Data has improved campaign attribution and now drives targeted onboarding and retention
What is our primary use case?
I personally don't use Appsflyer, but since I'm a Customer Success Manager in a SaaS based organization, we have a partnership of MoEngage with Appsflyer. Many of my clients are currently using Appsflyer as their attribution tool with MoEngage, so I have a pretty good understanding of how it works.
The primary use case for Appsflyer is mobile attribution and understanding which acquisition channel brings high quality users. Clients typically connect Appsflyer with MoEngage to combine their install attribution data with engagement and retention journeys.
My clients benefit from combining install attribution data with engagement and retention journeys because they can see not just where the installs are coming from, but which channels are bringing the most valuable and retained users. By combining Appsflyer attribution with MoEngage engagement data, brands can create more targeted onboarding and retention campaigns based on the acquisition source. This helps them improve campaign ROI, reduces wasted spend, and helps marketing teams focus on channels that drive better conversions, repeat purchases, and long term retention rather than just focusing on app installs.
What is most valuable?
The two standout features for most of my clients are attribution analytics and deep linking via OneLink. Attribution is Appsflyer's core strength, as it gives very granular visibility into which campaigns, channels, or ads are actually driving quality users and revenue. The second feature is OneLink deep linking, which helps create a very seamless journey by taking users directly to relevant in-app pages after clicking ads, SMS messages, emails, or web banners, even if the app is not installed yet. This has a very big impact on conversion and user experience.
My clients typically use deep linking in acquisition and re-engagement campaigns. For example, if a user clicks an ad for 50% off shoes, Appsflyer OneLink can directly open that exact product page inside the app instead of just opening the home screen. This reduces friction significantly and brands have improved conversion rates because the user lands exactly where the intent was created, especially in cart abandonment, festival sales, and personalized push email campaigns.
Another valuable feature of Appsflyer is fraud protection. Appsflyer helps detect install fraud, click spam, and fake attribution, which is very important for brands spending heavily on user acquisition. This gives the marketing team more confidence that their budgets are being spent on genuine users. Clients also appreciate the breadth of integrations that Appsflyer offers with engagement analytics and ad platforms, which makes the overall MarTech ecosystem much easier to manage.
What needs improvement?
One challenge that clients sometimes mention about Appsflyer is that the platform can feel slightly complex initially, especially for teams that are not from a technical background. Setting up attribution logic, SKAN configurations, or deep linking journeys may require support during onboarding. Another area for improvement is reporting flexibility and dashboard usability. Some clients want more simplified views or faster custom report generation, especially when multiple teams such as marketing, product, and CRM are all using the platform together.
Some clients also mention that the pricing for Appsflyer can become expensive as apps scale and attribution volumes grow, especially for high growth consumer apps. Smaller teams sometimes feel they are not utilizing the platform's capabilities compared to the cost. From a platform perspective, another improvement area could be data freshness and attribution transparency in certain privacy heavy ecosystems such as iOS or SKAN. While this is partly an industry wide challenge, clients still expect more real time visibility and simpler interpretation of aggregated attribution data.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Overall, Appsflyer is considered a very stable and reliable platform for most of my clients. They do not face any major downtime issues and the platform generally handles high attribution volumes and campaign traffic very well. There would obviously be some occasional minor delays in reporting syncs or dashboard performance.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is one of Appsflyer's strongest points. Clients ranging from startups to very large consumer brands use it to manage millions of installs, events, and attribution data points without any major performance concerns.
How are customer service and support?
The customer support for Appsflyer is generally rated very well, especially for enterprise clients. Most customers appreciate the responsiveness of their support team and even the CSM teams during onboarding, integration, and troubleshooting.
I would rate the team's troubleshooting and onboarding guidance for Appsflyer quite high, probably around 9 out of 10.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Some of my clients were previously using platforms such as Singular or Branch before moving to Appsflyer. A common reason for switching was the need for stronger mobile attribution capabilities, wider partner integrations, and more mature fraud prevention features. A client that I cannot name was using Branch before, and we could see that deep links more often failed with respect to using this integration with MoEngage. Appsflyer worked better with MoEngage than Branch, so that was a common reason for their switch.
How was the initial setup?
Since I handle most of the enterprise clients, from what I have heard about their experience with Appsflyer, they find the pricing reasonably related to the value they get from attribution accuracy and campaign optimization. That being said, some smaller or scaling businesses feel pricing can increase quickly with higher attribution volume. The licensing and onboarding are generally straightforward, but clients usually evaluate the usage very carefully to ensure that they are using the platform fully.
What about the implementation team?
We are a partner of Appsflyer and in our partnership documents, it's not just Appsflyer, but also other tools such as Singular, Branch, and others so that our customers feel at ease and can integrate their install attribution tool with our CEP platform.
What was our ROI?
My clients might see ROI more through better marketing efficiency with Appsflyer rather than reduction in headcount. Appsflyer helps reduce wasted ad spend by identifying which channels are driving low quality or fraudulent installs, allowing teams to optimize budgets more confidently.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
For the specific clients that I'm talking about, since they made a switch from a different competitor, Appsflyer was the option that was actually preferred by them and that was somewhat promoted by us as well.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Appsflyer a very good 8.5 out of 10, as it is one of the strongest platforms for mobile attribution, deep linking, and ecosystem integration, and it actually delivers strong value for performance driven brands.
Appsflyer is not a perfect 10 mainly due to the platform complexity for new users, the pricing at scale, and some reporting limitations in privacy centric environments such as iOS and SKAN. Overall, it is considered a very reliable enterprise-grade solution.
My advice would be to clearly define your attribution and management goals before implementation of Appsflyer. Appsflyer delivers the most value when brands actively use the data for campaign optimization, retention, and personalization rather than just tracking installs. I would also recommend planning integrations properly with the CRMs and engagement platforms such as MoEngage early on because the real value comes from connecting acquisition insights with a CEP and lifecycle marketing. Overall, I give Appsflyer a rating of 8.5 out of 10.
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