Referrer Attribution

What is referrer attribution

When a user clicks a link in an AI-generated response — for example, a product recommendation in ChatGPT or a cited source in Perplexity — and lands on your site, referrer attribution traces that visit back to the AI platform that sent it.

This closes the loop between agent optimization and business outcomes. You can see not just that agents are crawling your site, but that their recommendations are driving real traffic and conversions.

How it works

The browser beacon (a lightweight client-side script) runs on each page load and performs two checks:

1. document.referrer matching — The beacon reads the browser’s referrer URL and compares it against a list of known AI platform domains.
2. UTM parameter detection — The beacon checks the current URL for UTM parameters that indicate AI-platform origin.

When a match is found, the beacon records the attribution event in sessionStorage (persisting for the duration of the browsing session) and sends the event to the Inception Agents analytics endpoint via navigator.sendBeacon.

No cookies are set. No personally identifiable information is collected.

Supported platforms

The beacon recognizes the following AI platform referrers:

Both document.referrer and UTM parameters are checked independently. If either matches, the visit is attributed. UTM parameters take precedence when both are present.

Conversion tracking

Attribute downstream business events to AI-driven traffic:

• Page views — Total visits from each AI platform.
• Signups — Account creation events during an AI-attributed session.
• Purchases — Completed transactions during an AI-attributed session.
• Custom goals — Any event you define (demo requests, downloads, form submissions) tracked during an AI-attributed session.

Conversion events are tied to the AI referral source for the session. If a user arrives from ChatGPT and completes a purchase in the same session, that purchase is attributed to ChatGPT.

Defining custom goals

Custom conversion goals are configured in Settings > Conversions:

// Trigger a custom conversion event
window.inceptionAgents?.trackConversion('demo_request', {
  value: 500,
  currency: 'USD'
});

The trackConversion method is available on the global inceptionAgents object injected by the beacon. Call it when a conversion event occurs on your site.

UTM parameters

The beacon recognizes standard UTM parameters for AI platform attribution:

• utm_source — The AI platform name (chatgpt, perplexity, claude, gemini, copilot).
• utm_medium — Typically ai_referral or ai_chat.
• utm_campaign — Optional campaign identifier for tracking specific optimization efforts.

Example attributed URL:

https://yourdomain.com/pricing?utm_source=chatgpt&utm_medium=ai_referral

UTM parameters are useful as a fallback when document.referrer is stripped by the referring platform. Some AI platforms do not pass referrer headers consistently.

Dashboard view

The AI Referrals tab in your analytics dashboard shows:

• Referral traffic — Total visits from AI platforms, broken down by source.
• Conversion rates — Conversion rate for AI-referred traffic vs. overall site traffic.
• Revenue attribution — Total revenue attributed to AI-referred sessions, broken down by platform.
• Top landing pages — Which pages receive the most AI-referred traffic.
• Session flow — Common paths AI-referred visitors take through your site.
• Time-series trends — Referral traffic and conversion trends over time.

Privacy

The referrer attribution system is designed for minimal data collection:

• No cookies — No cookies are set by the beacon. Attribution is session-scoped only.
• No PII — No personally identifiable information is collected, stored, or transmitted. The beacon records the referral source domain and conversion events, nothing more.
• sessionStorage-based — Attribution data is stored in the browser’s sessionStorage, which is automatically cleared when the tab is closed.
• GDPR compliant — The beacon collects no personal data and requires no consent banner. It processes only technical referral metadata.
• navigator.sendBeacon — Events are sent using the navigator.sendBeacon API, which is non-blocking and does not delay page interaction.
• No cross-site tracking — The beacon operates only on your domain. No third-party trackers or fingerprinting techniques are used.

Setup

Server-side integrations

If you are using a server-side integration (Cloudflare Worker, Vercel middleware, Next.js middleware, or similar), the browser beacon is included automatically. No additional setup is required — the middleware injects the beacon script into HTML responses served to regular browser traffic.

JavaScript-only setup

If you are not using a server-side integration and want referrer attribution only, add the beacon script tag to your pages:

<script
  src="https://cdn.inceptionagents.com/beacon.js"
  data-site-id="your-site-id"
  defer
></script>

Your site ID is available in Settings > Integration > Site ID. The script is 2.8 KB gzipped and loads asynchronously with the defer attribute, so it does not block page rendering.

Place the script tag in the <head> or before the closing </body> tag. It must be present on every page where you want to track AI referrals and conversions.