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[Live Webinar] Q1 2025: State of User Acquisition[Live Webinar] Q1 2025: State of User Acquisition
Cross-device attribution

60% lower cost per trial via web2app?

Learn how implementing web-to-app user acquisition can lower your app's cost per trial, enhance tracking, and reach new audiences

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Web-to-app is hot. Super hot. In fact, something you’ll see in tomorrow’s release of Singular’s Quarterly Trends Report for Q1 2025 is a massive surge in web-to-app activity just in December.

There are plenty of reasons why, and we discussed most of them with fractional CMO and growth consultant Gessica Bicego in a recent Growth Masterminds podcast. 

Bicego is the former CMO at Paired, the couples app, and the former senior director of performance marketing and growth for Blinkist, the big book summarization app. She is also the former programmatic marketing manager for Kayak, the travel search engine, so she knows what she’s talking about.

Hit play and keep scrolling:

Web-to-app: better tracking, different audiences

One of the reasons for the big appeal of web-based UA is simple: better tracking. Compared to app campaigns constrained by Apple’s ATT and IDFA restrictions, web campaigns offer more robust data collection capabilities. 

“When you run web campaigns, you are able to track much more … around 20% more on average,” Bicego says.

But it’s not just about tracking. Web-based UA allows marketers to tap into an entirely different audience. Older users, who are often more likely to convert, are more reachable through web campaigns. (In fact, some marketers have told me they intentionally screen out younger people in user acquisition campaigns for subscription apps, knowing they’re much less likely to convert.)

And while web campaigns might come with higher CPMs, their increased effectiveness often makes them worth the investment. In fact, in some cases, Bicego reduced her cost per trial (CPT) by 60%. That’s a bit of an edge case, as you’ll see when you listen to the full podcast, but the fact remains: web2app can have super-high effectiveness and ROAS.

Landing pages … your secret weapon

Web2app is almost a specialty for Bicego now. It all kinda started at Blinkist, where she experimented with directing users to a landing page before the app store. 

“We were able to unlock a new growth channel by putting a piece of content between the ad and the app store,” she says. 

This intermediate step engaged users, gave a more in-depth explanation of product value, and ultimately drove higher conversion rates.

The transition wasn’t always smooth in the past. Tracking conversions from web to app used to be a challenge, thanks to analytics platforms that either measured web success or app success, but not both in conjunction. Gessica notes that modern marketing platforms have improved, though setting up these campaigns still requires careful integration between web pixels and app events. 

(Check out Singular’s industry-leading web attribution and cross-device attribution solutions.)

One of the key tactics Gessica highlights is the use of mini landing pages. 

“We discovered that triggering attribution as soon as users landed on the page—rather than waiting for them to click a CTA—significantly boosted performance,” she says.

Plus, you can automatically preload the App Store via APIs like SKOverlay on iOS, and offer a sneak peek at a Google Play listing with a custom landing page, reducing friction and increasing conversions. 

In some cases, you don’t even need to build a landing page on iOS. The App Store pre-load essentially can be your landing page.

Web-to-app versus web onboarding

Another powerful tool in the web-based UA playbook is web onboarding. Unlike app onboarding, which is constrained by app store environments, web onboarding gives you greater flexibility and more personalization.

It also helps you build an emotional connection with users:

“You’re not just asking questions to collect data. You’re creating a journey that makes users feel heard and understood,” Gessica Bicego says.

That’s not just about engagement, retention, and NPS scores. It’s also about increasing revenue, because when you offer a multi-platform service you build a deeper connection with users, customers, or players, have owned means of communication with them outside of iOS and Android, and, perhaps most importantly, by converting users on the web, you can bypass app store fees. 

Platforms like Stripe charge around 5%, significantly lower than the 15-30% charged by Apple and Google.

As we’ve recently heard from Stash, the resulting savings can boost revenue for some games by 30%. For others, 80% of their revenue is off-platform, and that’s possible for subscription apps and services as well.

Web funnels vs app funnels

One of Gessica’s key insights is the importance of treating web and app campaigns as distinct. 

“You’re not targeting the same users,” she said. “Creative, audience behavior, and even pricing strategies can differ significantly between the two channels.”

She recommended running separate creative tests for web and app campaigns and iterating based on performance. 

“Don’t assume that what works on app will work on web—and vice versa.”

Much more in the full podcast

Check out the full chat wherever you get your podcasts (you’ll find a few links here). Here’s what you’ll find:

  • 00:00 Introduction to Web-Based User Acquisition
  • 01:46 Transitioning from App to Web Acquisition
  • 03:01 Success Stories and Strategies
  • 06:04 Challenges and Solutions in Web Campaigns
  • 07:21 Understanding Audience and Metrics
  • 14:05 Optimizing Mini Mobile Web Landing Pages
  • 17:21 The Impact of Familiar Environments
  • 17:44 The Evolution of Landing Pages
  • 18:58 Innovative Paid Content Strategies
  • 19:55 The Challenges and Rewards of Paid Content
  • 24:45 Web Onboarding: A New Trend
  • 31:19 Personalizing Web and App Funnels
  • 34:32 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

While you’re at it, consider subscribing to our YouTube channel, where we publish all our Growth Masterminds episodes …

Web2app is about a lot of things: it’s a way to reach new audiences, optimize tracking, enhance the user journey, and boost revenue. While it requires effort, resources, and a willingness to experiment, the rewards—higher conversion rates, better retention, and reduced fees—make it a strategy worth exploring.

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