Web-to-app
Web-to-app journeys help you turn high-intent web visitors into app users. A user may start in a browser, click an ad, land on your website or app landing page, and then continue to the app store to install your app. With Adjust’s web-to-app solutions, you can connect these touchpoints so that campaign data, attribution signals, and user context are preserved across the journey.
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Open a new acquisition channel: Reach users through web campaigns and guide them toward your app
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Improve campaign efficiency: Use web inventory to expand reach, test new campaign strategies, and support more cost-efficient acquisition
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Support multiple platforms and stores: Send users to the store or destination that is most relevant to their device, platform, or market
How web-to-app works
In a typical web-to-app flow, a user:
- Sees and clicks an ad in a web browser.
- Lands on your mobile website or app landing page.
- Follows a call to action, such as a download button or banner.
- Is redirected to download the app or opens it directly.
- Is attributed in Adjust using the available campaign and device signals.
Since web-to-app journeys often begin in a browser, device identifiers may not be available. In these cases, Adjust can use probabilistic modeling and campaign parameters to attribute the user to the right source.
Why use web-to-app?
Use web-to-app measurement when your website plays an important role in the user journey, but your app is where you want users to convert, engage, or return. This is common for businesses such as ecommerce, banking, marketplaces, travel, and media, where users often move between web and app before taking action.
Adjust's solutions help you connect touchpoints into a single measurable flow. As users move from a web campaign or landing page into the app, Adjust helps preserve campaign source, click, and parameter data so you can attribute installs more accurately, understand performance, and send conversion data back to partners for optimization.
This also gives you more flexibility in how you promote your app. If a partner, platform, or store does not support the direct app promotion flow you need, a web campaign can provide an alternative route to reach users and guide them to the right destination.
Implementation process
Most web-to-app implementations follow the same high-level process:
- Configure partner settings in Campaign Lab
- Create a link for web campaigns
- Set up the campaign in the partner platform
- Preserve and pass campaign data from the landing page into the app journey
Depending on the partner, this can happen in different ways.
Partner setup
Partners support web-to-app campaigns in different ways. Some use parallel tracking, where users go directly to the landing page while Adjust attributes in the background. Others rely on redirects or landing-page scripts to preserve campaign and click data before sending users to the app store or app.
Since setup requirements vary by partner, use the guides below for partner-specific implementation details.
Choose the right solution
Smart Banners
Smart Banners are best when you want a complete web-to-app experience with configurable placement, appearance, behavior, localization, and reporting. This makes Smart Banners a good fit when your website receives high-intent traffic, but your app is the preferred place for users to convert, purchase, manage an account, or continue their journey.
Show a branded banner on your mobile website, guide users to the correct app store if they do not have your app installed, or send them directly to a chosen in-app location if the app is already installed and deep linking is configured.
Smart Scripts
Use Smart Scripts when you want to keep full control of your website experience, but still need a reliable way to preserve attribution as users move from web to app.
Smart Scripts run on your mobile website and use parameters from the incoming URL to dynamically create the right Adjust links for buttons, banners, or other calls to action. This helps carry source, campaign, ad group, creative, and other context from the original web touchpoint into the click that sends the user to your app or app store.
This is especially useful when traffic reaches your landing pages from multiple sources, or when the original web click was not an Adjust link. Instead of losing that context, Smart Scripts help maintain attribution to the original referring source, support deep linking and deferred deep linking, and reduce the risk of web-to-app conversions being misattributed or reported as organic.