7 min read
RevenueCat Integration: Track Trials to Purchases by Acquisition Source
Turn trial starts into revenue events tied back to the campaigns that drove them
· Grometrics Team
The short version
If you run mobile apps with subscriptions, you already know the pain: Apple Search Ads shows installs, RevenueCat shows transactions, and your analytics tool shows traffic — but none of them agree on which channel actually created a paying customer. You pour budget into campaigns, renewals happen in RevenueCat, and you are still guessing whether your spend is actually returning customers or just vanity installs that never convert. Grometrics connects your acquisition data with RevenueCat transaction data so you can see the complete journey from source to sale. The RevenueCat integration pulls trials, purchases, renewals, and cancellations into your attribution reports alongside the campaigns, landing pages, and traffic sources that drove those users. You finally get an answer to the question that matters: which sources actually create revenue, and which ones just burn budget.
- Connect RevenueCat in minutes via API key — no SDK changes required
- See trial starts, conversions, renewals, and cancellations attributed to acquisition source
- Combine RevenueCat revenue with Apple Search Ads spend for real ROAS reporting
- Track which onboarding screens users pass through before reaching paywalls
- Identify where trial users drop off before converting to paid
Why RevenueCat data alone leaves attribution gaps
RevenueCat is the standard for mobile subscription management. It tracks every transaction, renewal, and churn event with precision. But RevenueCat does not know where your users came from. It knows what users did after installing, but it does not connect those behaviors to the campaigns, ad groups, or sources that drove the install in the first place.
When you look at RevenueCat alone, you see revenue numbers. You see that 247 users renewed last month. What you do not see is which of those renewals came from your Apple Search Ads campaign targeting productivity keywords, which came from a Meta Ads broad campaign, and which came from organic search. You are left inferring quality from revenue alone, without knowing which acquisition channel delivers the users most likely to convert and stay.
- RevenueCat tracks transactions but not acquisition source
- Transaction data without attribution context misses campaign-level performance
- You cannot calculate true CAC or ROAS without tying revenue to the spend that drove it
- Trial-to-paid conversion rates are invisible by source without integration
The attribution gap costs you spend: Without source-to-revenue visibility, you risk doubling budget on campaigns that drive installs but never convert, while underfunding the channels that actually create your paying users.
How Grometrics connects RevenueCat to your acquisition data
Grometrics integrates with RevenueCat by connecting to your RevenueCat API credentials. Once connected, Grometrics pulls every subscription event — trial starts, conversions, renewals, cancellations, and refunds — into your attribution dashboard. These events are then matched against the acquisition sources captured by Grometrics tracking: campaign, source, medium, and in some cases, keyword or ad group.
The matching happens server-side, using first-party data that does not rely on device-level identifiers alone. This approach captures conversions that ad platform pixels miss, particularly for users who start a trial on one device and complete the purchase on another, or who delay conversion beyond standard attribution windows.
The result is a funnel view where every RevenueCat event is attributed back to the source that drove the user journey. You see trial starts by source, trial-to-paid conversion rates by campaign, and renewal revenue tied to the original acquisition channel. Every event in RevenueCat becomes an attribution data point you can act on.
- API-based RevenueCat integration pulls all subscription events
- Server-side matching captures cross-device and delayed conversions
- Events include trial starts, conversions, renewals, cancellations, and refunds
- Attribution data includes source, campaign, medium, and when available, keyword or ad group
What gets pulled from RevenueCat: Trial starts, one-time purchases, subscription renewals, cancellations, refunds, and expiration events — all mapped to the acquisition context that Grometrics captured from the user journey.
Track the full mobile app funnel from source to revenue
For mobile app developers, the funnel extends beyond the transaction. Users install your app, progress through onboarding screens, reach or skip your paywall, start trials, and eventually convert or churn. RevenueCat tells you what happened after the trial started. Grometrics tells you what happened before — and which source drove the user to each step.
With screen-level tracking enabled via the Grometrics SDK, you can see exactly where users drop off in your onboarding flow. You can attribute those drop-off points to the campaign that drove the install. You can see whether users who came from your Apple Search Ads campaign reached the paywall at a higher rate than users from organic, and whether those users converted to paid at a different rate.
This matters because trial-to-paid conversion is not a single event — it is a funnel. Users may convert immediately, or they may convert after several days of using your app. Without seeing the full path, you cannot optimize the experience that drives conversion. With Grometrics and RevenueCat connected, you see the complete journey and know which sources create users most likely to convert at each stage.
- Screen-level tracking shows onboarding progression and drop-off by source
- Paywall reach rates can be compared across acquisition channels
- Trial-to-paid conversion rates are visible per campaign and per source
- You can identify which onboarding screens cause the biggest drop for specific traffic sources
Funnel visibility by source: Compare how users from Apple Search Ads, Meta Ads, and organic perform through your onboarding flow. See which sources deliver users who reach the paywall and convert at higher rates.
Calculate real ROAS by combining RevenueCat revenue with ad spend
Apple Search Ads, Meta Ads, and other paid channels give you spend data. RevenueCat gives you revenue data. Grometrics brings them together so you can calculate true return on ad spend — not the inflated number that ad platforms report, but the actual revenue generated by users from each campaign.
When you import your Apple Search Ads spend into Grometrics and connect RevenueCat revenue, you get keyword-level ROAS. You see which search terms drive installs that actually convert to paid subscriptions. You see which campaigns generate high-value users who renew, and which generate users who trial but never convert.
This is the closed loop that acquisition teams need. You stop optimizing toward installs and start optimizing toward revenue. You allocate budget to the campaigns and keywords that deliver paying customers, not just impressions and clicks. Every dollar of ad spend is measured against the revenue that users from that spend actually generated, as recorded by RevenueCat.
- Import Apple Search Ads spend for keyword-level ROAS reporting
- RevenueCat revenue is attributed back to the exact campaign and keyword
- True ROAS replaces inflated platform-reported conversion credits
- Budget decisions are backed by actual transaction data, not proxy metrics
Revenue-first attribution: Grometrics uses RevenueCat transaction data as the source of truth for revenue metrics. Every dollar of attributed revenue is tied to a real purchase, renewal, or refund — not a proxied conversion event.
Setup takes minutes — no SDK changes required for RevenueCat data
Grometrics connects to RevenueCat through API credentials, which you generate in your RevenueCat dashboard and enter into Grometrics. The connection pulls transaction data automatically. There is no need to modify your app code or redeploy to start seeing RevenueCat events in your attribution reports.
For the acquisition tracking side, Grometrics provides a lightweight script for web and a SDK for iOS, Android, React Native, and Flutter. The SDK captures install source, campaign data, and screen-level events. Setup is designed for founder-led teams who need attribution without the instrumentation overhead of enterprise analytics platforms.
Once connected, your Grometrics dashboard populates with RevenueCat events within minutes. You can immediately see trial starts, conversions, and renewals attributed to your traffic sources. The integration is one of the fastest ways to add RevenueCat attribution to your existing tracking stack without engineering overhead.
- RevenueCat connects via API key — no code changes needed
- Grometrics SDK available for iOS, Android, React Native, Flutter
- Attribution data populates within minutes of connection
- Built for teams without dedicated analytics engineering
Fastest path to revenue attribution: Connect RevenueCat in minutes and see your trial and purchase data attributed to acquisition sources immediately. No instrumentation, no custom events, no developer tickets required.
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