Web2App · Published 2026-03-24 · 2 min read
Android Web2App without a pre-lander: Google Search to Google Play
The setup
- A subscription app on Google Play
- MMP: AppsFlyer
- Traffic: Google Search, with no funnels and no pre-lander
The results
- Spend: $500
- Trial price: $250
- Purchase price: $500
- Optimisation: the first $250 on installs, then $250 on purchases
- Delivery rate: roughly 60% of conversions reach Google Ads
What is going on
An ordinary UAC campaign on Android is a black box. We cannot pick particular placements — Google Play, Google Search and so on. Launching text ads puts you into Google Play, Search and everything else at once. Even so, if you manage to isolate the search traffic a potential advantage appears: competitors cannot buy search only, because UAC does not let them, and we can at least try.
Why do it
There is a scenario on iOS where we launch UAC and the partner traffic often turns out worse than clean search. So we set up Web2App, explicitly cutting out the partner traffic and keeping only search. I wanted to try to repeat that on Android.
The main problem is events not arriving
Around 60% of conversions reach the ad account, so the algorithm learns on truncated data and the purchase price stays high. What is interesting is that on iOS a similar scheme sometimes works even without optimising for events, that is, purely on clicks. On Android it feels as though Google Ads knows its users better and does not hand them over straight away — device-level data gives its own algorithm the edge.
What to do
- If you have the budget
You can simply keep spending and stabilise the model on expensive purchases.
- If you have the technical capability
It looks as though you could try sending the conversions yourself, using a probabilistic model more sensitive than AppsFlyer's:
- add a pre-lander
- collect the gclid
- send the conversions back to Google Ads yourself
Yes, install conversion rate will drop because of the pre-lander, but that may be offset by the larger number of conversions passed through.
- Nothing
As B rightly says in the comments, the default UAC campaign is usually the better choice for Google Play.
Conclusion
Technically, Android Web2App without a pre-lander does work — but it is very expensive.