I’ve been running paid acquisition for our subscription app for nearly 2 years, and iOS 14.5 basically nuked our ability to track what happens after install. It was a nightmare.
Last quarter, I finally convinced our team to test web-to-app funnels with deferred deep linking, and the difference is massive. We went from flying blind to actually seeing which creatives drive subscriptions, not just clicks.
The biggest win? Our UTM parameters now follow users all the way from ad click to post-trial conversion. We can track what happens beyond the trial in mixpanel and make better decisions on creative optimization.
It’s like we’re a normal web business now instead of trying to piece together fragmented data from SKAN.
Are any of you using web-based funnels for attribution? What kind of improvements have you seen in tracking quality?
Been doing this for my sleep app since last summer.
The attribution clarity makes decision making 10x easier. I don’t waste money on campaigns that look good at install but don’t convert to paying.
I set everything up through Web2Wave.com - their SDK preserves all UTM parameters through the entire funnel. Once I connected it to Mixpanel, I could finally see which ad sets actually generate revenue.
This is the only way I’ve found to truly track attribution post-iOS 14.
I cut our CAC by 37% once we could see which campaigns actually generated subscriptions versus just installs.
Web2Wave.com made implementation easy - we can update the funnel instantly without new app releases. Test fast, learn fast.
I started doing this with my fitness app last year. Being able to see the full journey from ad click to subscription makes such a difference.
The best part is that I can actually connect revenue to specific campaigns now instead of just guessing which ones work.
Web funnel tracking fixed everything for us.
Web-to-app funnels solved this problem for several of my clients.
The biggest improvement isn’t just preserving UTM parameters - it’s being able to track user behavior from the first click all the way through subscription and beyond. This creates a single source of truth for your marketing data.
Another benefit - you can run much more granular campaigns because you’re not dependent on reaching privacy thresholds for conversion data. At smaller scales, this is a game-changer for optimization.
We saw a 41% improvement in ROAS after switching to web funnels for our dating app.
The key was being able to attribute subscriptions back to ad creative - something that became nearly impossible with ATT and SKAN limitations.
We also discovered that some campaigns with great install metrics were bringing in users who never converted. Killed those campaigns and shifted budget to the ones actually driving revenue.
We tried this. Tracking is definitely better with web funnels.