OpenAI is building an analytics tool inside ChatGPT that will show businesses how many times they appear in its answers and how many people click through to their websites, according to e-commerce analyst Juozas Kaziukėnas, who spotted an unannounced “Claim your business in ChatGPT” banner last week.
The analytics sit inside ChatGPT’s Business Hub, which is only open to businesses that verify ownership, such as by linking a Shopify store. Registering lets them add their latest products and keep their business details up to date, as well as set up an agent that answers customer questions using information the business controls. The dashboard will only show the number of mentions and clicks, but not which prompts led to a mention or how a business compares with competitors, at least initially. Maybe some of those features will become premium add-ons in the future.
Last month, I reported that ChatGPT stopped adding a utm_source tag and referrer data to its links after OpenAI released GPT-6, causing visits it sent to websites to be counted as direct traffic in Google Analytics and similar tools. The issue lasted for a week, and OpenAI said it was a bug, but I suspected otherwise, predicting that it was a test in preparation for the company launching an analytics platform that forces website owners to register with them in order to get accurate analytics. It’s the same play Google ran more than a decade ago — strip the keyword data out of referrals, then hand it back through Search Console in exchange for verifying your site. I wrote:
Was it actually a bug though? Or was it a test?
I’m not yet convinced either way. On one hand, why would OpenAI want to make it difficult for website owners to track how many visits ChatGPT sends them? If anything, they’d want to inflate that number, not obscure it.
On the other hand, forcing website owners to register for its (currently fictitious) analytics platform to track those clicks would offer a more accurate way to deliver the data, as it’d be coming from ChatGPT itself instead of having to be tracked by third-party platforms via an imperfect attribution mechanism. I’d imagine that even before the “bug,” some of that Direct traffic was coming from ChatGPT, and it wasn’t getting credit for the referral.
So, new theory unlocked: It wasn’t a bug. It was a test. OpenAnalytics coming soon.
You know, when I’m right, I’m right! Although, when I’m wrong, I’m wrong! 😂
Now before you say, “but Paul… UTM source parameters are back, and OpenAI hasn’t started requiring businesses to register for their analytics dashboard in order to unlock click and visit data!” — just remember the dashboard hasn’t even officially launched yet. Things could change!
