Link audit for app clients
Run this in the first week of any app engagement, before anyone judges the creative.
6 August 2026 ยท PAD team
Why it belongs at the start
Inheriting an account with poor click to install rates, the natural instinct is to rewrite the creative. If a share of taps never reached the store, the new creative will underperform too, and you will have spent a month proving nothing.
The audit
- Tap every live ad from inside Instagram and Facebook on a real iPhone
- Compare click to install between install objectives and traffic objectives for the same app
- Compare iOS against Android, since the failure is nearly iOS-only
- Check whether campaign tokens survive to the final store URL
- Find every redirect between the ad and the store, and count the hops
- Check bio links, email templates and partner placements, not just ads
What good looks like
| Signal | Healthy | Suspicious |
|---|---|---|
| Install vs traffic objective ratio | similar | traffic far worse |
| iOS vs Android install rate | comparable | iOS much lower |
| Campaign data in App Store Connect | present | empty despite volume |
| Redirect hops before the store | one or none | three or more |
Reporting it to the client
This finding lands badly if it sounds like blame, since someone on their side built the current setup. Frame it as recoverable spend rather than as a mistake, and bring the arithmetic: share of traffic, failure rate, money.
Making it repeatable
Turn it into a template. It takes under an hour per account, it finds something in a meaningful share of app clients, and it is the cheapest win available at the start of an engagement.
One link per client, arrival rates in the dashboard, and a finding you can bring to the first review.