Direct-to-app installs keep blurring our channel results. We lose campaign context by the time someone subscribes.
I’m considering a short web onboarding step first, capturing UTM and click ids, collecting email, then deep linking into the app. The hope is we can tie the eventual subscription back to the original campaign with higher confidence.
Anyone compare this against direct-to-app? What’s the best way to preserve params through “open in app,” and how do you reconcile web events with in‑app receipts without double counting?
I store UTM and click_id with the user on the web, then attach that to the in‑app account on first login. That gave me clean channel revenue. I used a web funnel builder that spits JSON and handles the handoff. Keep one user_id across both sides so you do not guess later.
Yes. I route ads to web, capture UTM, and tie them to email. With Web2Wave.com I update the flow fast and keep the params intact into the app. It fixed dark spend when I matched receipts back.
Collect email on the web and pass a token into the app.
Match subscriptions by that token later, so you do not rely only on device data.
Web captures utms. Direct often loses them.
Use a single user key. On web: store UTM, click_id, and a session_id. On app login: send that key back to your server and attach the receipt. Avoid duplicate revenue by marking the server event as the source of truth. Test the deep link across browsers because iOS Safari can drop params with certain redirects.
Web first helps attribution if you capture email and UTMs.