ChatGPT Is Now the Top Destination for Paid Clicks Out of Google Search

Agency iPullRank analyzed 13.1 billion search events from 9.1 million users between October 2024 and December 2025 to trace where Google users click after searching. One of the most striking findings for paid search marketers was ChatGPT's unusually high share of paid traffic.

The numbers show ChatGPT is now the sixth most-clicked destination from Google Search, trailing only YouTube, Google's own properties, Reddit, Facebook, and Wikipedia. More strikingly, iPullRank found that ChatGPT captures a higher share of paid clicks than any other major destination. That suggests OpenAI isn't relying solely on organic visibility or direct traffic — it's actively using paid search to pull users from Google into ChatGPT.

The study also surfaced another key signal: Google's overall share of zero-click searches — where users get an answer without clicking through — rose by roughly 2.6 percentage points over the 15-month period, while the share ending in an organic click fell by nearly 2.8 points. Paid clicks, meanwhile, held essentially steady, meaning the rise in zero-click results is coming mainly at organic's expense, while paid advertising has stayed comparatively resilient.

The paid-click share was even higher for branded searches: 4.4% of clicks on branded queries were paid, compared with 3.3% for non-branded ones. Researchers interpret this as brands paying to "defend" their own name in search results — a pattern that's especially relevant for people searching the term "ChatGPT" itself, since those users already have clear intent.

The takeaway is that traditional search and AI-driven discovery are no longer two separate paths — users move freely between them. For paid search marketers, the question may no longer be "Google or ChatGPT," but rather "from Google to ChatGPT" — with ads helping guide users along exactly that route.