Why teams run web campaigns to grow an app

What a web campaign for an app is

In an app install campaign, the ad opens the app store. In a web campaign for an app, the ad opens a web page that you control, and the page sends the visitor on to the store or straight into the app. The page might be a landing page, an article, a quiz or a creator's profile link. The goal is the same in both cases: a new user who does something of value in the app.

Four reasons teams add the web step

The page can say more

A store listing follows the store's layout. A landing page gives you more room to match the ad that led to it, answer one objection in depth, show a comparison, or speak to one audience.

The page is quick to change

You can publish a new headline on a web page in minutes and test two versions side by side with ordinary web tools. That makes the page a cheap place to learn which message works before you carry it into the app.

Many sources only accept a URL

Email, search results, creator bios, podcasts, partner sites and printed QR codes all point at a web address. If you already publish links in those places, you are running web campaigns whether you measure them or not.

The page can capture interest early

A visitor who is not ready to install may still leave an email address or answer a few questions. The app can then greet them with what they chose, if the link into the app carries that context. This is the job of a deferred deep link.

What the extra step costs

Every added step loses people. Some visitors read the page and never tap the store button, and some tap and never install. A web campaign only wins when the visitors who do continue are more likely to become valuable users than visitors sent straight to the store.

There is a measurement cost too. An install campaign reports installs inside the ad platform. A web campaign reports clicks or page events there, and the install happens out of the ad platform's sight. Unless the page hands the visit to your attribution platform, the installs it produces look as if they came from nowhere. The mechanism that prevents this is described in how web-to-app attribution works.

How to decide whether to try it

Running a fair test

1. Choose one audience and one offer. Run an install campaign and a web campaign for it at the same time, with similar budgets.
2. Give the web page's store button a tracking link, so that installs from the page are credited to the web campaign.
3. Compare the two on the cost of one in-app event, such as a trial start or first purchase. Comparing clicks or installs alone favours whichever path is shorter.
4. Let both run long enough for the in-app event to happen before you judge.

To compare the two on return, use the definition under ROAS.

What to do next

Start with the links you already publish. Pick the web source that sends the most visitors, put a tracking link on its path to the store, and read one week of results. The setup and the four counts to collect are in measuring a landing page that sends visitors to the app store.