Pre-launch measurement setup
A pass over links, store referrers, campaign names, and the first-open event before the first ringgit of launch spend goes out.
How this reading runsJohor Bahru · Malaysia
The first week of a new app is a poor time to guess which door people used.
We map acquisition sources for teams about to launch — paid campaigns, store search, family chats, campus booths, creator mentions — and we say which of those paths you can actually tell apart at first open.
How launches lose their sources
Paid credit is loud. Store search and WhatsApp forwards rarely get a line of their own.
On opening week in Malaysia, a new app collects people from places a media plan never named. A sister forwards the listing. A polytechnic booth sends a queue with no unique link. A creator talks on a Tuesday live. Staff install “just to check.” If those paths are not written down, they arrive as unknown — or they are swallowed by whichever paid campaign is allowed to speak last.
Source Canvas Grid is a small practice in Johor Bahru. We do not buy ads and we do not sell a login. We write the source map, check whether first open can carry those names, and sit with you while the first window is still cheap to correct.
Flagship engagement
Launch attribution mapping
For teams two to eight weeks from release, or already inside the first ninety days. Three to five weeks of inventory, measurement check, and a written map — from RM 8,400 for a single app with up to three paid channels.
The map lists every door you can name in ordinary language. It marks which doors currently join to first open, which leak into blank, and what to change before the next ringgit of spend. Readout is a working session here or over a call.
- Paid, store, referral, influencer, and owned mention paths on one page
- Friends-and-family and staff installs named, not treated as traction
- A punch list the person awake on launch morning can actually finish
Related work
Shorter readings when the launch has already started
Paid versus organic source review
A reading that separates paid credit from store search, word of mouth, and staff installs when a launch report has already blurred them.
How this reading runs
First-window source readout
A concentrated reading of the opening fourteen days after a new app reaches the stores — when most source mistakes are still cheap to correct.
How this reading runs
Attribution window advisory
Advice on how long a click or view should be allowed to claim an install when you are running a short launch burst rather than an always-on calendar.
How this reading runsThe map named our campus booths and the Malay listing as sources, which our paid report had been swallowing. We cut a campaign that only looked strong because it spoke last.
More client notes — including a Kluang launch where staff installs had been looking like early traction.
Field notes
Recent writing on first-user sources
What actually counts as an acquisition source on a new app
A source is not a channel logo. It is the last honest story of how a person found the listing or the link, including the paths that never appear in a media plan.
Read the note
Why the first two weeks of installs so often arrive unattributed
Blank sources in week one are usually a naming problem, a timing problem, or a path nobody thought to write down — not a mysterious failure of measurement.
Read the note
Store listing, paid ads, and family chats — three sources that get confused
Last-touch rules will happily give a paid click the install even when the person already knew the app from a listing visit or a relative’s message.
Read the noteIf you have a launch date, send the channels you already plan to use.
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