I’ve repeatedly made the declare that AI chatbot site visitors converts higher than search engine site visitors.
My pondering was that ChatGPT or Perplexity customers undergo analysis and exploration cycles (bear in mind the Messy Center) quicker and are nearer to a purchase order intent after they click on on an outgoing hyperlink.*
However I couldn’t show it at scale. Till now.
*In fact, there should be an affect of seeing manufacturers talked about in AI chatbots even with out a hyperlink, however that’s not the main focus of this research.
To show this psychological mannequin proper or unsuitable, Similarweb supplied me with a big dataset of over 7 million referral classes from ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, and Perplexity with Google Search throughout September, October, and November within the U.S.
The information focuses on transactional referral site visitors. Because of its trade measurement, I discover a heavy bias towards ecommerce, however the knowledge additionally covers conversions like software program sign-ups.
Due to the Similarweb staff, particularly Lewis and Adelle, for supporting me with the info and your time.
Earlier than leaping in, I wish to level out an enormous caveat: AI chatbot referral site visitors continues to be tiny in comparison with Google.
In How important is AI chatbot site visitors in B2B?, I discovered AI chatbot site visitors to make up lower than a p.c of natural site visitors right now.
It’s rising at a fast charge and will catch up over the following years, however actuality is that it’s nonetheless small.
Identical ‘Ol, Identical ‘Ol
I wish to begin with a have a look at the highest 10 touchdown pages as a result of it’s consultant of how to consider the remainder of the info on this research.
About 80% of (transactional) site visitors to high the highest 10 touchdown pages goes to ecommerce websites.
And, it’s largely to the identical gamers you already know from (Google) Search as a result of AI chatbot solutions use search outcomes to floor (suppose: weight) their solutions.
Prime 10 touchdown pages by site visitors from referrer (Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig)Amazon, eBay, and Walmart dominate in Google Search simply as a lot as in AI chatbots.
Microsoft seems surprisingly usually within the high 10 touchdown pages, apparently as a result of searchers are on the lookout for software program like Copilot or Groups.
Pondering one step additional, if search outcomes decide who’s seen in LLMs, the websites that dominate proper now can even dominate the AI world.
I’m skeptical that that is the way it will really play out as a result of customers ask longer queries and have a conversational expertise in AI chatbots, which ought to enable LLMs to develop their very own “rating elements.” What we’re seeing is the very first iteration.
AI Chatbot Site visitors Is Extra Engaged
The large query I’m making an attempt to reply is whether or not AI chatbot referrals convert higher than search site visitors.
I checked out two metrics to check the site visitors high quality of every referral supply: session period and the variety of web page views per session.
Excessive session period together with a excessive variety of (non-bounced) web page views means customers consider a product for longer and usually tend to purchase when transactional site visitors.
Avg session period by referrer (Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig)The pattern is crystal clear: AI chatbot referrals keep greater than a minute longer than Google site visitors.
The entrance runner is Copilot, with a median of 11.6 minutes per session. On common, AI chatbot site visitors stays for 10.4 minutes, in comparison with Google’s 8.1 minutes.
Avg session period and variety of non-bounced pageviews by referrer (Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig)To place session period into perspective, I needed to see if customers who keep longer additionally go to extra pages on a web site. The reply is “sure.”
AI chatbot referrals go to 12.4 pages on common, in comparison with Google’s 11.8.
Once more, extra pageviews inside the identical session correlate with the next likelihood of conversion when transactional site visitors, so this implies AI chatbot site visitors has the next high quality.
The typical may not appear massive, however fortunately, Similarweb despatched me knowledge by month as properly, so I used to be ready to take a look at the pattern over time.
I discovered that the variety of non-bounced web page views from Copilot and Perplexity grew quicker than from Google between September and October: 15% and 22%, in comparison with Google’s 5%.
Gemini’s non-bounced web page views shrunk by -11% over the identical time and ChatGPT by -5%, which is affordable given its fast site visitors progress.
Session period vs. visits on chatgpt.com (Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig)Usually, it’s spectacular that ChatGPT’s session period grows whereas site visitors is exploding. It signifies that the fashions are getting higher at answering questions whereas extra individuals are utilizing them.
Google’s session period and site visitors are flat compared, however with the context that Google is a matured channel and magnitudes bigger than ChatGPT.
Complete site visitors to Copilot vs. Perplexity (Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig)To my shock, Microsoft Copilot site visitors reveals higher engagement than Perplexity, which has larger adoption and launched a particular ecommerce characteristic (Store with Professional).
Copilot just isn’t as far-off from Perplexity as you may suppose (14 vs. 21 million visits in December 2024), and each noticed massive site visitors features in October 2024.
I clarify this pattern with Microsoft’s roll-out of Copilot on all of its gadgets and software program merchandise.
AI Chatbots Ship Extra And Higher Site visitors To Homepages Than Google
To grasp the place AI chatbot referrals land and examine it to Google, I checked out folder depth as outlined by the variety of slashes in a URL after the area identify.
Greater folder depth = extra folders within the URL = “deeper” within the web site structure.
A seek for a transactional key phrase on Copilot (Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig)For instance, a seek for “greatest low cost fridge magnets” in Copilot leads you to www.amazon.com/Finest-Sellers-Fridge-Magnets/zgbs/kitchen/3737161?type=MG0AV3, which has a folder depth of 4.
Discover how Copilot references solely Amazon outcomes, though Bing ranks Amazon No. 3 and No. 4 for the question.
The primary (Printrunner) and second outcomes (Uprinting) don’t mean you can purchase fridge magnets however to design them. Plainly Copilot understands that.
My idea was {that a} larger folder depth means extra site visitors goes to particular merchandise (ecommerce) and touchdown pages (B2B).
