How Wavelength Found 40% Lower Cost per Conversation Using Linkrunner

Install costs did not reveal which campaigns started conversations

Wavelength recommends a small set of curated matches. For its growth team, the meaningful outcome happens after acquisition: two people match and start talking. Install reporting alone could not show which Meta campaigns delivered that outcome.

The team needed to compare three approaches: Android campaigns optimised for signups, Android campaigns optimised for completed onboarding, and an iOS campaign with a web-to-app journey. A deeper optimisation goal looked promising, but it needed to be measured against what users actually did.

Across these campaigns from 1 Oct to 11 Nov 2026, acquiring a user who matched cost about 2.7 times as much as an install. Acquiring a user who started a conversation cost about 5.5 times as much. Wavelength needed campaign-level visibility into those later steps, including on iOS.

Connect ad spend to the first conversation

Wavelength introduced Linkrunner attribution and in-app events in February 2026, then added Meta postbacks in May. The team could follow the journey from ad to install, signup, completed onboarding, match and conversation.

• Campaign attribution across both platforms: the Linkrunner SDK connects installs and subsequent in-app events to their acquisition campaign on Android and iOS.

• Conversion signals for Meta: signup and completed-onboarding events are sent back as postbacks, giving campaigns an optimisation signal beyond the download.

• Measurement for the iOS journey: web-to-app attribution connects the campaign's landing-page journey with app activity, while event mapping supplies Apple's SKAN conversion values.

• Costs and retention in one view: campaign spend, cost per install, match and conversation, and week-one retention can be reviewed together without joining separate reports.

The lowest conversation cost came from the smallest-budget campaign

For 1 Oct to 11 Nov 2026, the Android signup campaign delivered conversations at approximately ₹286 each, compared with ₹462 for the Android onboarding campaign. That is about 40% lower cost per conversation, yet the signup campaign received only about 13% of Meta spend. The same efficiency pattern was also visible in September.

Three campaigns, different strengths

The iOS web-to-app campaign cost more per install but retained about 18% of users after a week, the highest of the three. Its reported cost per retained user was also the lowest, at approximately ₹607. The Android onboarding campaign had the highest cost per match, conversation and retained user.

A clearer basis for budget decisions

Wavelength can now compare the cost of starting conversations with the cost of retaining users. Android signups and iOS acquisition serve different goals, and the team can see that trade-off at campaign level.

Linkrunner also delivered approximately 5,000 conversion signals to Meta over a 30-day window with zero failed postbacks, allowing campaign optimisation to learn from signups and completed onboarding.