Affiliate tracking on the web is a solved problem. A link, a cookie, a webhook on checkout, done. You know exactly which partner sent the customer who just paid.
I tried to run the same playbook inside my own subscription app and hit a wall. On mobile, the money moves through a system that is designed to forget where the user came from.
This is the story of why in-app purchase attribution is hard, and how I ended up building the thing I could not buy.
The problem in one sentence
A creator posts your link. Someone taps it, lands on the App Store, installs your app, and subscribes three days later. By the time the purchase happens, every trace of the creator who caused it is gone.
