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Comment by pooper | Hacker News Reader

A certain national bank which I shall not name had a banner on top of its app. The link opens a web page that goes to double click and then opens the bank's website. Why would a bank app take me through a double click link just to take me back to their own website? My guess is this is the same reason why eBay shows you ads for things you just bought. There are massive inefficiencies in these large organizations. I'm sure everything they do is locally optimal but not even close globally.

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Wow...I think you just discovered a hole in Apple's draconian app store policies. They don't let you link to your website from your app if the site has a way to buy a subscription without paying the Apple tax. But what if you sell ad space in your app through an intermediary, and then turn around and bid on ads for users that have your app installed? You might be able to get them to notice you and sign up on the web instead of through the app.

Genius.

(I'm only being half-facetious)

Thank you for your reply. I went back to look at where I had mentioned that I had used an iPhone but you're right. I have an iPhone and and Android phone but I use banking apps exclusively on the iPhone.

Interesting idea. Probably still would be cheaper than paying 30% tax to Apple.

In-app analytics is done through a “mobile measurement partner” which have limitations in tracking so sometimes you need workarounds like using a redirect.

Also likely the app is a totally different team and getting them to change a link is difficult, but giving them a link where the web team can change the redirect is easy.

It's called a "house ad" and is generally free for the publisher. They appear when there's no other inventory (like insurance ads). Usually double-click stuff is all negotiated by publishers and has little to do with AdSense or bidding.

if it didn't do the round trip, it would leave a hole in the analytics. They get paid on the analytics, so the analytics must be kept whole

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