonna open
a new tab in Google, your brand name,
and then click onto your homepage.
And so we're seeing that,
uh, sort of anecdotally.
But also for those that measure, we're,
we're seeing that now in our own data.
We do ask in our field,
how did you hear about us?
And to be perfectly candid,
most people have not said chat.
GPT.
We have had a couple, but in the time,
in the last few months where you just
tabulated, we had two chat G PT leads.
That means leads who manually in the
form fill the, the human itself wrote
chat, GPT, into the how it hurt.
How did you hear about US field?
We probably had, for those
two, we probably had what?
10 Google.
That's that wrote in Google.
I found you on Google.
Yeah.
It's still much higher at this point, but
I think had we not had that form field,
we would've just thought it was direct.
So it's important for us to
know, and I think we've had to
in the last couple months because
we've only started to invest in.
Doing AI specific activities,
uh, since December.
And so we are also seeing a direct
correlation between doing things
like updating some of our pieces
to focus more around keywords,
improving our SEO rankings, and
then also doing citation outreach.
And since we've started
doing those activities, we've
started to see that we've had.
Much more visibility in the LMS and
we're seeing a correlation between
those activities and then also
getting more leads from chat GPT.
So I'm gonna sort of go out on a limb
and just give kind of a general rule
that I wanna make sure listeners don't
get mad at me about or hold me to.
It's not particularly quantitative.
I think whatever chat GPT traffic you see
in your web analytics, I think you should.
You should multiply by five to
10 and assume it's that much.
Again, I can't defend that.
Because like who?
Who has the data on how many
people are clicking into searches?
Open ai?
You don't have that data.
Nobody has that data.
If when somebody asks chat, GPT for like
product related recommendations, what
percentage of those chats does, does
the user actually click into a source?
It's that ratio that we don't
know, but you could just pay
attention in your own usage.
I swear it has to be five to 10.
Five would be one in every 20
chats you click into a source
and 10 is one in every 10.
It's not just LLMs, it's
also Google too, because.
Google keeps, I feel like every few
months keeps releasing more and more
searches that have an AI overview.
Yeah, and so where you used to
rank number one with an actual
piece where someone would click
into that piece and get the answer.
Now you just search for an answer
and it gives you a quick answer.
And so if you get the quick answer,
there's usually no need to dig in anymore.
You're like, okay, top
content marketing agencies.
I'm gonna go reach out to the top three
or just do research on those top three.
Right?
You might then go Google those
people separately, right?
And so all we're saying is the way
people are searching is changing and
analytics tools and the way that we
attribute leads hasn't really caught up
to how quickly this trend is changing.
It's really hard to attribute,
but I, I, I'm gonna make an even
bolder statement and just say.
From our previous take where we
said Chacha BT traffic is way lower.
I, I have revised my thinking and my
takeaway if you're listening to this,
the takeaway from me that I think
everyone should have in the marketing
space is you can't ignore this anymore.
And, and we have, you know, this
semi quantitative, semi anecdotal
data suggesting this is a big deal.
There's a sizable number of people
coming into chat, GPT, and your
analytics tool cannot measure it.
So you can't just measure the traffic
and say, look, Google is way higher.
It's way, way higher.
That's why I said multiply by five or 10.
So that means you need to be doing
GEO and, and we are focused on
that with every single account.
Now is in addition to SEO, how
are we doing on those chats?
And maybe at the end, if we have time,
we can do a little bit of a recap.
To remind people of, of our
prioritized GEO strategy.
But the next thing I want to cover
is exactly what you said, Benji,
which is Google AI overviews.
So the other thing that a bunch of us
are seeing that a lot of people have
reported is this difference between
your rankings and the actual clicks
and organic traffic you're getting
from Google and why it looks like.
Your organic traffic is decreasing, but
your actual exposure to the searches
that matter where someone is Googling for
products or services in your space, how
those actually seem to be staying steady.
