According to a new study of over 7 million sessions, conducted by Kevin Indig, AI chatbot traffic from platforms like CoPilot, ChatGPT and Perplexity converts better than traditional search traffic. The data which was analyzed was mostly from e-commerce purchases and software sign-ups. Even though traffic from AI chatbots is still less than 1% of total organic traffic, it is growing quickly and will play an important role in future digital marketing.
The study found that 80% of the transactional traffic to the top 10 landing pages goes to sites like eBay, Amazon and Walmart, which are dominating Google Search as well as AI chatbots. Microsoft also shows up often on AI chatbots because of people searching for software like Teams or CoPilot. The sites that are dominating search results are also leading in AI but AI chatbots are becoming more conversational, meaning that ranking factors are going to emerge which will allow LLMs to determine their own ways of visibility.
The traffic on AI chatbots is also more engaged than search traffic, measured by session duration and number of page views per session. However, referrals on AI chatbots are longer than Google traffic like CoPilot which has an average session duration of 11.6 minutes. On the other hand, AI chatbots have an average duration of 10.4 minutes as compared to Google which has 8.1 minutes of session duration. AI chatbots are also gaining transactions with Perplexity and CoPilot seeing bigger increases in pageviews than Google. Even though CoPilot has not as many page visits as Perplexity, it is still showing better engagement as it is integrated in all of Microsoft’s devices and software.
The study also looked at how deep the traffic is going into a website as AI chatbots are also sending more traffic to homepages. ChatGPT sends 30% of its traffic to home pages while Google sends only 10%. AI chatbots are also sending traffic to deeper pages than Google which is sending visitors to second as well as third-level pages. This shows that AI chatbots are driving more engaged traffic which is spending more time on sites. This is also leading to more viewing on pages, making them better potential for conversions. This raises the question whether AI chatbots can improve user engagement by directing users to more specific pages instead of home pages. But it is too soon to say anything because search features of AI chatbots are still under development and will take a long time to get trained over most of the web.
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The study found that 80% of the transactional traffic to the top 10 landing pages goes to sites like eBay, Amazon and Walmart, which are dominating Google Search as well as AI chatbots. Microsoft also shows up often on AI chatbots because of people searching for software like Teams or CoPilot. The sites that are dominating search results are also leading in AI but AI chatbots are becoming more conversational, meaning that ranking factors are going to emerge which will allow LLMs to determine their own ways of visibility.
The traffic on AI chatbots is also more engaged than search traffic, measured by session duration and number of page views per session. However, referrals on AI chatbots are longer than Google traffic like CoPilot which has an average session duration of 11.6 minutes. On the other hand, AI chatbots have an average duration of 10.4 minutes as compared to Google which has 8.1 minutes of session duration. AI chatbots are also gaining transactions with Perplexity and CoPilot seeing bigger increases in pageviews than Google. Even though CoPilot has not as many page visits as Perplexity, it is still showing better engagement as it is integrated in all of Microsoft’s devices and software.
The study also looked at how deep the traffic is going into a website as AI chatbots are also sending more traffic to homepages. ChatGPT sends 30% of its traffic to home pages while Google sends only 10%. AI chatbots are also sending traffic to deeper pages than Google which is sending visitors to second as well as third-level pages. This shows that AI chatbots are driving more engaged traffic which is spending more time on sites. This is also leading to more viewing on pages, making them better potential for conversions. This raises the question whether AI chatbots can improve user engagement by directing users to more specific pages instead of home pages. But it is too soon to say anything because search features of AI chatbots are still under development and will take a long time to get trained over most of the web.
Read next:
• Security Researchers Engineer New and Safer Form of QR Codes That Protects Smartphones From Attacks
• AI Faces Skepticism in Moral Decision-Making Despite Advancements, New Study
• 71.5% Use AI for Search, Yet Only 14% Rely on It Daily as Traditional Engines Dominate
