I built both an AI traffic detector and an AI visibility scorer into Loamly. They measure different things. After watching 2,014 companies use both, the pattern is clear: visibility does not predict traffic, and traffic does not prove visibility. Most teams start with the wrong one.
Here's what I learned.
The Core Distinction
AI visibility monitoring answers: "Does ChatGPT mention my brand?"
AI traffic analytics answers: "When AI sends someone to my site, what happens?"
One looks outward (what AI says about you). The other looks inward (what AI visitors do on your site). I built both because neither tells the full story alone.
| Metric | Visibility Monitoring | Traffic Analytics |
|---|---|---|
| What it measures | Citations, mentions, share of voice | Website visitors from AI sources |
| Data source | Queries sent to AI platforms | Your site's server-side traffic data |
| Key output | "You appear in 12/20 ChatGPT queries" | "AI sent 847 visitors last month, 23 converted" |
| Connects to revenue? | No | Yes |
| Tells you why traffic changed? | Yes | No |
The Visibility-Traffic Gap Is Real
Across Loamly's dataset of 2,014 companies, I see this pattern consistently: high visibility does not guarantee traffic. Low visibility does not mean zero traffic.
Here's why. A brand can appear in 80% of ChatGPT queries for their category but get almost no clicks, because ChatGPT often answers without linking. A different brand mentioned once in a Perplexity answer with a citation link gets hundreds of high-intent visitors from that single mention.
Monitoring tells you the first part. Analytics tells you the second. Without both, you're making decisions with half the data.
What Visibility Monitoring Tools Do
Tools in this category (Otterly, Profound, Peec AI, and Loamly's GEO Score) send prompts to AI platforms and track responses over time.
What you get:
- Citation tracking: Which queries mention your brand in ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini
- Share of voice: Your percentage of mentions vs competitors
- Sentiment: Whether AI describes you positively, neutrally, or negatively
- Rank position: Where you appear in the AI response (first, second, buried)
What you don't get: whether anyone actually clicked through. Whether they converted. What the revenue impact was.
I wrote a full comparison of tools in this space with verified pricing.
What AI Traffic Analytics Does
AI traffic analytics detects visitors arriving at your website from AI sources. This is what I spend most of my time building in Loamly.
What you get:
- AI traffic detection: Visitors from ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, AI Overviews
- Dark AI recovery: Visits that arrive with no referrer (hidden in "direct" in GA4)
- Session data: Pages viewed, time on site, bounce rate for AI visitors
- Conversion tracking: Signups, purchases, goals attributed to AI traffic
- Revenue attribution: Actual dollars driven by AI visitors
What you don't get (alone): which specific queries triggered the visit, or how competitors are described.
The GA4 Problem
GA4 misses the majority of AI traffic. Microsoft Clarity's research on 1,200 publisher websites confirmed what I see in Loamly's data: AI visitors convert at significantly higher rates than other channels, but most analytics tools can't identify them.
Three reasons GA4 fails here:
- ChatGPT mobile app doesn't pass referrer headers. Visits show as "direct."
- Copy-paste behavior: Users copy a URL from Claude and paste it. No referrer.
- ChatGPT Operator strips referrer data through headless browsing.
I built Loamly's detection around cryptographic verification (RFC 9421) for ChatGPT Operator and behavioral analysis for everything else. This is a fundamentally different approach from referrer parsing.
Visibility monitoring tools don't touch traffic at all. They query AI platforms and report what they say. Both are useful. Neither replaces the other.
When to Start With Visibility Monitoring
| Situation | Why visibility first |
|---|---|
| You don't know if AI mentions you at all | Need a baseline before improving |
| You're actively doing GEO | Need to measure if optimizations work |
| You need competitive intelligence | See which brands AI recommends instead of you |
| Your industry values mentions over clicks | Consulting, B2B services, professional categories |
When to Start With Traffic Analytics
| Situation | Why traffic analytics first |
|---|---|
| Your "direct" traffic is growing without brand campaigns | AI traffic is likely hiding in your GA4 data |
| You need to justify AI visibility spend | Traffic analytics connects mentions to revenue |
| You already get AI traffic and need to optimize | Understand how AI visitors behave differently |
| Your CEO asks "what's the ROI?" | Revenue attribution answers this directly |
How They Work Together
The most effective approach I've seen uses both:
- Visibility monitoring identifies where you appear (and don't) across platforms
- You optimize content based on those insights (GEO)
- Traffic analytics measures whether better visibility actually drives more visitors
- You connect those visitors to conversions
- Revenue data tells you which visibility improvements were worth the effort
Without traffic analytics, you're optimizing visibility for its own sake. Without visibility monitoring, you can't diagnose why AI traffic changes.
Cost Reality
| Tool Type | Typical Price | What You Get |
|---|---|---|
| Visibility monitoring only | $99-$295/mo | Citation tracking, SOV, sentiment |
| AI traffic analytics (Loamly) | $89/mo | Traffic detection, attribution, revenue, basic GEO score |
| Both together | $189-$384/mo | Full picture: visibility + traffic + revenue |
The combined cost is less than what most teams spend on a single GA4 setup that can't detect AI traffic at all.
The Honest Limitation
I'm biased. I built Loamly, which does AI traffic analytics and basic visibility scoring. I don't offer the deep prompt-level monitoring that Otterly or Profound provide (tracking 200+ specific queries monthly with historical trends). If you need that granularity, pair Loamly with a dedicated monitoring tool. I think most teams eventually need both, but I'd rather say that upfront than pretend one tool solves everything.
FAQ
Can Google Analytics 4 track AI traffic?
GA4 catches a fraction. It relies on referrer headers that ChatGPT mobile, Claude, and most AI surfaces don't pass. The exact miss rate depends on your traffic mix, but I consistently see GA4 identifying less than half of actual AI visits when I compare it against Loamly's detection.
Is visibility monitoring the same as GEO?
No. Monitoring measures your current visibility. GEO is the practice of improving it. You need monitoring to know if your GEO work is producing results.
Which should I invest in first with limited budget?
If you're already getting traffic and need to prove ROI: start with traffic analytics. If you don't know whether AI mentions your brand at all: start with visibility monitoring.
Does Loamly do both?
Loamly is primarily AI traffic analytics with a built-in GEO score (AI visibility assessment). For prompt-level monitoring across hundreds of queries, pair it with a dedicated monitoring tool.
Want to see your actual AI traffic numbers? Run a free report at loamly.ai/check. No signup required. Real data. No marketing spin.
Stay Updated on AI Visibility
Get weekly insights on GEO, AI traffic trends, and how to optimize for AI search engines.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Related Articles
AI-Influenced Conversions: The Attribution Crisis No One Is Talking About
73% of marketers can't track ChatGPT-referred conversions. Here's why traditional attribution is broken and how to measure AI's real impact.
Google Analytics Alternative with AI Traffic Detection (2026)
Looking for a Google Analytics alternative that tracks AI traffic? Compare Loamly vs Plausible vs Fathom and see why AI detection matters for modern analytics.
Check Your AI Visibility
See what ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity say about your brand. Free, no signup.
Get Free Report