How to track leads that come from ChatGPT, Gemini and other AI, including WhatsApp

Why AI leads go missing

Analytics tools decide where a visit came from with two clues:

• The referrer. When you tap a link, the browser usually tells the next site which page you came from. That address is the referrer.
• UTM tags. Small labels added to the end of a link, such as ?utm_source=chatgpt.com. They say where a link was shared.

AI tools often give one of these and not the other, and sometimes neither. A visit with no clue is filed as "direct", as if the person typed your address. Four common ways an AI lead disappears:

1. The AI app opens your page without a referrer, and the link has no tag.
2. The answer shows your phone number, and the buyer copies it into WhatsApp. No visit at all.
3. The answer shows a WhatsApp link straight to your number, so the buyer never sees your site.
4. The buyer read a Google AI Overview, then clicked a link in it. That looks exactly like a normal Google search visit.

What each AI tool leaves behind

This is the list our own pixel on adjoltz.com checks, taken from the code that sorts every visit. The last column is what we have confirmed on our own site so far, which is the part that matters.

The order of the rules matters. Our pixel checks for a paid ad first (an ad tag or a Google click ID), then our own tracking links, then an AI tag, then any other campaign tag, and only then the referrer. A ChatGPT visit with no referrer is still counted as ChatGPT because the tag is checked before the empty referrer can call it direct.

The week the tag disappeared: 9 to 15 October 2026

On 14 October 2026, Search Engine Roundtable reported that ChatGPT links had stopped carrying utm_source=chatgpt.com from about 9 October, the day of OpenAI's GPT-6 release. Adobe's Cedric Huesler had found that the new version opened links in a way that sent no referrer and dropped the tag. On 15 October he posted: "Relieved. It was a bug. ChatGPT is tagging its links with utm_source=chatgpt(.)com again." The article does not say OpenAI confirmed it.

What it means for your reports:

• ChatGPT visits from 9 to 15 October 2026 were probably counted as direct traffic.
• Look at direct visits to the pages ChatGPT usually sends people to. A bump that week on those pages is likely ChatGPT.
• Add a note on those dates in GA4 so nobody reads the dip as AI losing interest.
• It will happen again in some form. This is why the tag can't be your only signal.

Set up GA4 in about 15 minutes

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) added an AI Assistant default channel in May 2026. Google's rule: the medium is set to "ai-assistant" if the referrer matches its list of AI assistants. Google has not published the full list; it names ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude as examples (Search Engine Journal). A visit that arrives with a tag but no referrer can miss that channel, so we add our own rule as well.

1. Open Admin, then Data display, then Channel groups. You need Editor access or above. Create a new channel group by copying the default one.
2. Add a channel called "AI assistants". Set two conditions joined by OR: Session medium exactly matches ai-assistant, or Session source matches regex chatgpt|openai|perplexity|claude|gemini|copilot|deepseek|grok|meta\.ai|you\.com|phind. That regex mirrors the list in the table above.
3. Move it near the top. GA4 puts each visit in the first channel it matches, in order. Put "AI assistants" below the paid channels and above Referral, Organic Search and Unassigned.
4. Save and check old data. Google says custom channel groups can be applied to your reports retroactively. A standard property can have 2 custom groups besides the default.
5. Make WhatsApp taps a key event. With enhanced measurement on, GA4 logs outbound link clicks. Create an event for clicks where the link URL contains wa.me, name it whatsapp_tap and mark it as a key event. Do the same for tel: links if calls matter to you.
6. Build one report. In Explore: landing page as rows, your new channel group as columns, key events as the value. That table answers "which pages does AI send people to, and do they contact us?"

Tag every WhatsApp button with the page it sits on

If your leads come in on WhatsApp rather than through a form, the chat is where tracking has to happen. A WhatsApp link can carry a pre-filled first message, and that message is your best tracking tag, because it arrives inside the chat itself.

