What Web-to-App Attribution Is
Web-to-app attribution follows users from a website into an app and credits the app outcome to what happened on the web. A user taps a TikTok ad, lands on a product page, taps "Get the app", installs, and buys on day two. Without web-to-app attribution, the install looks organic and the TikTok ad looks like it drove a web visit and nothing else. With it, the install and the purchase are credited to the ad.
More journeys look like this than most teams expect. Search results, AI assistants, social posts, emails and creator links often point to a website first, and many products deliberately move mobile web visitors into the app because app users retain better.
Why the Handoff Breaks
The web page knows a lot: UTM parameters, ad click IDs such as gclid and fbclid, the referrer, the landing page. The app, on first open, knows almost nothing. A plain store badge sends the user to the App Store or Play Store with none of that context, so attribution has no signal to match.
Web-to-app attribution fixes the handoff by replacing the plain store link with a tracked link that carries campaign data through install.
How It Works
- Capture on the web. A web SDK or tag records the visit, its UTMs, click IDs and referrer, often keeping both the first and last touch.
- Tracked link to the app. "Open in app" buttons and banners use an attribution link that carries that context.
- Install and first open. On Android the link data can travel through the Play Store referrer. On iOS the attribution platform matches the first open to the link click. If the user already has the app, the link opens it directly.
- Deep link into context. Deferred deep linking opens the screen the user was looking at on the web, such as the product or the sign-up step.
- Report and send back. The install and later events are credited to the web campaign and, for paid traffic, sent back to the ad platform so it can optimize.
Web-to-App Ad Campaigns
Ad platforms now offer campaign types built for this journey. Meta web-to-app campaigns send users to a web page that moves them into the app, with installs and events measured through a mobile measurement partner and returned through the Conversions API. Other networks support the same pattern through links that keep their click IDs intact.
What to Measure
- Web-to-app conversion rate: the share of web visitors who install.
- Time to install: how long users spend on the web before installing.
- Post-install quality: retention and revenue for web-to-app users against direct installs.
- Channel mix: which web sources, including AI assistants and search, send users who become valuable app users.
Web-to-App Attribution in Linkrunner
Linkrunner's web-to-app measurement is live. It covers web visits that lead to installs, including Meta web-to-app campaigns created automatically with spend sync and the Conversions API, and link-based flows for TikTok, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Reddit and ChatGPT Ads. Linkrunner links carry deep links and deferred deep links into the right screen, with universal links and app links hosted for your domain.
The Web SDK, in beta, captures first-touch and last-touch UTMs, ad click IDs, and traffic classes for AI assistants (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Grok), search, social and referral. Website projects and a Shopify app are available.
Common Pitfalls
- Store badges on the website that skip the tracked link.
- Redirects that strip UTMs or click IDs before the web SDK reads them.
- Deep links that open the home screen instead of the page the user was on.
- Comparing web-to-app installs with network numbers that include cross-device conversions the MMP does not link.