For years, mobile app user acquisition (UA) was built almost entirely around SKAdNetwork (SKAN), Apple’s privacy-first attribution framework. While SKAN is still required for iOS compliance, modern app teams are now embracing web-to-app funnels, experimenting with creative testing, and exploring first-party attribution methods. UA has evolved, and SKAN is no longer its center of gravity. It’s a baseline signal, rather than a source of truth.
Today, teams are moving beyond standard app campaigns and rebuilding their campaign structures. Read on to understand the user acquisition strategy from top-performing app studios in the world, and how they run enhanced ad campaigns to make more money.
App campaigns under the hood: what isn’t working
As everyone knows, if you work with a mobile app and plan to spend money on paid ads, ad networks (Meta, Google, TikTok, etc.) offer a dedicated campaign type for advertisers to use. While each ad network has different naming — e.g. Meta and TikTok call it ‘App promotion’, while Google calls it ‘Google app campaigns’ — the goal is the same: to offer a dedicated advertising product for mobile apps looking to drive installs or specific user actions, like purchases.
For the sake of this article, I’ll refer to this type of campaign as a ‘standard app campaign’ (SAC).
SACs have been the standard way for almost every single app to run ads. They are pretty straightforward to set up, easy to understand, and designed specifically for mobile apps by sending all users to the same place: the app store product page.
Surrounding that moment, there are three crucial levers to make profitable paid ads:
- Pre-app store: test new ad creatives
- App store: app store optimization (ASO)
- Post-app store: onboarding and paywall optimization
But, even if you successfully use those levers, SACs have four main problems that impact all app advertisers:
- Measurement and attribution problems, caused by the implementation of SKAN and native models like Meta’s aggregated event measurement (AEM)
- Limited reach, since most app campaigns’ inventory cannot reach what web campaigns do — based on Paddle data, there is only a 15% overlap between app campaigns and web campaigns
- Limited control over ad placement and campaign types, caused by campaign automation
- Retargeting constraints on iOS due to privacy limitations, which make it hard to target with precision
Because of these problems and consequences, a new trend has emerged in the last two to three years: web-to-app.
The web-to-app trend
So, what the hell is web-to-app?
A good definition is: it is a marketing approach that brings users to a dedicated web-to-app funnel before guiding them to a mobile app. Here, users complete a personalized onboarding flow, subscribe, and then install the app.
Over the past few years, more and more apps have been testing and adopting web-to-app campaigns. By doing so, some companies have come to view SACs as no longer part of their marketing strategy.
Nathan Hudson, Founder & CEO at Perceptycs, wrote a good article on the reasons web-to-app became popular:
- Don’t pay any fees to Apple or Google
- Get your money faster
- Say goodbye to SKAN and ATT attribution struggles
- Build and deploy onboarding experiments faster
- Reach new audiences
- More control and more customization
For these reasons, lately, many app growth teams are focused on web-to-app. And new startups have emerged offering no-code tools to build and customize your web onboarding experience.
However, as Thomas stated on the Sub Club podcast, some apps are adopting this trend for the wrong reason: just to avoid app store fees. What these apps don’t know is that web-to-app also has a set of hidden costs, like:
- Managing your transactions online introduces a host of additional complexities that can outweigh the benefits for many businesses
- Apps still have to pay a 3% (often higher) fee to a payment processor like Stripe
- Paying for expensive third-party tools to build the web onboarding experience
- Dealing with global tax compliance and legal structures
- ASO rankings will take a hit because fewer people see your product page and download the app
Based on my personal experience, web-to-app can become a nightmare for apps making less than $1M a year — since they pay app stores just 15% (rather than 30% like >$1M apps), the savings are almost non-existent.
Based on this report from AppFigures, only 0.28% of new apps made more than $1M a year in 2024, which basically means — if you’re pursuing web-to-app solely for the purpose of avoiding app store fees — then for 99% of apps it doesn’t make much financial sense.
But what if there’s a middle ground? A user acquisition strategy that could combine the best of both worlds between standard and web-to-app campaigns
Enhanced app campaigns: 8 benefits
Enhanced app campaign (EACs) is a new marketing protocol we’ve developed at Appstack. They consist of web campaigns that redirect all users to the app stores, without needing a website.