Every page on adjoltz.com has its own pre-filled message. The study page's button, for example, opens WhatsApp with "Hi Adjoltz! I read your UAE AI visibility study and I want my free AI check. My business is: ". When a chat starts with that line, we know the page. The link looks like this:

https://wa.me/971504200969?text=Hi%20Adjoltz!%20I%20read%20your%20UAE%20AI%20visibility%20study

How to do it on your site:

• One message per page. Name the service and the area: "Hi, I saw your AC repair in Al Barsha page." Keep it natural, because the customer sees it.
• Log the tap. Our pixel records every WhatsApp tap with the page and the visit's source, so a ChatGPT visit that taps WhatsApp is counted as both. In GA4, the key event above does the same job.
• Match the two. When a chat arrives, check the first line (which page) against the taps logged in the same minutes (which source).

The limits are honest ones: a customer can delete the pre-filled text, and a WhatsApp link shown inside the AI answer skips your site completely. That is why the next step exists.

Ask every lead how they found you

Our WhatsApp assistant asks every new lead how they found us. It is the only signal that catches a copied number, a screenshot from a friend, or a Google AI Overview.

• Ask early and keep it short. "Quick question: how did you find us?" Most people answer in a few words.
• Write down their exact words. "ChatGPT", "Google", "I asked AI", "my friend sent your Instagram". Don't force them into a list.
• Ask one follow-up when they say Google. "Was it an AI answer at the top, a map, or a normal result?" Many people call everything Google.
• Keep it in your CRM next to the lead, so you can count it by month and compare it with your analytics.

What Search Console shows for AI Overviews and AI Mode

Google Search Console, Google's free report on how your site appears in search, has a Generative AI performance report. It counts impressions, meaning how many times links to your site were shown in AI Overviews and AI Mode. You can group the numbers by page, country, device and date. You cannot see which questions showed your site.

• Filter by country. Set Countries to United Arab Emirates to see UAE impressions only.
• Clicks are mixed in. Google says the report includes data from the Web search type, so AI clicks sit inside your normal Performance numbers.
• Check the setting. Under Settings, "Search generative AI" must be set to include your site (the default), or your links won't appear in these features at all.
• Add Bing Webmaster Tools. Its AI Performance report shows "grounding queries", the phrases Microsoft's AI used to find your pages. It is the closest thing to seeing the questions.

Our own numbers, and why they are small

We switched on our own pixel on adjoltz.com on 20 October 2026. In the first two days, 20 and 21 October, it logged 4 ChatGPT visits. One of them landed on our Arabic blog post about WhatsApp calls in the UAE, which means ChatGPT cited an Arabic page. 1 of the 4 visitors tapped WhatsApp.

Four visits is not a conversion rate, and we don't present it as one. It shows the method works: the tag arrives, the pixel sorts it, and the tap is linked to the visit. The numbers worth quoting will come after a few months.

On the Hype online store, a client on Shopify, GA4's AI assistant traffic went from 16 visits (3 to 30 July 2026) to 61 (31 July to 27 August, peak back-to-school season), then back to 18 (13 September to 10 October). Shopify logged most ChatGPT visits as direct, so we matched GA4's order IDs to Shopify orders and tagged them. One AI order (AED 506) had used an influencer's discount code, so under our rule it moved to influencer sales, and AI revenue went to zero. The Hype case study has the full log.

A one-page AI leads report

This is the monthly table we keep for ourselves and for clients:

What we set up for clients

Every Adjoltz plan includes lead counting: we tag links and WhatsApp chats so you see which leads came from AI. Counting WhatsApp leads that came from AI is part of Foundation (AED 4,500 a month), and the setup we use is the one on this page: the channel group, the key events, a pre-filled WhatsApp message per page, and a "how did you find us" question your team asks every lead. Authority (AED 16,000 a month) also links those leads to real revenue in your CRM. Every plan has a 3-month minimum, then month to month, with no setup fee.

What we don't promise

• That every AI lead can be tracked. Copied numbers and AI Overviews leave gaps, and we show you where.
• That AI tools will keep tagging links the same way. The October 2026 bug week shows they can change without notice.
• Exact question data for Google's AI features. Google does not provide it.