How Liner Turned Influencer Marketing into 350% Web-to-App Growth

About Liner

Liner is an AI platform built for professionals who need accurate, reliable information to do their best work. It offers three core products: Liner for everyday AI search with cited answers, Liner Scholar for academic research workflows including literature reviews, citation recommendations, and peer review, and Liner Write for drafting and editing professional documents.

Ranked #4 on a16z's Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps (Web), Liner is a trusted tool for professionals, researchers, and knowledge workers across 200+ countries.

Overview

Liner was built as a desktop web product, growing its user base through web-based AI search and research tools. As the team scaled influencer marketing across LinkedIn, Twitter, and newsletters to reach graduate students and researchers, mobile app installs began to climb alongside it. Users who discovered Liner through creator content increasingly wanted to carry that experience into mobile, and the team needed to understand which creators and content types were actually responsible for that shift.

The challenge was measuring what actually worked. Influencer traffic on these channels behaves much like organic traffic, making it difficult to connect a creator's post to an actual subscription. By assigning individual Airbridge tracking links to each influencer, Liner tracked the full funnel from click to install to aha moment to subscription. The data revealed that subscriptions were far more likely to occur on the second or third piece of content, not the first. This led to a sequenced content strategy that improved conversion efficiency across influencer partnerships.

Challenge

Measuring App Performance During Web-to-App Expansion

As Liner expanded from a desktop web product into mobile, the team scaled influencer marketing across LinkedIn, Twitter, and newsletters to drive app installs among graduate students and researchers. But influencer traffic on these channels is difficult to attribute. Without tracking in place, it looks indistinguishable from organic traffic.

Understanding the Full Conversion Funnel

Liner's goal was subscription growth, not just awareness. With a multi-step user journey from install to onboarding to aha moment to subscription, the team needed to understand where users were converting and where they were dropping off. Without that visibility, it was impossible to know which influencers and content types were actually driving paid conversions.

Solution

Individual Tracking Links to Attribute Influencer Traffic

Liner used Custom Tracking Links to assign a unique link to each influencer and content piece. Links were configured with structured parameters across source, campaign, medium, and content, with the content field used to identify each influencer by channel name and month. This gave the team precise visibility into which creators were driving traffic and how those users behaved after arriving in the app. Influencers also responded more positively to custom-branded links that reflected their channel identity, compared to generic UTM strings. With measurement in place across creator partnerships, Liner grew app installs by 350%.

Sequential Content Strategy Built from Conversion Data

With tracking in place, Liner monitored the full funnel through Actuals Report: click, install, aha moment, and subscription. A clear pattern emerged from the data. Subscriptions were significantly more likely to occur on the second or third piece of content, not the first. Liner restructured its influencer campaigns accordingly. The first content piece focused on introducing Liner Scholar's value to researchers, while follow-up content drove subscription-focused calls to action with promotional offers. This sequenced approach lifted subscription conversion from influencer marketing by 155%.

Airbridge–Amplitude Integration for Full-Funnel Visibility

Liner integrated Airbridge with Amplitude to connect acquisition data with in-app behavior in one place. Data from each influencer's Tracking Link flowed into Amplitude automatically, allowing the team to analyze how influencer-driven users behaved after install, which features they engaged with, and how quickly they converted to paid subscribers. Working from a single view made it easier to act on what the data was showing, across both marketing and product decisions.

Final Thoughts

Liner's growth from a desktop web platform into a mobile app is a meaningful signal for AI utility services looking to expand their reach. With a user base of researchers and academics who rely on Liner daily, reaching them on mobile required a content strategy that could be measured and refined at every step. Airbridge provided that measurement layer, connecting influencer content on LinkedIn, Twitter, and newsletters to real conversion outcomes.

As Liner continues to scale its presence among researchers and knowledge workers, the team plans to expand creator partnerships and explore new channels, with Airbridge as the measurement foundation for every experiment ahead.