And in some cases you can see increased
impressions or whatever and, and so
people are still doing that and, but
you're just not able to attribute it.
Anymore and see those as clicks.
So here's the example.
We'll use us an ex as an
example, and two clients.
So first of all, this purple line, every
time you're gonna see it is impressions.
So we have this weird anomaly in
impressions where, when that num
100 tracking thing from Google
happened, um, back here in September.
Uh, of this last year, 2025, we, we saw
a big decrease, but overall, you see
before that, you know, a slow increase
in impressions and then after that,
maybe another slow increase back up
to the previous level of impressions.
So it looks like, if anything,
impressions, what is impressions?
This is, I'm looking at search
console data, but it's powered by
SEO Gets impressions in this case
is how many times you are appearing.
In the serp, in the Google results
when someone Googles something.
So it is a reflection, an important
reflection of your SEO work.
If you are not ranking for any
keywords with any content, your
impression number is gonna be zero
right at the beginning of a website.
And if you're doing really well
in SEO, your impression number is
gonna be high, but it's not clicks.
Let's switch this to clicks.
You see a different overall trend.
You see an overall decrease.
From 2024, you see things have been
decreasing and then a sharp, another
sharper or, or or slight decline in
kind of the fall of this last year
of 2025, which a lot of people online
I've noticed, have reported as well.
Yeah, and I think that's
largely due to Google rolling
out more and more AI overviews.
I, I know even last year, if you were
to search for top content marketing
agencies, you would just get a,
like, sites that produce lists of
different content marketing agencies
or maybe Clutch would show up.
But now you're just getting
an AI overview for that.
And so I think that's a large reason
people are reporting a decline in clicks
or they're looking at their traffic graph
and saying, why isn't my traffic going up?
It seems to be in a
downtrend, what's going on?
But then if you look at your
rankings, they're actually improving.
And we just had a client call the
other day where in hres, when you
look at a lot of the number one
rankings, it also is starting to count.
Number one being an AI overview
because that's just another way that
someone is discovering your company.
Now you, you may show up number one,
which means you're in that AI overview
when it appears, but instead of you
getting the traffic benefit of someone
clicking into your article and reading
your point of view on whatever topic it
is you wrote about, now your brand is
just getting shown in that AI overview.
And so there's a lot of people
that are questioning, well,
is that not as important and.
You could, you could view it like that.
You're not getting the same traffic
benefit or the conversion benefits
of someone reading your article and
then converting directly from that.
But if you're not showing up here,
and this is how people are starting
to do all of their searches.
They're just looking for a quick list and
then this is their starting place now.
This is how they're discovering
the the different options.
And then they might go do
deeper research in an LLM or.
On your website or in Google.
Um, but if you're not showing
up here at all, you're not even
in their consideration set.
So it is very important that you
show up in the AI overview in the
top spot if you have content there.
And in the LLMs, because again,
this is how people are now
discovering the products or
services that they want to use.
Is, is through the AI
overviews, through the LLMs and.
Again, you're just not able to
track how many people are viewing
this AI overview and then coming
to your website because of that.
And so it's just a largely an attribution
issue right now that we're facing.
Yeah, so here's an example.
So I Googled content marketing
agency for B2B SaaS companies.
After the sponsored results, the ads,
you see one organic re uh, listing
and then you see the AI overview.
In the AI overview, it
mentions us in two places.
So this is important.
So in the opening paragraph,
it just mentions us by text.
It says Include specialized partners like
animals, toge media, and grow and convert.
And side note, an important side
note next to each of those, it puts a
little parentheses that's like it's.
Kind of like value prop differentiator.
Yeah.
Or value prop animals.
Parentheses, premium thought
leadership, siege, media, parentheses,
SEO focused design, first of all,
I don't know what that means.
And then grow and convert parentheses.
Conversion focused.
I'll take, I'll take our value
prop all day over those other ones.
By the way, um, this is a bit of an aside.
I'll get back to the main thing, but this.
