Clicks are the wrong number to watch
A rising click count can accompany a falling business. In a measured account, traffic from ChatGPT closed at 15.9 percent and Perplexity at 10.5 percent against 1.76 percent for organic search, so a hundred clicks from one source can be worth less than ten from another. Count enquiries, not visits.
Why clicks mislead
A click is the moment someone chose to look, which is worth knowing and worth very little on its own. Two sources delivering the same number of clicks can deliver entirely different amounts of work, and the difference is invisible in the click count.
There is a second problem. Google states that clicks from AI features are included in overall search traffic under the Web search type and are not reported separately, so the click column cannot even tell you where a growing share of visits came from.
The measured spread
In an account measured from 1 October 2024 to 30 April 2025, conversion by source came out as ChatGPT 15.9 percent, Perplexity 10.5 percent, Claude 5 percent, Gemini 3 percent and organic search 1.76 percent.
Run that against a flat click count. 100 organic clicks at 1.76 percent produce 1.76 conversions. 10 clicks from ChatGPT at 15.9 percent produce 1.59. Ninety fewer clicks, almost the same result, and a report based on visits would have called the first source nine times better.
Now attach money. At an enquiry worth 300 euros, those 1.76 conversions are 528 euros and the 1.59 are 477 euros. The gap between the two sources is 51 euros, not the ninefold difference the click column suggested.
| Source | Conversion | Clicks needed for one conversion |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 15.9 % | 6 |
| Perplexity | 10.5 % | 10 |
| Claude | 5 % | 20 |
| Gemini | 3 % | 33 |
| Organic search | 1.76 % | 57 |
What to count instead
Count enquiries by how they arrived, in one place, including telephone. Then multiply by your closing rate and your average order value. That gives every channel a figure in euros, which is the only unit that compares.
Keep clicks as a diagnostic. A collapse in visits still tells you something broke, it just does not tell you what any of it was worth.
One practical rule keeps the two apart. Report clicks monthly if you like, but never in the same table as enquiries, because a reader comparing a four figure click count with a single digit enquiry count will always draw the wrong conclusion about which number matters.
The same discipline applies to the yearly review. Twelve months of enquiries multiplied by your closing rate and your average order gives one figure in euros per channel, and that single column decides what gets renewed.
Questions and answers
Are clicks useless?
Can I see AI Overview clicks separately?
What should a report contain?
Why is the spread so wide?
Sources
- Seer Interactive, AI traffic conversion study Conversion rates by source for the measured period
- Google Search Central, AI features in Google Search That AI feature clicks are not reported separately in Search Console
