SEO + AIO App Attribution

  • Updated on Dec 19, 2025
  • Published on Feb 13, 2025
Prev Next

Overview

SEO + AIO App Attribution tracks and attributes organic traffic from search engines and AI chat agents. When users arrive from Google, Bing, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, or Perplexity, Branch identifies the source and attributes the session correctly.

This feature shows which content drove each visit and organizes traffic in dedicated channels ("organic search" for search engines and "organic chat agent" for AI chat agents) giving you a complete view of how users discover your app.

How it works

SEO

  1. User clicks a result from a search engine
    The user clicks a link from a supported search engine (Google, Bing, Yahoo, Naver, Daum, DuckDuckGo, etc.) that points to your top-level domain.  

  2. Links are indexed by the search engine
    Your site content has already been crawled and indexed by search engines, so those URLs appear in search results.  

  3. Branch collects specific signals on app open
    When your app opens from that domain using Universal Links / App Links, the Branch SDK receives the necessary referrer and device context.  

  4. Branch simulates a click
    Branch creates a synthetic click in the background using those signals.  

  5. Branch attributes the user to Organic Search
    The resulting install, open, or event is attributed with:    

    • ~feature = "organic search"

    • ~channel = search engine name

    • ~organic_search_url = originating URL

AIO

  1. User clicks a link from an AI chat agent
    The user clicks a link from a supported AI chat agent (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity) that points to your top-level domain.  

  2. Link opens in browser or webview
    The AI agent opens your link, typically with UTM parameters (like utm_source=chatgpt) or an identifiable referrer.  

  3. Branch collects specific signals on app open
    When your app opens from that domain using Universal Links / App Links, the Branch SDK receives the URL, UTM parameters, and referrer information.  

  4. Branch simulates a click
    Branch creates a synthetic click in the background using those signals.  

  5. Branch attributes the user to "organic chat agent"
    The resulting install, open, or event is attributed with:    

    • ~feature = "organic chat agent"

    • ~channel = AI chat agent name

    • ~organic_search_url = originating URL

Branch identifies each AI chat agent by checking UTM parameters (like utm_source=chatgpt) and referrer domains (like chatgpt.com, gemini.google.com, perplexity.ai).

Before you begin

To enable SEO + AIO App Attribution, you must complete the following tasks:

  1. Create a Branch account.

  2. Enable SEO App Attribution for your Branch account. Contact your Branch account manager or visit https://branch.io/pricing.

    Note

    AIO uses the same provisioning switch as SEO. Once SEO App Attribution is enabled for your app, AIO attribution will automatically be available.

  3. Work with your development team to implement the Branch SDK and configure Universal Links and App Links. See our developer documentation for implementation details.

Set up SEO + AIO App Attribution

Your development team will need to configure the technical requirements for SEO + AIO App Attribution. See our developer documentation for implementation details.

Once the technical setup is complete, you can configure your SEO domains directly in Branch.

Enter SEO domains

  1. Select SEO under the Analysis section in Branch.

  2. On the SEO Configuration page, enter your domains.

  3. List each of the domains you want to enable SEO + AIO Attribution for.

Tip

If you're on the new Branch experience, go to Configuration > Attribution to enter your domains.

Wildcard characters are not supported, so you must specify the exact domain, like "www.branch.io".

Include the URL scheme and host (for example, https://www.branch.io).

These domains are used for both:

  • SEO App Attribution (organic search traffic)

  • AIO App Attribution (traffic from AI chat agents that surface URLs under these domains)

View analytics

Once complete, you can view your SEO + AIO App Attribution analytics in multiple places:

Branch Analysis dashboards

Navigate to Analysis in Branch. Use the Classic Suite - SEO Analytics default dashboard to view both SEO and AIO analytics.

Use filters to:

  • Break down traffic by channel (search engines and AI chat agents)

  • Analyze installs, opens, purchases, and other events from both SEO and AIO

Legacy reporting experience

Navigate to SEO Analytics in Branch. Here you can measure Trends and Performance through charts and tables.

SEO Chart

SEO Table

Note

SEO + AIO App Attribution has the same reporting capabilities as Branch's Ads product. For a detailed overview of ad analytics and how to customize them, view our guide.

Access the originating URL

You can access the originating URL through Branch's Dashboard Reports or Exports (through the Dashboard Custom Exports or through the Custom Exports API).

  • For Dashboard Reports, add the Organic Search URL column to the events table.

  • For Dashboard Custom Exports, include the Organic Search URL column when configuring your export.

  • For Custom Exports API, export the last_attributed_touch_data_tilde_organic_search_url field.

For AI chat agent sessions, this field corresponds to the URL that the AI agent surfaced and that the user clicked, allowing you to see which piece of content the AI agent used to drive app engagement.

Analytic tags

Branch surfaces SEO and AIO traffic in Branch and the Data APIs using the following analytic tags.

~feature

Tag

Value

Example

Data API field

~feature

organic search

organic search

last_attributed_touch_data_tilde_feature

~feature

organic chat agent

organic chat agent

last_attributed_touch_data_tilde_feature

~channel

For SEO App Attribution, ~channel is the search engine name:

  • Google

  • Bing

  • Yahoo

  • Naver

  • Ask

  • DuckDuckGo

  • Yandex

  • Daum

For AIO App Attribution, ~channel is the AI chat agent name:

  • ChatGPT

  • Claude

  • Gemini

  • Copilot

  • Perplexity

Tag

Value type

Example

Data API field

~channel

Search engine name

Google

last_attributed_touch_data_tilde_channel

~channel

AI chat agent name

ChatGPT

last_attributed_touch_data_tilde_channel

~organic_search_url

This tag provides the originating URL that led to the app session, whether surfaced via search engine or AI chat agent.

Tag

Value

Example

Data API field

~organic_search_url

Originating URL

https://example.com/category/section

last_attributed_touch_data_tilde_organic_search_url

Use this value to identify the exact piece of content (page, article, product detail, etc.) that drove the app conversion.

Testing and troubleshooting

Note

If you don't see AIO data in Branch, you may need to clear your browser cache. Bookmarks and saved queries from before AIO was released are cached and may not load the new data. Try clearing your browser's cache to resolve this issue.


You can also try resetting the page state.

Basic testing

To verify that SEO + AIO App Attribution is working:

  1. Find a URL from your configured domains that appears in search results or could be surfaced by an AI chat agent.

  2. Click the link from a search engine or AI chat agent.

  3. Verify that your app opens (this confirms Universal Links / App Links are working).

  4. Check your Branch dashboard to confirm the session is attributed correctly with the appropriate ~feature and ~channel values.

If your app does not open or attribution is not working correctly, work with your development team to troubleshoot. See our developer documentation for detailed troubleshooting steps.