Also something we have an article
on that we'll put in the show notes
and we actually just re kind of
titled it, but it's um, why ultra
specific bottom of funnel content is
critical or key in AI search because
it needs to have read the content.
Growing Convert has produced ai, in
this case AI overviews, and then it
synthesizes it in this case, into a.
Little parentheses value prop.
And if you look further down, there's
a full bullet with like a longer
sentence of it synthesizing and tragedy.
BT does the same thing, and if I were
to open some something where it mentions
grow and convert, it'll do the same thing.
In fact, that previous screenshot I showed
you could rewind, does the same thing.
But our sentence here is focuses
heavily on conversion and bottom
of the funnel content case study
slash SEO, rather than just traffic.
Great.
Would I, would I write
it exactly this way?
Maybe not, but like, I'll take this
from AI describing our business, right?
So like how you position yourself matters.
But I'll leave that.
Okay.
Leaving that aside.
Away.
Back to what we were talking about.
So if this is how people are
discovering you, like Benji
said, two things can happen.
First, they see your brand name up
in here in this opening paragraph.
What are they gonna do?
There's no link.
Nothing.
I'm clicking.
I'm clicking.
There's nothing.
So I would highlight this copy open a new
tab, and just Google Grow and Convert.
You're gonna see that as
coming to the homepage.
'cause obviously if you just grew
Google grow and convert the, you're
just gonna get like our homepage
or whatever, but, but be careful.
In this case, we don't know what
actual piece of content had us in.
Was responsible for getting
us into the AI overview.
And it may not be just one and
it may not be our own content.
So it could be that we are mentioned
in other people's list posts and
you see in the actual organic
listings one, so there's one above.
So let's count this 1,
2, 3, 4, some more ads.
Wow.
An ad spot right in smack
in the middle of the serp.
I hadn't seen that yet.
Yeah, even this is changing a lot.
Five, six.
We have the sixth organic spot with what?
With an article that's best SaaS
content marketing agencies in 2026.
In fact, we had someone on our team
recently do an update and create,
create or updated this article.
So from us, from a marketing decision
making standpoint, we would, we, it,
it would be, if you're just looking
at your analytics, you have no idea
the chain of events that led you to
get, like, if we got a good lead from
this, how'd you hear about us Google.
And you look, you look at when the lead
came or whatever, something, something,
and you try to do some sleuthing in
your GA four, you're gonna see it.
If, if they did what I just did, which is
just Google grow and convert in a new tab,
you're gonna see it as like, I don't know.
It came in from the homepage, so
we don't know what they Googled.
And you think, oh, just
the homepage brand, man.
Like you said, you think, oh,
maybe our brand is growing.
Maybe it's the LinkedIn I'm doing,
I'm just so clever on LinkedIn.
Right, but re, but the reality
is down here was a blog post that
Google AI overview read and decided,
okay, I'm gonna include that.
And maybe other things, maybe it's the
outreach, maybe it's some getting our
US mention in other people's blog posts.
And the sum of those gets you into
the AI overview and you're not gonna
figure out that that was the reason
by looking inside your analytics.
It's the same thing as I just
mentioned on chat pt, but the
Google AI overview version of it.
The second way that you can use
it is in here in the bullets.
If you're mentioned in the bullets, you
see I can hover over grow and convert,
and there's this dotted line, underline.
Let's see what that does.
I'm gonna click it.
You think it's gonna go to
the Grow and Convert site?
It doesn't.
It looks like it.
Google's grow and convert,
but it doesn't quite, this is
extremely tricky and misleading.
So it looks like it just Google's
grow and convert and then
you click into the homepage.
So it's the same thing, but just kind
of that, as I showed you, opening a new
tab and Googling it, but it's not, it's
not actually goog and grow and convert.
It's extremely misleading.
In fact, I think it's like borderline,
like not appropriate by Google 'cause.
So for those that are just listening.
