Traffic attribution · Session replay
One in seven of this store's customers came from ChatGPT
Its analytics filed them under “direct”. Whence names the source of every visit, then shows you the recording of what that person did next.
14 days free · No card required · One line to install
Measured, not claimed
The measurement that made us build this
One real store, eight days of traffic, 1,888 customer visits. Here is where they actually came from, once every source was named instead of guessed.
- ChatGPT sent twice the traffic of Google organic, and five times what Meta Ads delivered. It cost nothing.
- It is the third largest source, ahead of everything except paid search and unattributed direct.
- Without naming it, all of it lands in “direct” — where it looks like luck rather than a channel worth working on.
One store, 26 August to 2 September 2026. Internal traffic and tooling referrals excluded. A single store over eight days is a real measurement, not a market study — your own numbers will differ, which is rather the point.
What Whence does
Attribution first, then the proof
Knowing where a customer came from is the argument. The recording of what they did next is what turns that number into something you can act on.
Sessions
Watch the visit as it happened, or follow it live while the person is still on your store.
Sessions →Attribution
Every visit gets a named source. Search engines, ad platforms, social, and the AI assistants everyone else lumps into “direct”.
Attribution →Advertising
Connect Google Ads and Meta, then see what the click actually did once it landed.
Advertising →Signals
Nine failure patterns detected automatically, each one attached to the session that proves it.
Signals →Inside Whence
This is the screen you will actually use
A session opens with its source in the header, its timeline underneath, and every flagged moment marked on it. You do not hunt for the interesting part — it is already labelled.
Reconstructed from the product. Visitor names are generated from a technical identifier and carry no personal data.
The difference
AI assistants send you customers. Your analytics calls them “direct”.
When someone asks an assistant for a recommendation and lands on your store, the referrer is that assistant. Whence reads it and names it. You get to see whether that traffic buys, and how it behaves compared to a paid click.
Conversational sources, named
Everything else, also named
- Paid clicks are read from the platform's own click ID, not guessed from a UTM tag someone forgot to set.
- The source is fixed on arrival and stays attached to the visit, so a later internal link cannot overwrite it.
- Every source links to its sessions. A number you cannot open is a number you cannot act on.
Getting started
Three steps, one afternoon
Add the script
One line in your theme, or the app for your platform. Shopify, WooCommerce, WordPress, BigCommerce, PrestaShop and Magento are supported.
Let it run
Recording starts immediately. Inputs are masked by default, and nothing is collected until consent is granted if you require it.
Open the first session
Within an hour you will have named sources and your first flagged signals. There is nothing to configure to get there.
Connects with
Your store and your ad accounts
Store platforms are supported through a script or a plugin. Ad platforms connect through their own authorisation, and refresh themselves.
The honest comparison
Free tools record sessions. None of them name your sources.
If all you need is to watch recordings, use a free tool — we would tell you the same on a call. Whence exists for the question they cannot answer.
| What you get | Free replay tools | Whence |
|---|---|---|
| Session recordings | Yes | Yes |
| Heatmaps | Yes | Not yet |
| Unlimited traffic | Often | Priced by volume |
| Visits from ChatGPT, named | Filed as direct | Named |
| Visits from Perplexity, Gemini, Claude | Filed as direct | Named |
| Paid clicks read from the platform click ID | — | Seven platforms |
| Ad cost and ROAS beside the behaviour | — | Connect plan |
| Which products deserve the spend | — | Decide plan |
Use a free tool if
You buy no traffic, you want heatmaps, and knowing your sources would not change a single decision this quarter.
Use Whence if
You spend money on ads and you are not certain what that money brings back, or your reporting has a large unattributed pile in it.
Use both if
Nothing stops you running two scripts. Several merchants keep a free tool for heatmaps and Whence for where the money comes from.
Pricing
Three plans, three questions
What you want the product to do, and how much traffic you send it, are priced separately. Prices shown at 25,000 sessions a month.
Where every visitor came from, and what stopped them buying.
- Named sources, AI included Yes
- Nine failure signals Yes
- From 5,000 sessions
Your ad spend, next to what the click actually did.
- Everything in See Yes
- Google Ads, Meta, GA4 Yes
- Cost and ROAS per campaign Yes
Which products deserve the spend, and whether your changes worked.
- Everything in Connect Yes
- Winning products, ROAS per item Yes
- Impact testing, API Yes
Questions
The things people ask first
Do you collect personal data about my visitors?
No names, no email addresses, no form contents. Every input is masked before it leaves the browser, and fields whose name suggests a password, a card, an email, a phone or an address are dropped outright. Visitors appear under readable but invented names built from a technical identifier alone, so your team can talk about “Mint Mango” without anyone knowing who that is.
Will this slow my store down?
The script is 62 KB compressed, which is heavier than the free tools and lighter than most paid ones. It loads after your page, never blocks rendering, and samples mouse movement rather than recording every pixel of it. We would rather tell you the number than hide it, and reducing it is on our roadmap.
How do you know a visit came from ChatGPT?
The browser tells us. When someone follows a link out of an assistant, the referring address is that assistant's domain, and we read it on arrival. It is the same mechanism every analytics tool has access to. The difference is that we bothered to name the sources instead of filing them under “referral”.
Can I ask for a visitor's data to be exported or deleted?
Yes. Both requests are built in, run as background jobs, and are recorded in an audit log. Retention is set per plan and can be shortened per store, down to a single day.
What happens when I hit my session limit?
Recording pauses for the rest of the month rather than billing you for the overage. You keep access to everything already recorded, and you can move up a plan at any point in the month.
Can I cancel?
At any time, from your own billing page, without writing to anyone. Your data stays available until the end of the period you paid for.
Find out where your last ten sales came from
Fourteen days, no card, no call with anyone.
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