Web-to-app best practices: Turning web users into high-value app users

For many businesses, mobile web is the first touchpoint, but in-app is where long-term value is created. Higher retention, stronger engagement, and better monetization are all reasons why driving users from web to app has become a core growth strategy.

But moving users from along this path isn’t just about showing a banner and hoping for the best. The most effective web-to-app strategies are intentional, targeted, and measurable.

In this guide, we break down web-to-app best practices across six key pillars, with examples and practical tips on how to execute them at scale, as well as the role Adjust’s solutions play.

Before thinking about banners, creatives, or deep links, it’s critical to define what you actually want from your web-to-app strategy.

Common goals include:

• Increasing stickiness, retention and lifetime value (LTV)

• Qualifying users on web before moving them into a more controlled app environment

• Reducing dependency on paid acquisition

• Improving personalization and engagement

For example, an e-commerce brand may want to drive users to app because:

• Repeat purchase rates and LTV are 50% higher on app relative to mWeb
• Conversion rates are 2x higher on app since users are logged in and have their address/payment details saved in the app

Not every web user should be pushed into the app, however. The best strategies work backwards. Identify the business outcome you want and then design a web-to-app journey that clearly communicates that value.

With Adjust: You have several tools like deep links, smart banners, smart scripts, QR codes, etc. Your strategy should dictate which tool you use. Not the other way around.

One of the biggest mistakes in web-to-app strategies is targeting everyone the same way.

Teams will see better results by focusing on high-intent segments, such as logged-in users, users viewing high-value pages (post checkout, product detail, premium content), and users arriving from specific campaigns or channels.

By targeting users who are already showing intent, you increase both install rates and downstream app engagement, while minimising user friction and frustration. Use behavioral and contextual signals to decide who sees a web-to-app prompt, and when.

For example, an e-commerce brand may want to:

• Let users browse products and even add items to cart on web
• Trigger the app push only when:
  • They return multiple times
  • They show high purchase intent (e.g., signed up, wishlist, cart value > $X)

With Adjust: Smart banners and Smart Scripts enable dynamic targeting based on URL and query parameters, allowing you to show the right experience to the right user.

A web-to-app prompt should feel like a natural extension of the mobile web experience, not an intrusive ad.

Creatives that resonate well often:

• Match the app’s visual identity (colors, fonts, icons)
• Use appropriate banner sizes and placements
• Avoid blocking key content or actions

The goal is familiarity. If it feels “native,” users are more likely to trust it. Design web-to-app creatives as part of your mobile UX, rather than as an afterthought.

For example, an e-commerce brand may want the web-to-app buttons to be natively embedded into the website, seamlessly blending into website content and matching the brand identity.

With Adjust: Smart Banners support customization across layout, size, and design, making it easier to align with your mobile site and app branding. Smart scripts allows you to completely handle the UI on your own while handling the attribution/linking for web to app in the background. Adjust QR codes can be customized to reflect the brand colors, and even have images/logos embedded.

Users won’t install your app just because you ask them to. Strong web-to-app copy should clearly answer the question “What’s in it for me?”

You should highlight clear benefits like faster checkout, exclusive features, and offline access. Focusing on incentives is another approach, with offers like discounts, rewards, and early access to features or drops available only in-app. Social proof also works wonders on moving the needle, so if you’re able to include ratings, reviews, user numbers, etc. go for it. And, as with all marketing copy, urgency and context are crucial, with sentences like "continue where you left off” highly likely to reassure users that the process will be smooth. 

The CTA matters, too. “Open in app” or “Continue in app” often outperforms “Download now” messaging. Focus on user value, not just driving downloads.

For example, an e-commerce brand may want to communicate the value of moving to their app with text like: “Track your order, get price drop alerts, and exclusive app-only discounts”.

With Adjust: Smart Banners allow dynamic titles, descriptions, and CTAs that can be tested and optimized over time.

A seamless transition is critical. Nothing kills conversion faster than installing an app and landing on a generic homepage.

Instead, users should:

• Be deep linked directly to the relevant content, product, or in-app flow 
• Resume the action they started on web with no disruption
• Experience continuity across platforms

This creates a frictionless journey and reinforces the value of installing the app. Always deep link users to the most relevant in-app destination.

For example, an e-commerce brand may want to open the app to the same product detail page (PDP) or category page that the user was viewing on the website, reducing the steps to conversion and creating user delight.

With Adjust: TrueLink enables robust deep linking across platforms, ensuring users land in the right place whether the app is installed (direct deep linking) or not installed (deferred deep linking via stores).

If you can’t measure web-to-app journeys, you can’t optimize them.

Key measurement challenges include preserving attribution from the original web source, understanding which banners and messages drive high-quality installs, and measuring downstream app events, not just installs themselves. 

The best approach is to treat web-to-app as a performance channel, using data to iterate and continually improve on targeting, creatives, and copy. Measure beyond installs and optimize based on real app outcomes.

For example, an e-commerce brand may want to award app attribution to the original referring web campaign, so that no context is lost through the web-to-app journey, and app conversion data is sent to the right ad channel for campaign optimization.

With Adjust: Adjust ensures attribution continuity across web-to-app flows, enabling marketers to analyze performance end-to-end and give credit back to the original web source.

Data from Adjust Smart Banners shows that well-executed web-to-app strategies can drive meaningful lift across click-through rates, click-to-install rates, and post-install engagement and conversion rates.

Some customers who implemented the above strategies over a period of time saw their aggregate CTRs climb 4x and their click-to-install rates improve from ~25% to ~50%. This improvement, coupled with increased conversion rates and post-install engagement in-app, meant that the ROAS of web campaigns that had web-to-app elements implemented were drastically higher than siloed web campaigns that aimed only to drive web conversions.

The biggest gains often come after launch, through:

• Segment-based targeting
• Creative and copy testing
• Context-aware routing
• Continuous performance analysis

Web-to-app success relies on orchestrating strategy, targeting, creative, copy, routing, and measurement into a seamless experience. When done right, web-to-app becomes a scalable growth engine. 

To learn more about Adjust’s web-to-app solutions and how we can grow your app business, sign-up for free or request a demo today.