TL;DR — Start with Analytics > Referrer Analytics to see which AI providers actually send traffic to your site today, then sort by sessions descending to build your tier-1 list. Go to Compare > By Provider to check where competitors dominate a platform you are weak on — that is a growth priority. Review Workspace > Monitoring to ensure every prompt runs on your tier-1 providers. Pro tip: build a 2x2 matrix of visibility vs referrer traffic per provider — the low-visibility, high-traffic quadrant is your immediate priority.
The Question
“Which AI providers should I prioritize monitoring and why?”Not every AI provider deserves equal monitoring attention. The right answer depends on which platforms your target audience actually uses, which ones are already sending you referral traffic, and which ones your competitors are winning on. Monitoring all providers at equal priority spreads your credit budget thin and buries the signals that matter in noise. This page shows you how to build a prioritized, evidence-based provider stack in Qwairy. You might also be wondering:
- “Which AI provider sends the most traffic to my website right now?”
- “Are my competitors strong on providers where I am weak?”
- “Should I monitor AI providers that are not yet sending me traffic?”
Where to Go in Qwairy
Start here: Analytics > Referrer Analytics
Navigate to Analytics > Referrer Analytics — this is the ground truth for which AI providers are already driving real user traffic to your site.
The referrer breakdown shows sessions, users, and engagement metrics grouped by AI referrer domain (chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, claude.ai, gemini.google.com, etc.). Sort by sessions descending to see your actual traffic ranking by provider. These providers are already sending you users — they warrant the highest monitoring priority because improvements here have direct traffic and revenue impact.
Note which providers are sending zero or near-zero traffic — these may be growth opportunities or simply platforms your audience does not use.
Go deeper: Overview > Performance — By Provider
Cross-reference with Overview > Performance and expand the provider breakdown table.
The provider table shows your Brand Mention Visibility rate on each platform. Compare this against the referrer traffic ranking: a provider where you have high visibility but low referrer traffic may have a click-through problem (you are mentioned but not cited with a link). A provider where you have low visibility but it ranks high in traffic potential for your category is a growth priority.
Use the Compare > By Provider view to add the competitive layer — check whether competitors dominate specific providers. A provider where you have 10% visibility and your main competitor has 55% is a clear remediation priority, not just a growth opportunity.
Complete the picture: Workspace > Monitoring + MCP
Open Workspace > Monitoring and review which providers are currently enabled for each of your monitored prompts. Ensure your highest-priority providers (from the referrer and competitive analysis above) are included in every prompt run — under-monitoring your most impactful providers defeats the purpose of the analysis.
Connect the MCP integration if you use AI tools internally. The MCP gives programmatic access to provider-level performance data, making it possible to build custom alert logic that triggers when visibility drops on a specific high-priority provider.
What to Look For
Referrer Analytics — Traffic-Based Provider Ranking
Referrer Analytics is your demand-side signal. It tells you which providers your audience is already using and where they have already developed the habit of following AI-cited links. This should be the primary driver of your monitoring priority stack — not provider popularity in general, but provider popularity with your specific audience.| Element | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Sessions by referrer | The real-world traffic impact of each AI provider for your brand specifically |
| Engagement rate by referrer | Whether traffic from each provider is high-quality — low engagement may mean AI recommendations are attracting the wrong audience |
| Traffic trend by provider | Which providers are growing as referral sources — early priority for rising platforms pays dividends |
| Zero-traffic providers | Platforms your audience is not using OR platforms where you have no visibility to drive clicks |
Performance Dashboard — Visibility vs Traffic Matrix
The most useful mental model is a 2×2: high visibility + high traffic (protect and grow), high visibility + low traffic (citation link problem to fix), low visibility + high traffic (content and monitoring priority), low visibility + low traffic (deprioritize or defer).Pro Tip: Build this 2×2 explicitly using the Export feature. Export provider-level visibility data from the Performance Dashboard and match it against provider-level session data from Referrer Analytics in a spreadsheet. The low-visibility, high-traffic quadrant becomes your immediate priority list.
Filters That Help
| Filter | How to use it for this question |
|---|---|
| Period | Use 90-day data for referrer rankings — monthly data can be noisy and mislead provider prioritization |
| Topic | Check which providers dominate for your most strategic topic tags — provider priority may differ by product area |
| Competitor | In Compare > By Provider, check competitor visibility per platform to identify where the competitive threat is concentrated |
How to Interpret the Results
Good result
You have a clear tier-1 provider list (2–3 platforms that send measurable traffic and have meaningful competitive activity) and a tier-2 list (platforms that are growing or where competitors are winning but your audience impact is not yet established). Your Workspace > Monitoring configuration reflects this: every prompt runs on all tier-1 providers and selectively on tier-2 providers based on topic relevance. You are not monitoring tier-3 providers at full frequency, keeping credit usage efficient.Needs attention
You are monitoring all providers at equal frequency with no prioritization, spending credits on platforms that send zero referrer traffic and have no competitive activity for your category. Or: your highest-traffic AI referrer is not enabled on several of your most important monitored prompts, creating blind spots on your most impactful platform. Or: a competitor has 40%+ visibility on a provider that sends you near-zero traffic — a clear growth opportunity you are not currently measuring.Example
Scenario: A B2B cybersecurity firm selling endpoint protection and threat intelligence solutions wants to rationalize their provider monitoring configuration. They currently monitor 6 providers at equal frequency across 28 prompts targeting IT security buyers.
- Open Analytics > Referrer Analytics for the past 90 days. Perplexity accounts for 58% of all AI referrer traffic — consistent with cybersecurity professionals using it for research. ChatGPT accounts for 27%. Google AI Overview accounts for 9%. Claude and others: near zero, suggesting the security buyer audience skews heavily toward Perplexity and ChatGPT.
- Open Overview > Performance provider breakdown. On Perplexity (their top traffic provider): 29% Brand Mention Visibility. On ChatGPT: 16%. On Google AI Overview: 38% — high visibility but minimal referrer traffic, suggesting either a citation link problem or that security buyers are not using Google AI Overview for procurement research.
- Open Overview > Compare > By Provider. On Perplexity, the main competitor (CrowdStrike) has 61% visibility vs the company’s 29% — a 32-point gap on the most impactful platform. On ChatGPT, the gap is also significant: CrowdStrike 44% vs company 16%. The competitive threat is concentrated on the two platforms that matter most.
- Reconfigure Workspace > Monitoring: Perplexity and ChatGPT become tier-1 (all 28 prompts, highest run frequency). Google AI Overview becomes tier-2 (investigate why high visibility is not converting to traffic, 14 prompts). Claude and others become tier-3 (8 prompts, lower frequency). This reallocates credit spend toward the two providers where the cybersecurity buyer audience is most active and the competitive gap is largest.
Go Further
Provider comparison features
Read the Performance Dashboard documentation to understand how to compare provider performance and decide priorities
Provider priority dashboard
Build a provider priority dashboard in Looker Studio using the performance-overview data source
Track per-provider data via API
Use the performance endpoint to programmatically compare your visibility across providers and identify priorities
Related Questions
Which AI providers mention my brand the most?
Detailed provider-level visibility breakdown and what drives differences across platforms
Am I monitoring the right prompts?
Ensure your prompt set is covering the right queries before optimizing provider priority
Which provider drives the most AI traffic to my site?
Deep dive into referrer analytics for provider-specific traffic attribution