How to Reliably Track Affiliate Conversions in Your iOS & Android App with Tapp

You’ve launched your mobile affiliate program, created partnerships, and your affiliates are driving traffic. But how can you be 100% sure you can track mobile affiliate conversions accurately? This is the single most critical question in mobile affiliate marketing. Broken tracking leads to incorrect payouts, failed partnerships, and a complete inability to scale what should be a powerful growth channel.

This guide is a hands-on technical tutorial for developers and growth marketers. We’ll skip the fluff and show you exactly how to solve the in-app affiliate tracking problem and achieve reliable mobile affiliate attribution using Tapp.

Why Is It So Hard to Track Mobile Affiliate Conversions on Mobile?

If you’re coming from the world of web marketing, mobile tracking can seem unnecessarily difficult. The core issue is what’s known as the “App Store Black Box.”

This is the user journey that breaks makes it so hard to track mobile affiliate conversions on mobile:

1. Click: A user clicks an affiliate’s link on a website. In a web-only world, a cookie would be placed in their browser.
2. The Black Box: The user is redirected to the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. At this point, the connection to the original click is severed. The App Store does not pass referral data back to the app after installation.
3. Install: The user installs and opens your app. Without a specialized solution, you have no way of knowing which affiliate sent them.

This journey makes it impossible to reliably attribute an install, let alone a valuable post-install conversion like a purchase or subscription, back to the correct partner. The solution to this problem is a technology called deferred deep linking. As we explain in our guide, Deep Links vs. Dynamic Links vs. Universal Links, this technology allows tracking data from the initial click to “survive” the App Store install process and be delivered to your app on its first launch.

The Solution: A Step-by-Step Guide to Reliable Track Mobile Affiliate Conversions with Tapp

Here is a hands-on tutorial for implementing a robust tracking system with Tapp.

Step 1: Generate a Unique Tracking Link for Each Affiliate

The foundation of all tracking is the link itself. With Tapp, you can easily generate a unique tracking link for every affiliate partner. Crucially, you can add custom parameters to this link to identify the partner.

For example, a link for “Partner123” might look like this:

https://tapp.so/your-link?affiliate_id=partner123

When a user clicks this link, the affiliate_id parameter is stored by Tapp’s system, ready to be passed to your app after install.

Step 2: Implement the Tapp SDK to Receive Install Data

This is where Tapp performs its magic. By implementing our lightweight SDK, your app can retrieve the data from the original link click upon the first launch. This directly solves the mobile affiliate attribution problem.

For iOS (Swift):

First, install and configure the SDK. Then, in your AppDelegate, implement the delegate method to receive the deep link data.

import Tapp

// This function is called when a deep link is resolved after install
func tapp(didResolve deeplink: Tapp.Deeplink) {
    // Check if this is the first open after an install
    if deeplink.isFirst {
        // Retrieve the affiliate ID from the link parameters
        if let affiliateId = deeplink.params["affiliate_id"] as? String {
            print("Install attributed to affiliate: \(affiliateId)")
            // Save this affiliate ID to user defaults or your backend
            // for future conversion tracking.
            saveAttribution(affiliateId: affiliateId)
        }
    }
}

For Android (Kotlin):

After installing and configuring the SDK, retrieve the deep link data in your main Activity.

import so.tapp.Tapp

// Inside your main Activity's onCreate method
private fun handleAttribution() {
    Tapp.getDeeplink(intent) { deeplink ->
        deeplink?.let {
            // Check if this is the first open after an install
            if (it.isFirst) {
                // Retrieve the affiliate ID from the link parameters
                val affiliateId = it.params["affiliate_id"] as? String
                if (affiliateId != null) {
                    println("Install attributed to affiliate: $affiliateId")
                    // Save this affiliate ID to shared preferences or your backend
                    // for future conversion tracking.
                    saveAttribution(affiliateId)
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

At this point, you have successfully attributed the app install to partner123.

Step 3: Track In-App Conversions

Now for the final piece: tracking the valuable actions that happen after the install. Because the Tapp SDK has already handled the install attribution, tracking a conversion is incredibly simple.

When a user makes a purchase, starts a subscription, or completes any other goal, you simply send a trackEvent call.

For iOS (Swift):

// Example: Tracking a purchase event
let eventProperties = ["value": 49.99, "currency": "USD"]
Tapp.trackEvent("purchase", properties: eventProperties)

For Android (Kotlin):

// Example: Tracking a subscription event
val eventProperties = mapOf("plan" to "premium_yearly")
Tapp.trackEvent("subscription_started", eventProperties)

Because you’ve already saved the affiliate_id upon install, Tapp’s system automatically and reliably ties this “purchase” or “subscription_started” event back to partner123. Your app conversion tracking is now complete and accurate.

Conclusion

Reliable in-app affiliate tracking is not a “nice-to-have”; it is the absolute foundation of a scalable and trustworthy affiliate program. By trying to use web-first tools or ignoring the App Store black box problem, you risk damaging partner relationships and losing revenue to inaccurate data.

Tapp was built specifically to solve this core mobile challenge. By following the steps above, you can implement a robust system to track mobile affiliate conversions with confidence, ensuring every partner is compensated correctly and giving you the data you need to grow.

Stop losing conversions to unreliable tracking. Sign up for your free Tapp account and implement attribution you can finally trust.

To see how this fits into your overall strategy, read our Definitive Guide to Affiliate Marketing for Mobile Apps.