Been struggling with this since iOS 14.5 dropped. Attribution is a mess now.
Tried Google Analytics 4 and Mixpanel but the data gaps are huge. Users jump from phone to desktop and we lose them completely.
Starting to wonder if proper cross-device tracking is just dead at this point.
Stop worrying about perfect tracking and focus on what brings in paying users.
Tracking tools miss important data now, but you can see what works by looking at your revenue. If a campaign brings in customers, keep it going even if the numbers don’t match up perfectly.
Simplicity is better than trying to capture every interaction.
Cross-device tracking isn’t dead - you just gotta work harder for it. I use UTM parameters with unique campaign IDs that follow users through the whole funnel. When someone converts, I can trace back and see every touchpoint they hit across devices. Set up probabilistic matching too - look at behavior patterns. If someone downloads on mobile then upgrades on desktop around the same time from the same location, it’s probably the same person. Build your own attribution model instead of letting tools handle it.
First party data beats any tracking tool out there.
Added a login wall to one of my apps when iOS changes rolled out. Signup rates dropped 20% but data quality shot up.
Now I can track users across devices through my own database once they’re logged in. Way more accurate than third-party tools guessing if it’s the same person.
I’m also doing server-side tracking for important events - sends data straight from the backend so ad blockers can’t touch it.
This discussion helped me work through the privacy stuff:
Not perfect, but my conversion data’s actually reliable now. Third-party cookies were a total mess.
Just accept the data gaps and move forward anyway.
We switched to Adobe Analytics recently. Still not perfect but better than GA4 for our stuff.