I run a DFW-area property website and have been stuck on a tracking anomaly for two months.
The Bug:
ALL custom events completely drop off and are missing in analytics for iOS users arriving via Instagram Ads. This isn't just one broken trigger—every single custom event we have set up fails to fire for this specific traffic source.
Crucial Details:
Baseline automatic GA4 events (session\_start, first\_visit, page\_view) track perfectly for these exact same users. GA4 is not blocked globally.
Our internal iPhone testing (via native Safari/Chrome) works flawlessly. We cannot replicate the bug ourselves.
The site scores almost 90 on Google PageSpeed Insights for mobile phone section.
The data drop-off strictly impacts live iOS traffic coming from Instagram Ads.
Since the global GA4 script is clearly initializing and running, why would the Instagram iOS in-app browser wrapper selectively fail to execute or pass all custom events?
Has anyone run into this specific issue with Instagram webviews, and how did you fix it? Thanks!