How Forbes is using ChatGPT referral data to create audience cohorts

"AI platforms like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude account for a single-digit percentage of Forbes' monthly referral traffic. That's nowhere near enough traffic to offset the 40% year-over-year decline in search referral traffic Forbes has seen this year, but the AI platforms are providing something more valuable than simple pageviews. Forbes is also able to access data related to the AI referral traffic - such as the prompts that led to a Forbes article being cited in an AI answer - and is using that information to create audience cohorts of the people coming to its site from AI platforms."

""Semrush and Similarweb have introduced pretty good tools that give you information like, what are the prompts that are leading to your content, how much traffic are you getting from them," said Forbes chief innovation officer Nina Gould on stage at the Digiday Publishing Summit Europe in Lisbon, Portugal, on Oct. 29. She noted that this data isn't available from all AI platforms, specifically citing Google's AI Mode as a black box because the referral data from Google's ChatGPT-style search experience is indistinguishable from traditional search referral data. Google's AI Mode aside, Forbes is able to use the information provided by Semrush and Similarweb to create audience cohorts from the people coming to its site from AI platforms."

""We create cohorts, meaning we understand the types of searches and the types of people that resonate. We don't target them or track them currently when they come back. So it isn't a [personally identifiable information issue] at this point. It's just data points for your audience and data points for your editorial team," said Gould."

AI platforms like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude drive a single-digit percentage of Forbes' monthly referral traffic. That share cannot offset a 40% year-over-year decline in search referral traffic. Semrush and Similarweb provide prompt-level referral data showing which prompts lead to Forbes being cited and how much traffic they generate. Google's AI Mode conceals referral details, making its AI-driven referrals indistinguishable from traditional search. Forbes uses Semrush and Similarweb data to build non-identifiable audience cohorts based on AI-sourced prompts. Those cohorts inform editorial teams about content that motivates clicks from AI platforms.

Read at Digiday