u/Dubadosolutions

Quick question for everyone here.

How are you actually tracking where new customers find you? Not just Google Analytics or asking at checkout but specifically understanding which channels are doing the real work.

I ask because I work with some larger brands and they have entire attribution setups for this. But I keep meeting small business owners who are running on gut feel and I get it, there is only so much time. Just curious how people here are actually handling it or if most are just winging it like the rest of us at some point.

Hey everyone, curious what others are seeing here.

I've been obsessing over helping clients understand the right approach to actually tracking AI mentions. When a potential customer asks ChatGPT or Google's AI Overview "best [your service] near me" or "who should I hire for X" does your business actually come up?

I work with some larger enterprise brands and AI visibility has become a real talking point at that level. Budgets exist to monitor it and teams are starting to treat it like a separate channel. But I keep wondering what this looks like for small businesses who don't have that infrastructure.

I started noticing that businesses with great reviews and solid SEO still weren't showing up in AI-generated answers at all. It sent me down a rabbit hole trying to understand how these tools actually decide who to recommend and honestly it feels like a massive blind spot most people don't even know exists yet.

Curious if anyone here has been testing tools or strategies around AI visibility specifically. Not traditional SEO but actually influencing what ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity etc. say when someone asks for a recommendation.

What are you all doing about this? Anything actually working?