The way people search is constantly changing. Therefore, most SEO teams need to track traffic from large language models (LLMs) to adapt their SEO strategy and drive organic traffic. Tools like Perplexity, ChatGPT, Copilot, and other AI search engines are the main sources people use to discover solutions.
So, if you are not tracking LLM visits, you are missing the chance to improve brand visibility and optimize your content for AI engagement. Let’s understand why it matters to track LLM visits and how to do that.
The Importance of Tracking LLM Visits
Your content is probably driving traffic from LLMs, even if you haven’t noticed yet. With the rise of AI-powered search engines and chatbots, users now frequently turn to platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude to find answers. When your content is well-optimized with relevant keywords and structured data, these LLMs often cite your pages in their responses, leading to direct traffic to your website.
Ignoring this trend can affect your business to grow, as LLM-driven visits are becoming a significant part of monitoring analytics in 2026.
Understanding how LLMs work will help you in:
Identify high-performing content.
Measure conversions and AI-engagement.
Increase brand visibility in AI search results.
Identify which content drives more traffic.
Measuring LLM traffic ensures your business stays visible and competitive. Optimizing your page for the big AI models plays a central role in how users will find and engage with your content.
How to Track LLM Traffic
Tracking LLM visits differs from traditional search analytics, as AI platforms generate and send the referrals. That’s why it’s important to track how many users arrive from AI platforms. Here are the best ways to do that:
1. Access Google Analytics (GA4)
Once you’re in a GA4 dashboard, go to Reports in the left navigation. Under Acquisition, click User Acquisition. So once you’re on traffic acquisition, you’ll see reports that show the general overview of traffic sources.
Click the dropdown menu under First user primary, and you will be able to select First user source/medium.
What you want to find is referrals like:
Perplexity
ChatGPT
Copilot
Gemini
Claude
Anthropic
DeepSeek
Llama
Mistral
Grok
Or you can simply type them into the search bar.
2. Create a Custom Report in GA4
Making a custom report on GA4 is a more permanent solution to track users from LLMs.
When you click on the Explore section in the left-side menu, it will take you to the custom report page. The first thing you should do is create a blank free-form report on the “+” symbol. Set Dimensions to Session source/medium.
In the Metrics section, you can choose different metrics depending on what you are interested in, like engage sessions, engagement rate, and more. For our purpose, choose Total users.
The results you will get are just a very general report, as seen in the image. It gives you all the traffic from different sources.
We want to narrow it down to only AI. This can be done in the Filter section, where it lets you cut down reports that are irrelevant. Select the Session source/medium, and click matches regex as a condition. Paste the rejects in the expression bar:
Keep in mind that as the market evolves, there are going to be more and more LLMs created. You may need to expand this list constantly to have the latest updates on traffic from LLMs.
3. Create Reports in Looker Studio
Looker Studio is a free data visualization platform that makes it easy to create and understand reports. You can create and share dashboards to show data that can be pulled from a large number of sources.
First, you need to connect Looker Studio to your GA4 account. You have previously added your GA4 data source to the report. This connection is essential because it serves as a foundation for accessing all your relevant analytics.
Next step is to create a Blank Report and name it “AI traffic Reports”. Select your GA4 property that contains the LLM events and click Connect. Click Create report to load your LLM event fields into a new table, then click Add report to start building your LLM analytics dashboards.
You can format your report with custom fields, colors, comparison metrics, and more to track different analytics.
4 Best LLM Monitoring Tools to Track Search Visibility
Apart from tracking LLM traffic, there are common tools that help you monitor how often your brand is mentioned in those LLMs. These mentions can increase brand visibility when someone searches for a query. The most popular tools are:
1. Peec AI
A common AI platform that gives analytics for how often your brand appears in responses in LLM systems. It is best for SaaS marketing agencies and content strategists who need ongoing, accurate insights about brand presence on AI platforms.
With Peec, you can track:
Brand mentions.
Prompt-level performance.
Citation frequency.
They offer a 7-day free trial, or you can use their starter plan for $89/month.
2. Scrunch AI
Another great tool that tracks LLM visits is Scrunch, offering real-time monitoring and analysis of your content. It focuses on how your website or brand is represented in AI summaries. Also, the tool offers content recommendations and on-page optimization to improve the AI visibility.
Scrunch is best for:
Entity recognition.
Representation in LLM summaries.
Tracking how well AI models mention your brand (sentiment).
Although they don’t offer a free trial, you can start with their “Starter” plan for $300 per month.
3. Profound
If you are looking for an enterprise AI visibility platform, Profound is the right choice for you. It is designed for large companies that want to monitor and protect their brand presence across multiple LLM platforms. It integrates with analytics dashboards, making it perfect for teams to track real-time data and make accurate reports.
Profound helps with:
Tracking mentions.
Topical alignment.
Citation frequency.
Risk alerts.
While they don’t have a free trial, you can request a free demo or take their start plan for $99/month.
4. Ahrefs Brand Radar
The Brand Radar is a feature within the Ahrefs SEO suite. It is a helpful tool to understand what’s happening to your brand visibility on AI search engines, including ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot.
Brand Radar helps you track:
Brand mentions in AI-powered engines.
Potential reach and citations.
Content gaps and visibility opportunities.
Ahrefs Brand Radar offers limited free options depending on the specific features desired. For individual platforms, the price is $199/mo per index, and for all AI platforms, it costs US $699 per month.
Conclusion
LLMs are constantly evolving, and staying up to date with these changes is key to enhancing your brand presence across multiple platforms. Some of your content may already be attracting traffic without your knowledge, which is why regular monitoring is essential. By following these steps, you’ll gain a clear understanding of how to track LLM visits, know where your audience is coming from, and optimize your content to improve their engagement.
If you are still not sure, book a free consultation with us, and we will guide you through the process.