Track ChatGPT Referrals with Cookieless Analytics

Your customers are asking ChatGPT "best espresso machine under $200" and getting recommendations that send them to your e-commerce store. But traditional UTM analytics miss this valuable traffic due to, CMP (Cookie Consent Banner) blocking, Safari's privacy settings, Ad blockers, and more.

Here is how you can track this traffic with Hardal's cookieless analytics.

ChatGPT Automatically Adds UTM Parameters

When ChatGPT references your website, it automatically adds utm_source=chatgpt to your URLs:

Your URL: https://yoursite.com/product
ChatGPT URL: https://yoursite.com/product?utm_source=chatgpt

The problem? Traditional UTM based analytics often miss this traffic due to cookie blocking and privacy settings like Safari's Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) or Firefox's Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP).

How Hardal Captures ChatGPT Referrals

Hardal automatically captures UTM parameters from ChatGPT with custom domain, cookieless and first-party tracking: This way you can track the traffic from ChatGPT to your website and your website event based data without UTM removing.

{
  "type": "event",
  "payload": {
    "website": "your-website-id",
    "url": "https://yoursite.com/product?utm_source=chatgpt",
    "referrer": "https://chatgpt.com/",
    "utm_source": "chatgpt",
    "utm_medium": "ai",
    "title": "Your Product Page",
    "hostname": "yoursite.com",
    "device_type": "desktop",
    "browser_name": "Chrome",
    "created_at": "2024-01-15T10:30:00Z"
  },
  "event_name": "page_view"
}

You will get raw first-party data, not modeling attributed data

• Automatic UTM capture - No setup required
• Cookieless tracking - Works with all privacy settings
• Complete attribution - Track from ChatGPT to conversion
• Real-time data - See ChatGPT traffic immediately

Simple API to get data

In your Hardal Analytics API, you'll see:

• Traffic Source: ChatGPT (from utm_source=chatgpt)
• Landing Pages: Which pages ChatGPT users visit most
• Conversions: How many ChatGPT visitors become customers
• Revenue: Direct revenue attribution from ChatGPT referrals

and your custom events and parameters.

Session Merging Success 🎊

Here's an example of how our API returns joined ChatGPT referral sessions:

{
  "data": [
    {
      "id": "a7b3f2e8d9c5a1b4e6f8g2h3i5j7k9l1",
      "referral": "chatgpt"
    },
    {
      "id": "b8c4g3f9e0d6b2c5f7h9i3j6k8l0m2n4",
      "referral": "chatgpt"
    },
    {
      "id": "c9d5h4g0f1e7c3d6g8i0j4k7l9m1n3o5",
      "referral": "chatgpt"
    },
    {
      "id": "d0e6i5h1g2f8d4e7h9j1k5l8m0n4p6q8",
      "referral": "chatgpt"
    }
  ]
}

This session merging capability means you get accurate visitor counts and complete user journeys with cookieless.

Why This Matters

Many e-commerce companies discover that 15-25% of their "unknown" and "not-set" traffic is actually from ChatGPT. With Hardal's cookieless tracking, you can:

• See your real ChatGPT traffic (not just "direct" visits)
• Optimize content that ChatGPT frequently references
• Track revenue from AI-driven referrals
• Understand user behavior from ChatGPT visitors