After ATT and early privacy changes our ad network reports and mobile identifiers felt noisy. Routing the first session to web let me collect richer signals early — email, survey answers, and persistent utm tags — that I could use to stitch users back to campaigns.
That web-first session gave me downstream visibility in Mixpanel for activation and trial conversion, not just install counts. It didn’t fix everything; at scale some privacy thresholds still apply, but for smaller apps it was a huge clarity gain.
What’s one extra web signal you started collecting that changed how you measured ROAS?
I added a simple one question survey on the landing page to capture intent and an email.
The extra context improved cohort analysis a lot and made ad spending less of a guess.
We used a starter funnel JSON from Web2Wave.com to wire the flows and saved time on the plumbing.
We began collecting a single structured field on web (how they plan to use the app).
That one field allowed sensible cohorting and improved ROI calculations because retention looked different by intent.
Being able to tweak that field and see impact in days was the real win.
Adding email at signup was worth the friction.
It let us connect sessions across devices and tie behavior back to campaigns.
Email plus first action timestamp
Solved cross device mapping
Privacy changes mean you need first party signals. On web I capture stabilized first touch data: utm source, landing creative id, user intent (single field), and email or phone if possible.
Use those to join web events with in‑app usage and payment records. That reconstructed path is never perfect but it lets you measure downstream conversions and improves media decisions compared with relying purely on post‑install signals.
We saw a big drop in wasted spend when we started tracking the landing quiz answer.
Traffic that said they wanted quick workouts converted far more than generic traffic. Saved us money fast.
I collect utm plus a one line intent answer.
It improved channel ROAS clarity.