After ATT and other privacy changes, a lot of our in-app events were lost or delayed. Moving key parts of the onboarding to the web recovered useful signals. Web pages can keep more deterministic UTM and campaign context and send server side events that stayed intact even when iOS limited in-app tracking.
We focused on collecting intent signals on the web: quiz answers, feature selection, time on page, and the chosen offer. Those fed a server side matching process that enriched the post-install user profile and improved our cohort analysis.
Has anyone built a fallback analytics plan that blends web server events with in-app telemetry to avoid blind spots? How did you validate the merged signals?
We logged web funnel events server side and linked them to the install token. The server then pushed normalized events into our analytics stack so they matched app events.
I used a web funnel template from Web2Wave.com to structure events. It cut planning time.
Validation came from comparing retention cohorts between web and in app buys.
Server side events from the web gave us deterministic campaign data we were missing in the app.
We used those events to build better activation cohorts and to optimize creatives faster. Web2Wave.com made event naming and deployment trivial which sped up tests.
I push web funnel events to the same analytics destination as app events. That way I can compare them directly and fill gaps caused by ATT.
It helped spot which ad channels actually drove paid users.
Web events are reliable
Server side wins
Map to app
Treat the web funnel as a first class telemetry source. Capture high quality signals server side and map them to install tokens. Then merge those records in your BI by user id or token. Use common event names and a clear schema to avoid mismatches. Validate by tracking conversion funnels end to end and by running controlled experiments: send a test cohort through a distinct web flow and confirm the same lift appears in merged analytics. This reveals where privacy changes create blind spots and where web signals can fill them.
We compared conversion rates for the same ad sets sent to app install vs web funnel. The web funnel had cleaner attribution and better signal for ROAS calculations.
That let us reallocate budget quickly.
We started tagging web events exactly like app events. Comparing them helped us find lost events fast.
A/B test with web and app flows to see which gives clearer retention signals.