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Sumit_ChandnaRa
Level 2
January 22, 2026
Question

AI Traffic bucketed in Social Channel

  • January 22, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 41 views

We’ve set up our Organic Social channel with the following rule: traffic is classified as Organic Social when the query string parameter “umedium” does not exist and the referring domain contains social domains (e.g., fb.com, instagram.com, etc.).

Recently, we observed that some traffic from chatgpt.com is being bucketed into the Organic Social channel, even though chatgpt.com is not included in our social domain list. Based on our current rules, this classification seems unexpected.

Could this be due to how the referrer is being passed or interpreted, or is there a known behavior that would cause chatgpt.com traffic to fall into Organic Social under these conditions? Any guidance on whether our rules need adjustment—or if this outcome is expected—would be appreciated.

1 reply

Jennifer_Dungan
Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
Jennifer_DunganCommunity Advisor and Adobe Champion
Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
January 22, 2026

Hi ​@Sumit_ChandnaRa,

 

Would it be possible to see a screenshot of your Marketing Channel Processing Rule? Just to check for simple typos or misconfigurations?

 

ChatGPT shouldn’t register as Social, so that is interesting.

 

Also, I am not sure if you are aware, but Adobe has recently added a “Referrer is Social Network” option

 

So that it will match up the Adobe “Social Network Referrer Type”… this makes it so you don’t have to manage a list of social network domain… it might be something to consider.

S
Sumit_ChandnaRaAuthor
Level 2
January 23, 2026

Here is the screenshot of the marketing channel-
 

 

Jennifer_Dungan
Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
Jennifer_DunganCommunity Advisor and Adobe Champion
Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
January 23, 2026

Interesting… 

 

That rule looks correct (assuming you are using modified campaign query strings “umedium” and not the standard “utm_medium”…

 

That said, how did you determine that the traffic was from ChatGPT?

 

Did you see “utm_source=chatpgt.com” or did you see a referrer of ChatGPT?

 

Did you check that the attribution of your Marketing Channels? Are you sure that this marketing channel didn’t persist to a second visit from ChatGPT?

 

Example:

Visit 1:

  • (User does Google Search)
  • Page 1
    • Marketing Channel set to “Organic Search”
    • Marketing Channel Instance (metric) is triggered
    • Referrer set to “google.com” 
    • Referrer Instance (metric) is triggered
  • Page 2
    • Marketing Channel persists value of “Organic Search”
    • Marketing Channel Instance (metric) is NOT triggered, as the value is only persisted
    • Referrer persists value of “google.com”
    • Referrer Instance (metric) is NOT triggered, as the value is only persisted

 

Visit 2

  • (Direct Entry)
  • Page 3
    • Marketing Channel may not have rules to properly identify ChatGPT, or maybe the “Any Referrer” rules is set to not overwrite more specific channel (Or you don’t have an “Any Referrer” rule at all, making this fall all the way to the “None” channel which also doesn’t overwrite), therefore the channel persists the value “Organic Search”
    • Marketing Channel Instance (metric) is NOT triggered, as the value is only persisted
    • Referrer set to “chatcpt.com” 
    • Referrer Instance (metric) is triggered
  • …

 

 

Without seeing all your marketing rules, and configuration, its hard to say for sure.

 

First, I would pull up the report where you found ChatGPT.com in your Organic Search, and add a new Metric Column for “Marketing Channel Instance” and see if there is any value reported there…. I suspect there will be none, that the Marketing Channel on ChatGPT is persisted channel data and that ChatGTP is not in fact setting the incorrect channel, but it’s showing that channel through persistence.

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