Advanced Analytics

Traffic Attribution

Understand how AI Overview citations translate into actual website traffic using GA4 integration.

Overview

Traffic Attribution connects your AI Overview visibility with real website analytics by integrating with Google Analytics 4. Rather than simply showing where your site appears in AI-generated responses, this feature estimates how much actual traffic those appearances drive to your pages.

By correlating citation data with GA4 landing page metrics, Citatra provides a clearer picture of the business impact of your AI search presence.

How It Works

Citatra matches your cited pages with GA4 landing page data to build a picture of AI-driven traffic. The system uses attribution models to estimate how much of your organic traffic originates from AI Overview appearances versus traditional search results.

The matching process works in three stages:

1. Page identification — cited URLs from AI Overviews are mapped to their corresponding GA4 landing pages
2. Traffic correlation — sessions landing on cited pages are analyzed for timing and source patterns
3. Attribution modeling — statistical models estimate the portion of traffic likely driven by AI Overview visibility

Setting Up GA4 Integration

To enable Traffic Attribution, you'll need to connect your Google Analytics 4 property:

1. Navigate to Settings in your workspace
2. Enter your GA4 Property ID (found in your Google Analytics admin panel)
3. Configure your data stream to ensure landing page data is flowing
4. Set your preferred attribution window (default is 7 days)

Once connected, Citatra begins correlating data automatically. Initial results typically appear within 48 hours as historical data is processed.

Attribution Models

Citatra supports multiple attribution models to estimate AI-driven traffic:

• First-touch attribution — credits the AI Overview appearance if it was the user's first interaction with your site
• Last-touch attribution — credits the AI Overview if it was the final touchpoint before a session
• Weighted model — distributes credit across multiple touchpoints, giving proportional weight to the AI Overview appearance based on recency and position

You can switch between models in the Traffic Attribution settings to see how each one affects your estimated numbers.

Reading the Data

The Traffic Attribution dashboard presents several key views:

• Daily traffic estimates — a time-series chart showing estimated AI-driven sessions per day
• Page-level breakdown — a table listing each cited page with its estimated traffic contribution
• Trend over time — rolling averages that smooth out daily fluctuations and reveal directional patterns

Use the date range selector to zoom into specific periods, and export data as CSV for further analysis.

Limitations

It's important to understand the boundaries of Traffic Attribution:

• AI Overview traffic attribution is an estimate. Google does not expose a direct referrer for AI Overview clicks, so all figures are modeled rather than measured.
• GA4 data may have a 24–48 hour delay. Real-time traffic won't appear in attribution reports immediately.
• Attribution accuracy improves over time. The more data Citatra collects, the more reliable the statistical models become.
• Shared URLs between AI Overviews and traditional organic results make perfect separation impossible.

Despite these limitations, Traffic Attribution provides the best available approximation of the traffic value generated by your AI search visibility.