Loamly vs Simple Analytics: Privacy Analytics Meet AI Traffic Detection

Simple Analytics is one of the cleanest privacy-first analytics tools I've used. No cookies, no consent banners, just straightforward visitor data.

So when people ask me "Loamly or Simple Analytics?"—the answer depends entirely on what you're trying to measure.

The Core Difference

Simple Analytics is a privacy-first Google Analytics alternative. It tracks pageviews, referrers, and conversions without cookies or personal data collection. GDPR compliant out of the box.

Loamly is an AI visibility platform. It tracks what ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini say about your brand—plus the traffic they send.

Different scope, different value.

What Simple Analytics Does Well

Credit where it's due. Simple Analytics has genuinely excellent qualities:

Privacy by design: No cookies, no IP tracking, no personal data storage. You genuinely don't need consent banners with Simple Analytics—it's not a legal workaround, it's architecturally impossible for them to collect personal data.

Clean interface: Single dashboard with essential metrics. No complexity bloat, no training needed. If you've used GA4, you'll appreciate the simplicity.

Affordable pricing: Free tier available, paid plans start at €19/month. Pricing scales with pageviews—fair and transparent.

AI Chat feature: They've added an AI assistant that lets you query your analytics data conversationally. Clever addition.

600+ paying customers: Proven product with real traction, according to their homepage.

Does Simple Analytics Detect AI Traffic?

Partially—through standard referrer tracking.

When someone clicks a link in a Perplexity answer, Simple Analytics sees "perplexity.ai" in your referrers. Same with Gemini when it passes headers correctly.

Here's the limitation breakdown:

AI Platform	Referrer Reliability	Simple Analytics Detection
Perplexity	80-90% consistent	Works well
Gemini	60-70% consistent	Partial
Claude	60-70% consistent	Partial
ChatGPT	30-40% (copy-paste dominant)	Mostly missed

The fundamental problem: ChatGPT users typically copy-paste URLs rather than clicking links. When you copy-paste, there's no referrer header. That traffic appears as "Direct" in Simple Analytics—indistinguishable from someone typing your URL.

According to Digiday's analysis, ChatGPT drives 77.97% of all AI referral traffic globally. If you're missing most of it, you're missing most of the picture.

The Hidden Traffic Problem

This is what most people don't realize about AI traffic detection.

When ChatGPT recommends your product, the user often:

1. Reads the recommendation in ChatGPT
2. Opens a new browser tab
3. Types your URL or copies it
4. Visits your site directly

Simple Analytics sees this as "Direct" traffic with no context about why the visitor came.

According to Microsoft Clarity's study of 1,200 publisher websites, AI traffic converts at 11x the rate of traditional direct traffic (1.66% vs 0.13% for signups). If that high-converting traffic is misclassified as generic Direct, you're making decisions on incomplete data.

What Simple Analytics Doesn't Do

No dedicated AI traffic channel: AI referrals mix with all other referrers. You'd need to manually filter and aggregate them.

No ChatGPT copy-paste detection: When users copy URLs instead of clicking, Simple Analytics can't identify the source.

No AI brand monitoring: Simple Analytics tracks clicks. It doesn't tell you what AI platforms are saying about your brand when users don't click.

No GEO optimization guidance: No recommendations for improving your AI visibility.

These aren't criticisms—they're outside Simple Analytics' scope. It's a general analytics tool, not an AI visibility platform.

What Loamly Does Differently

1. Cryptographic Signature Verification

We implemented RFC 9421 HTTP Message Signatures for AI agent detection. When ChatGPT Operator or other AI agents send signed requests, we verify the origin cryptographically—100% accuracy, no false positives.

2. AI Brand Monitoring

Beyond traffic, Loamly monitors what AI platforms actually say about you:

• Are you being recommended for relevant queries?
• What's the sentiment of AI responses mentioning you?
• How do you compare to competitors in AI visibility?
• Which topics trigger mentions of your brand?

This is separate from clicks. Most AI recommendations never generate traffic—users get their answer and move on. But that visibility still matters.

3. GEO Score and Recommendations

We calculate a Generative Engine Optimization score and provide specific improvement recommendations. Schema markup gaps, E-E-A-T signals, content structure issues—actionable steps to improve AI visibility.

Honest Feature Comparison

Feature	Simple Analytics	Loamly
General website analytics	Full dashboard	Basic (use alongside GA4/SA)
Privacy-first	Yes	Yes
No cookies required	Yes	Yes
GDPR compliant	Yes	Yes
AI referrer detection	Yes (referrer-based)	Yes (signatures + referrer)
ChatGPT copy-paste detection	No	Yes (when signatures exist)
AI brand monitoring	No	Yes
GEO score	No	Yes
Price	Free tier, from €19/mo	Free tier, from $89/mo
AI chat for analytics	Yes	Not yet

When to Use Each Tool

Use Simple Analytics if:

• You need comprehensive privacy-first website analytics
• AI traffic is nice-to-have, not critical
• You want the simplest possible dashboard
• Budget is tight (free tier available)
• You're replacing Google Analytics entirely

Use Loamly if:

• AI traffic accuracy matters for your business
• You need to know what AI says about you (not just clicks)
• You're building a GEO strategy
• AI recommendations drive customer decisions in your market
• You want to track AI visibility over time

Use Both if:

This is what I actually recommend for most teams.

Simple Analytics for general website metrics (traffic, conversions, top pages). Loamly for AI-specific intelligence (visibility, brand monitoring, accurate AI traffic attribution).

They solve different problems and complement each other well.

What I Learned Building Loamly

Let me be honest about why I built Loamly instead of just adding features to existing tools.

The AI detection problem is fundamentally different. Traditional analytics rely on referrer headers. AI platforms increasingly strip these headers or route traffic through mechanisms that bypass them entirely.

RFC 9421 signatures, behavioral analysis, user-agent patterns—these require dedicated engineering that doesn't fit naturally into general analytics products.

Brand monitoring is a separate product. Knowing what AI says about you isn't an analytics feature—it's a monitoring system that queries AI platforms and tracks changes over time. That's infrastructure Simple Analytics (rightly) isn't building.

The Data on AI Traffic Quality

Why does any of this matter?

Ahrefs' June 2025 study found AI traffic converts at 23x the rate of organic search for their site—0.5% of traffic generating 12.1% of signups.

Microsoft Clarity research across 1,200 publisher sites showed AI traffic growing 155.6% year-over-year while converting at 3x traditional channels.

If you can't measure it, you can't optimize for it. And you're making budget decisions on incomplete data.

Try Both

Not sure which matters more for your site?

Simple Analytics offers a 14-day free trial. Loamly offers a free AI visibility check that shows what ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini say about your brand right now.

Run both. See which insights are more valuable for your business.

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Comparison data current as of December 2025. Simple Analytics features and pricing from their official website. AI traffic statistics from cited research studies.