Can we measure organic traffic sources (URLs) on mobile apps?

To better understand source detection on mobile apps, a key point must be taken into account.

Apps are individual and distinct programs. This means they cannot share information, even if they're being used on the same device. By contrast, web navigation is usually restricted to a single browser. Since only one program is used, it is easy to gather information on previous pages, such as the referrer URL.

Accessing an app is necessarily done via another app or manually. As such, when the first screen is loaded, the SDK will have no way of ascertaining where a visitor comes from i.e. no way of ascertaining the source of the visit. That said, the SDK does enable you to push this information if you are able to gather it on your end.

Piano Analytics SDK

To do so, you can add the previous_url tag parameter to you events: https://developers.atinternet-solutions.com/piano-analytics/data-collection/how-to-send-events/send-events-via-sdks#add-properties-to-subsequent-events

You can also use a campaign tracker: https://developers.atinternet-solutions.com/piano-analytics/data-collection/how-to-send-events/marketing-campaigns#mobile-marketing-campaigns

This will enable you to obtain the source for links you have control over, such as for ads, social media or emailings. It will not give you the source of visits from links you have no control over, such as on a SERP.

SDK v2 (SmartTag)

For SmartTag, you can use setParam, which will enable you to send the referrer alongside the hits (parameter key is ref).
As for the Piano SDK, you can also use a campaign tracker.

Please refer to our technical documentation for more information on this subject: