Module 5 · Run it as a program · Lesson 11
Attribution and reporting
AI referrals show up in analytics only partly. Combine them with bot activity, a “how did you hear about us” question and your MRCA trend, and report monthly.
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In this lesson
- Find AI referral traffic in your analytics and know what it misses
- Add self-reported attribution and bot activity to the picture
- Build a short monthly AEO report around the MRCA trend
No single number shows what AI answers do for your business. Analytics captures some visits that come from AI assistants and misses others. Bot logs show which AI crawlers read your pages. Asking customers how they heard about you catches influence that never produced a click. Your MRCA scorecard shows whether answers are moving. Report all four together each month, with their blind spots written next to them.
AI referrals in analytics
When someone clicks a source link in an AI answer, the visit often arrives with the assistant's domain as the referrer, and your analytics can group those visits into their own channel. Set up that grouping once, using the referrer domains of the engines you track, and keep the list up to date as products change their domains.
The four sources of evidence
| Metric | Question it answers | Blind spot | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI referral visits | Do answers send people to the site? | Misses visits without a referrer and answers that end without a click | Your web analytics |
| AI bot activity | Are AI crawlers reading our pages? | Shows reading, not whether anything was used in an answer | Server or CDN logs |
| Self-reported attribution | Did an assistant influence the decision? | Depends on memory and on the options you offer | A question on forms or at sign-up |
| MRCA trend | Are answers moving in our favour? | Covers only the prompts in your panel | Your scorecard |
| Branded search demand | Are more people looking for us by name? | Many things move it besides AI answers | Search console and analytics |
Ask people how they heard about you
A short question on a demo form, at checkout or at the first appointment, such as “How did you hear about us?”, catches influence analytics cannot see. Offer an option for AI assistants and a free-text field. Expect the answers to be imperfect: people forget and simplify. Read them as a direction, compare them over time, and never treat them as precise.
Bot activity as an early signal
Requests from AI crawlers that fetch for search show that your pages are being read. A new page that receives no such requests weeks after publishing may be blocked or undiscovered. Bot activity is a leading indicator for the Cited stage, not a result in itself.
Who the report is for
Write the report for the people who decide what happens next: whoever owns the website, content, reviews and the budget. They need to know what moved, why you think it moved and what you are asking them to do. A line such as “the pricing page is now cited in one engine since the rendering fix; next, the same fix for the features page” is worth more than a chart nobody can act on.
What not to claim
Resist turning partial signals into a single return-on-investment figure. AI influence is real and hard to measure, and an invented number undermines the honest parts of the report. Say what you observed, what it suggests and what you do not yet know.
Worked example: Lumen CRM
Lumen's first monthly report fits on a page. At the top, the MRCA stages for the unbranded prompts on two engines, this month against the baseline. Below, share of answers against the four tracked competitors. Then AI referral visits from analytics, labelled “a floor”, and the count of trial sign-ups that chose “an AI assistant” in the new how-did-you-hear question. Then bot requests to the rewritten pricing page since the server-rendering fix. Last, three changes made this month and three planned for next month. The report makes no revenue claim, and says so.
The illustration above shows the shape of such a report. Its bars and lines are placeholders, not data: your own numbers belong there.
Key takeaways
- AI referral traffic is a floor; many answers influence buyers without a click.
- Combine analytics, bot activity, self-reported attribution and the MRCA trend, each with its blind spot.
- Report monthly on one page and never invent a precise return figure.
Practice task
Adds to your plan: Running the program
- Set up an analytics channel grouping for the referrer domains of the engines you track.
- Add a “How did you hear about us?” question with an AI assistant option to one form.
- Draft your one-page monthly report template in the worksheet, with a blind spot beside each metric.
Knowledge check
Three questions. Pick an answer to see whether it is right and why.