The actual SERP shows a Google
field where it looks like all I
did was Google Grow and Convert.
But the reality is in the URL, in
the query parameter, it shows that
the words I Googled it Googled was
grow and convert content marketing
agency for B2B SaaS companies.
It's actually Googling, uh, the
combination of your brand name
and your previous search together.
And what I've noticed is when you click
into these dotted line stuff, you don't
always get that company's homepage.
Sometimes you get a random blog
post or whatever, but the point
is it's comp AI overview has
completely muddied attribution,
but it's not fair what you said.
It's not fair to say.
Oh, it's not that useful to be
in the AI overview, blah, blah.
No, it, it actually is like, this is
where people are making their decisions.
I mean, I use it all the time.
If I'm looking for quick
information, I just Google something.
I look at the AI overview, right?
I get what I need, and then I go do
more research or I go all my way and.
Look into that brand or
look into that company.
So I, I just know, I've noticed
my own search habits have been
changing and this stuff is just
not as trackable as it used to be.
So, I know we only have a few minutes
that we can keep talking here.
So what should people do?
I think number one, they should,
if they can, I, and I know this is
difficult at some companies 'cause
there's some politics around lead forms.
Obviously people don't want to
add more fields 'cause they feel
like that hurts conversion rate.
But I do think it is important.
Both in your lead form and on sales
calls for people to ask the prospect how
they heard about you, because that self
attribution becomes really important.
And for us, it's kind of given us
a new lens to look at conversions
through, which we didn't have if we
were looking at just analytics tools.
Yeah.
And then the other, the other couple
things that we're doing is we're
starting to, instead of just looking
at purely directly attributable leads.
We're now starting to look at
just overall organic lead growth,
overall direct leads that are coming
from the homepage, and making sure
that those numbers are going up.
Because again, if we're saying LLMs,
people search habits are changing, and a
portion of the those leads are coming from
LLMs are just, they're influenced by SEO,
but they're not fully attributable to it.
We just want to be able to look
at directly attributable leads.
We want to be able to look at branded
searches that are coming to the homepage.
We wanna look at direct traffic and direct
conversions, and so we're just starting
to broaden out and look at things more
holistically because if we're just looking
at direct attributions from content.
Just our analytics are starting to
break down and it doesn't give the
full picture of what's happening
from, from SEO and content.
Yeah.
Some other takeaways to add to that.
How did you actually
get mentioned on here?
What, what should be your strategy?
How do you know what people are
typing into Chachi PT and all?
You can read, prioritize GEO for it.
We have an entire video talking about
this and, and we'll link to the article
below, but the TLDR of that is that
you need to still rest on Google.
That the way to control your mentions
on LLMs is when the LLMs go and do a
web search to figure out what to say.
So for none of these product and
service related queries is chat CPT.
First of all, Google AI overview is
by definition a search summarizer.
So.
Obviously you need to be in the
SERP to be in the AI overview.
That's, that's what it does.
Track GPT is different.
It's a general purpose LLM, but it's
smart enough to know that when someone's
asking for a product recommendations,
I have not seen, we've done a ton
of testing, not even once have I
seen it, just do it off the training
data without any, um, searching.
It does searching and then it blends it
with what it knows from the training data.
So good luck getting
into the training data.
That's hard.
Your way to do it is by, in the web
searches and those keywords to search
show up for and target with SEO is bottom
of funnel product related searches.
So leave aside your 10 tips,
intro guides, and all that top of
funnel nonsense you were doing.
If you're listening to grow and convert.
Hopefully you weren't doing that in
the first place, but more importantly,
these LLMs are Googling best,
blah blah, blah, software best,
blah, blah blah, agency business.
To figure out what to say to its user,
and now it's not gonna use it verbatim,
and it's not gonna organize and rank
it by who's ranking highest on Google.
Those old school SEO things don't apply.
It'll use its own reasoning and
logic to decide what to recommend.
But you need to be there somewhere.
Otherwise you have no shot.
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