If customers leap off of AI chatbots after they’re able to convert, touchdown on pages with the next folder depth must be a greater consequence than a class web page they should discover once more.
Take into account that most websites have a comparatively flat structure.
Contemplate the homepage stage 0, a weblog folder (/weblog) or class web page stage 1, and merchandise/sub-categories/touchdown pages on stage 2 or 3. In fact, giant retailers like Amazon might considerably skew the outcomes as a result of it has so many sub-categories.
Folder depth of referral site visitors (Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig)Folder depth for referral site visitors varies considerably between the distinction referral sources, even amongst AI chatbots.
For instance, ChatGPT sends over 50% extra site visitors to homepages than Copilot or Perplexity and over thrice greater than Google Search.
You also needs to be aware that solely AI chatbots ship referrals to a folder stage of 8, which is the results of most websites not having as many ranges, extra so than choice.
I’m wondering in the event that they’d ship much more site visitors deeper into web sites if extra websites had larger folder depth, which could not be best for (Google) Search however possibly for AI Search. We’ll want extra knowledge to reply this query.
Avg folder depth with and with out Google (Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig)On common, AI chatbots ship extra site visitors to the homepage than Google, which sends extra site visitors to the second and third folder ranges.
Perplexity sends site visitors the deepest with a median folder depth of two.45 in comparison with Gemini with 2.00 and Google Search with 2.33.
Share of site visitors going to the homepage by referrer (Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig)ChatGPT sends most customers to the homepage with 30%, in comparison with the opposite referral sources, whereas Google sends the least with 10%. The typical for Gen AI referrals is 22%.
Nonetheless, it really works properly for ChatGPT: Session period is larger than Google’s for referrals to non-homepages, and each web page views + session period are larger for homepage referrals than for Google Search.
Avg. pageviews and session period of homepage referral site visitors (Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig)The information signifies that homepages are extra vital within the “AI future” and that AI chatbots qualify customers higher earlier than sending them out.
This is a crucial distinction to (Google) Search, the place homepages are sometimes not the most effective consequence apart from model searches.
To make this level even clearer, our data about transactional site visitors within the outdated Search world is that customers are impatient.
As Adelle from Similarweb identified to me, AI appears to go counter to the age-old research of “each second a web page hundreds quicker, it converts extra folks.”
As an alternative, it pre-qualifies customers earlier than they go to a web site, which ends up in these customers being glad to spend extra time.
Because of this, search engine optimization specialists, UX designers, and product managers have to rethink the position of homepages within the consumer journey and web site structure.
Deeper Content material Appears To Resonate Higher
Subsequent, I requested myself if we are able to see a relationship between the variety of phrases in a search question and the place customers land.
Sadly, we are able to solely measure the variety of phrases per question for Google Search, so I’m making an enormous leap right here.
I strongly assume AI chatbot customers ask longer questions as a result of the expertise is extra “conversational,” which Sundar Pichai, Alphabet’s CEO, confirmed on a number of earnings calls:
Up to now 12 months, we’ve answered billions of queries as a part of our Search Generative Expertise. Persons are utilizing it to Search in completely new methods, and asking new kinds of questions, longer and extra complicated queries, even looking out with images, and getting again the most effective the net has to supply.1
With the idea that AI chatbots and outcomes “immediate” customers to seek for longer queries, I in contrast the variety of phrases per question with session period in relation to folder depth for Google Searches.
% site visitors and session period by folder depth (Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig)Session period shrinks till a folder depth of 4, which is when it flattens out.
In different phrases, customers spend the identical time on a web site irrespective of whether or not they go to a web page on stage 4 or stage 10.
That pattern leads me to consider that they discover what they’re on the lookout for on deeper ranges of a web site (when coming from Search).
Google referral site visitors to the homepage vs. different pages (Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig)The identical just isn’t true after we have a look at the variety of phrases for referral classes to the homepage: Session period doesn’t flatten out however retains dropping with larger ranges of folder depth.
So, how can we carry this again to AI chatbots? The information for Google Search raises the query of whether or not AI chatbot site visitors would have interaction even higher if much less went to the homepage.
Since AI chatbots perceive context so a lot better than (Google) Search, at the least outdoors of AI Overviews, sending customers to extra particular pages must be a greater expertise.
The rationale this isn’t taking place but might be that AI chatbots haven’t crawled sufficient of the net but and that search performance continues to be very nascent.
Conclusion: What It All Means
The adoption of AI chatbots goes extremely properly.
ChatGPT has over 300 million weekly customers, Bing Chat appears to assist the forever-second search engine lastly achieve market share, and we’ve hit a staggering 72% of corporations that use AI in at the least one enterprise perform.2
Over 7 million referral classes from AI chatbots and Google Search reveal that:
- About 80% of transactional site visitors goes to ecommerce websites, and the identical gamers (Amazon, eBay, Walmart) dominate each in search and AI chatbots.
- AI chatbot referrals present larger engagement: They keep 2.3 minutes longer on common (10.4 vs. 8.1 minutes) and examine extra pages (12.4 vs. 11.8 pages on common).
- AI chatbots ship considerably extra site visitors to homepages (22% common) in comparison with Google (10%) however nonetheless present larger engagement.
- Copilot and Perplexity confirmed quicker progress in web page views (15% and 22%) in comparison with Google (5%).
The large query is whether or not corporations are prepared to make an funding in AI chatbot visibility at this level with the potential reward of creating themselves as a first-mover however at the price of decrease short-term affect.
The early outcomes are promising, however rather a lot can change till AI as a “channel” reaches important mass.
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1 Google I/O 2024: An I/O for a brand new era
2 ChatGPT now has over 300 million weekly customers; Supply; The state of AI in early 2024
Featured Picture: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal
