Judging AI search traffic by the first cart undervalues it badly: buyers who arrive pre-convinced by an assistant behave differently for years. Here is the cohort model that takes AI-referral measurement from immediate cart out to 5-year lifetime value.
AI traffic from ChatGPT and Perplexity is already arriving, but GA4 buries it. Here is where AI referrals show up, how to build a segment, and the blind spots you cannot close.