Google Analytics
Connect a Google Analytics 4 property to Fond to see how much traffic answer engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity send to your site, which pages they land on, and what Fond can and cannot measure.
With a Google Analytics 4 property connected, Fond shows how many visits answer engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot and Gemini send you. It also shows where those visitors land. This data is under Analytics → AI Traffic for the website.
Fond only reads your Analytics data. It never changes anything in your Analytics account.
Before you start
You need Viewer access or higher on the GA4 property that measures the website. To check, open Google Analytics and make sure that you can see the property's reports.
You do not need to install anything or change your site. If GA4 already measures your site, Fond can read the data.
Connect it
- Open your website in Fond and find the Google Analytics card.
- Click Connect Google Analytics, then sign in and approve read-only access.
- Select the property that measures this website.
- Confirm which stream of the property is the site that Fond tracks.
Take care with the last step. See Choosing the right property.
This is separate from Merchant Center
Google Merchant Center uses a different permission, which you grant separately. Connecting or disconnecting one does not change the other, even on the same Google account.
Choosing the right property
Most connection problems start here, and they give no warning. The connection succeeds, but the panel stays empty or shows another site.
Sign in with the right Google account
A personal account without access to your business's Analytics shows no properties, or the wrong ones. The picker screen shows the account that you authorized. If it is wrong, start again and select a different account.
A property can cover more than one website
One GA4 property can measure your website, an iOS app, a staging site or several brands. Fond counts only the traffic to the stream hostname that you confirm.
If you select the wrong stream, the panel shows another site's numbers. The From Google Analytics panel always shows the property name, its ID and its time zone, so you can check the connection.
What you will see, and when
The panel is empty right after you connect. Fond starts its first read when you link the property, and data arrives in a few minutes. If it does not, the Google Analytics card shows the sync error. Click Sync now on the card to try again.
The first read covers up to the last 90 days. If your property or tag is newer, Fond shows data only from when Analytics started to collect it.
After that, Fond refreshes every day at about 07:00 UTC.
Google finalizes recent data for up to about 72 hours, so the figures for the last three days can still change. The totals include those days, and the panel labels them as still changing. Before you give a number to another person, select a range that ends before the last three days.
Fond counts days in your property's time zone, as Google does, so its numbers agree with your own Analytics reports.
Zero is a real answer
The panel can show that answer engines sent you no visits. Usually this is a measurement, not a fault. Newer brands and smaller stores often start at or near zero, because the models do not yet know the brand well enough to recommend it.
A zero here does not mean that AI ignores you. The Citations data samples the answer engines directly. It shows where answers mention you, even before anybody clicks through.
What Fond cannot see
This limit applies to every tool of this type.
When a person clicks a link on a web page, the browser tells your site where the person came from. Every AI traffic number in every tool comes from this.
A click inside a desktop or mobile app, such as the ChatGPT or Perplexity app, does not send this. The visit arrives with no source, in the "direct" group with bookmarks and typed addresses. This has three results:
- Fond still counts an engine that tags its own links, because the tag travels in the address. ChatGPT does this today, and it is by far the largest source of AI referral traffic. The engine makes this choice, and Fond cannot promise it.
- Engines that do not tag their links are invisible in their apps. Today these are Perplexity, Claude, Gemini and Copilot. Fond counts their web traffic as usual.
- Fond does not guess what share of your direct traffic came from AI, because nobody can know that share.
Thus the figure is a minimum. At least this many visits came from answer engines.
Which engines Fond counts
Fond recognizes the engines by name. It also counts any visit that Analytics labels as coming from an AI assistant, so new engines show up automatically. Fond groups them as "Other AI assistant" until they have a name.
Disconnecting
When you disconnect, Fond stops reading your Analytics data. It keeps your history, which comes back if you reconnect later.
When you archive a website, Fond also stops reading its Analytics data. The connection then no longer counts toward your plan's analytics connections.
If you reconnect to a different property or stream, Fond deletes the old figures, so that two websites do not mix in one trend. If you reconnect to the same property, Fond keeps everything.
When you delete the website or close your account, Fond removes the data completely.
Troubleshooting
"No Analytics properties found."
The Google account that you signed in with cannot read any GA4 property. Ask an admin of your Analytics account to give it Viewer access, or reconnect with a different Google account.
The panel is empty right after connecting
This is expected. The first read takes a few minutes. If the card shows a sync error, click Sync now on the Google Analytics card, or wait for the next daily refresh.
It is still empty after the first sync
Compare the property name and stream hostname on the From Google Analytics panel with the site that you expected. A property or stream for another site gives that site's numbers, or none.
Do not switch property only to see if it helps. Fond deletes the old property's data when you change, so if it was correct, you lose the history and fix nothing. Check the names first.
Nothing arrives for a full day
Look on the Google Analytics card for a sync error, or a notice that asks you to reconnect.
Fond asks you to reconnect
A Google connection can stop working without any action from you. Usually, somebody revoked the access in your Google account, or Google made it invalid.
This does not occur on a schedule. Connections do not expire after a set time.
Reconnecting takes a few seconds, and Fond keeps your history if you connect to the same property. The Google Analytics card tells you when a connection needs attention.
Share of voice
How often AI answers mention your brand in each group of queries, by query tier or by your topic clusters. A query counts once if any answer to it mentioned you.
Edge Measurement
Run a small Cloudflare Worker in front of your store so Fond counts AI visits at your own edge, including AI crawlers and visitors Google Analytics does not record. What it measures, what it cannot, and how to remove it.