Enhanced app campaigns aim to combine the top benefits of standard app campaigns with the flexibility and control of web-to-app, giving you a new way to run paid ads for your mobile app.
| Standard app campaigns | Web-to-app |
|---|---|
| No impact on ASO rankings ✅ | No more attribution struggles ✅ |
| No web funnel is needed ✅ | Reach new audiences ✅ |
| No tax or legal complications ✅ | More control and customization ✅ |
The results for enhanced app campaigns speak for themselves: looking at a dataset containing data from dozens of subscription apps, we saw an average decrease in cost per subscription of 25%, and an average decrease in cost per start trial of 20%. One fact worth noting is that, in most cases, these numbers were achieved even after increasing daily ad spending.
Enhanced app campaigns are great for apps looking to:
- Expand paid reach
- Improve profitability
- Target B2B or specific niches
- Engage older audiences
- Improve attribution or seek clarity
We’ve seen great success with EACs, and it’s fast becoming the dominant way to run ads for mobile apps. Let’s break down these reasons why.
1. Superior attribution
If you believe the term ‘superior attribution’ is misleading, you are wrong. EACs genuinely have far superior attribution than standard app campaigns run through ad networks. Let me explain:
- Firstly, to run enhanced app campaigns, apps only need to install the Appstack SDK. This enables running ads across multiple ad networks simultaneously with consistent measurement.
- Enhanced app campaigns rely on probabilistic matching with an accuracy rate of +95%, allowing app advertisers to pass encrypted PII (Personally Identifiable Information) to improve the quality of the signal (optional), which is as good as it can be. EACs don’t rely on SKAN for iOS attribution, enabling apps to get real-time, high-precision data.
- EACs rely on APIs to send in-app event postbacks (signals) to ad networks, creating a more stable and reliable way to keep the signals pipeline in the correct numbers compared to the SDK method.
- Since EACs rely on ad links (tracking links), they enable data at the most granular level (ad or keyword, depending on the campaign type). This means apps can see ROAS, profit, rLTV, and many other metrics with greater precision than ever before.
Enhanced app campaigns have unified measurement, enabling apps to get the clearest picture of their app’s success. You can see the entire user history, including all engagements before and after installation — and it works with the most popular ad networks, including Meta, Google, and TikTok. It also lets apps see multiple attribution models, such as last-click, multi-touch or first-click.
2. Fast integration
All apps that use RevenueCat can benefit from a quick, easy implementation to start running enhanced app campaigns with the RevenueCat and Appstack integration.
Using RevenueCat to run EACs will help you to unlock:
- A light-speed integration process: no need for developers to map any in-app events or debug to ensure that client-side events (Appstack SDK events) are triggered properly
- Avoid untrustworthy data caused by poor implementation or changes to the codebase that could affect in-app events mapped by the Appstack SDK
- Easily access server-to-server events like trial_converted or renewals to use them for paid ads
Try the Appstack integration today
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3. Paywall customization
Apps running enhanced app campaigns can show ad-targeted paywalls based on where your users came from, using RevenueCat targeting capabilities and paywalls.
Mobile apps can show a paywall depending on five different paid ads parameters:
- Ad network (Meta Ads, TikTok Ads, Google Ads, etc.)
- Ad campaign name
- Ad set name
- Ad name
- Keyword
This opens up entirely new testing opportunities, such as:
- Keeping organic users with free trials and paid ads users with hard paywalls
- Showing a trial-only paywall for campaigns optimizing for trial starts
- Customizing design and copy for gender-targeted or interest-targeted campaigns
- Presenting higher pricing to users coming from high-intent keywords
- Matching the tone and visual language of the ad, the user originally clicked
4. Campaign control
Over the last few years, ad networks have shifted towards automation. This means app advertisers have less control over ad placements during campaign setup, with the algorithm deciding where to allocate the budget.
With EACs, you can take back control and choose where your money is spent. This makes a lot of sense for apps looking to spend money on Google and TikTok Ads.
For example, on Google Ads, an EAC can let you:
- Unlock search-to-app campaigns that allow apps to bid on specific keywords or search terms to acquire users. The reporting capabilities enable apps to see revenue and ROAS at the keyword level.
