ChatGPT tests a dashboard that counts brand mentions and clicks in its answers
OpenAI is testing a dashboard, inside a Business Hub that has not launched, that shows businesses how often they appear in ChatGPT answers and how many clicks those appearances send. Prompts and competitor rankings stay hidden.
What happened
According to Digiday, OpenAI is testing a dashboard with analytics on the frequency with which ChatGPT mentions your business as well as click traffic you are getting to your website from those mentions. The dashboard is part of a bigger Business Hub that OpenAI has yet to launch. Screenshot of the dashboard was posted by Juozas Kaziukėnas, the founder of e-commerce research company Marketplace Pulse, on LinkedIn on November 6, when he spotted a banner for the as-yet-unavailable feature. He said he first noticed indications of the feature in August. OpenAI did not comment to Digiday.
Why it matters
The banner is asking businesses to take their business and claim it on ChatGPT. If they claim their business, they'll be able to get tracking for mentions, as well as update their company information and product information. If they claim their business, they'll also get what OpenAI calls a business agent that answers customer questions. This requires you to show that you have the right to represent the business. You can do that, according to Kaziukėnas, by connecting your Shopify store.
from a reporting standpoint it would be first party data on the platform. It's logging your impressions and clicks each day. Giving you a chart for it. No prompts. No user data. No competition. So, yeah. It will tell you if you're getting impressions and if people are clicking. Just not what prompts caused it and how you're doing compared to your competition.
That's where we are right now. Already Profound, AdthenaHQ and others GEO vendors are selling brands visibility numbers for ChatGPT. They mainly sending huge amount of prompts to the chatbot and tracking their responses. Kaziukėnas sees both. That external tools will track prompts. And OpenAI's data if GEO efforts are delivering or not. From that perspective, not GEO tool replacement but more like a way to verify whether your efforts driven by the GEO tool are creating impressions and clicks.
OpenAI's commercial figures add context. The company said that by September it had hit a $1 billion annualized run rate, taking fewer than 200 days to get there. Late in October, OpenAI said its advertiser count had passed 100,000, with campaigns in 89 countries. Those are OpenAI's own figures, as Digiday reports them.
What to do
No Business Hub to turn on. We're not there yet. This is to make you ready.
- Decide who will claim your business. OpenAI requires proof that the claimant can represent the business. Agree now which team owns the ChatGPT profile, and if you sell through Shopify, confirm who holds admin access to the store, since linking a Shopify store is one route in.
- Audit the product and business information you would publish. A claimed business can keep its product and company details up to date. Gather the approved descriptions, catalogue data and contact details you would want ChatGPT to use.
- Plan for the business agent before you enable it. The agent replies to customer questions with contact information the business provides. Decide which details it should give out and who reviews its answers.
- Set a baseline with your current GEO tool. Vendors such as Profound and AdthenaHQ measure visibility by sending prompts in volume. Record your current prompt-level visibility so you can compare it with the daily impressions and clicks the dashboard would report.
- Prepare your analytics for a new click source. The dashboard counts visits that ChatGPT answers send to your site. Check how your web analytics currently labels that traffic, so the two counts can be reconciled when the dashboard arrives.
- Keep competitor monitoring where it is. The dashboard hides prompts and gives no competitor ranking. Do not plan to drop outside tracking on the strength of this feature.
Watch for an official launch of the Business Hub from OpenAI, which has so far declined to comment. A launch that adds prompts or competitor data would change how much of your outside tracking you still need.