- Run YouTube Shorts only, by selecting demand gen as campaign objective and choosing shorts as the only placement on YouTube. This enables apps with traction on Meta or TikTok to deploy the same creatives in a new channel, using the same ad format, to keep growing.
On the other hand, TikTok search-to-app is a new campaign type that allows apps to select a specific set of keywords while using the same ads. Currently, only apps running EACs can run this campaign type.
5. Expanded reach
As Daphne commented in her guide to web-to-app funnels, “Paid optimization looks very different for app campaigns compared to web campaigns. By focusing on the web, you can unlock an entirely new audience you may not have reached before.”
Like Daphne, even after working with dozens of mobile apps, I rarely see an app campaign advertised to me on Meta or TikTok. So I’m definitely in that web audience bucket!
Just like web-to-app campaigns, EACs unlock a new inventory of potential users. This is great for apps of all sizes. Either because their current audience is not performing well, or because apps are saturating an audience and need to look for new users.
6. Retargeting
If you thought that retargeting on iOS was dead in 2026… well, you were right. But EACs are bringing it back. The question is: how is it possible now, given that before everyone said running retargeting campaigns on iOS after the end of IDFA was no longer viable?
The enhanced app campaign protocol allows sending enriched signals to the ad network, which can be used to create custom audiences for retargeting.
For example, these are some of the parameters that the signal includes (data encrypted), which EACs send to Meta for campaign optimization:
- Phone number
- First name
- Last name
- Date birth
- IP address
- User agent
- Browser ID
- External ID
- Zip code
- City
- State
- Click ID
As you can see, there are many parameters that help Meta (and the other ad networks) to identify the right users.
Using these retargeting capabilities, you can leverage EACs to:
- Use custom audiences as an exclusion to avoid showing ads to users who already have your app
- Reduce the CPM and ad frequency
- Launch retargeting campaigns for users who installed the app but didn’t complete the target event, such as a purchase or sign-up (highly recommended for e-commerce or gaming apps!)
7. ASO friendly
Everyone knows that most users only install the app that ranks between the top three results after a search.
So investing money in ads through web-to-app campaigns means you are also investing in minimizing your chances of improving your ranks and getting more app reviews, because fewer users see your product page.
Since EACs redirect users directly to the app store and let everyone install the advertised app, you won’t be hurting your ASO efforts.
This is a strong point for small- to medium-sized apps considering the web-to-app option, given better measurement capabilities.
8. Zero overheads
I know how hard it is to actually make a living out of a mobile app. So imagine adding extra responsibility and problems to it. EACs are built so apps focus on what matters most for your business in 2026: actually reaching customers.
There’s three key benefits to EACs for your UA strategy:
- Frictionless: apps remove the need for a website and maintain it; saving money.
- Smart economics: incremental revenue without the need to implement third-party services like an onboarding builder or new payment provider. With EACs, apps don’t need to change their existing stacks; they pair easily with what’s already in place.
- Operational efficiency: Eliminate the need for web funnels, global tax compliance, and legal structures. Since all users are redirected to the app stores, users use the app stores’ payment systems.
Sounds good, right?
Key takeaways
Enhanced app campaigns equip apps with an infrastructure that runs quickly and helps apps focus on optimizing the two most important things: ad creatives and their actual product (including onboarding and paywall optimization).
The good news is that, technically speaking, every company can build an infrastructure like this, giving them total control over their own data, vendor independence, and a strong moat that few app companies can achieve. (However, it’ll be fairly expensive, so — even if I’m biased — I’d recommend looking at Appstack’s SDK to get started.)
To wrap up, here are the main things to remember:
- Standard app campaigns are structurally broken: attribution is unreliable, reach is capped, and automation removed real control from advertisers
- Web-to-app has underlying complexities that most apps ignore, and can cause ASO damage
- Enhanced app campaigns fix the real problem: they restore device-level insight without adding web funnels, fees, or compliance overhead
- EACs give advertisers back what automation took away: control over targeting, placements, keywords, and retargeting
- Winning apps will not out-hack SKAN or dodge fees; they will own their data and optimize creatives and products with clarity