Mobile apps have become a mainstream, trusted medium for delivering content and services. Grand View Research states that the global app market will cross $567 billion by 2030.
Despite this growth, 25% of users engage with an app only once before abandoning it. This can lead to significant revenue loss, impacting overall profitability.
One of the leading causes of churn rate is poor user experience, often stemming from ineffective linking strategies.
Traditional linking methods can frustrate users by directing them to generic landing pages, complicating their user journey. Besides, it becomes challenging for marketers to track and attribute conversions accurately.
Deep linking addresses these issues by directing users to specific app content directly from marketing campaigns.
In this post, we’ll look at what is deep linking, how it contrasts with traditional methods, and the best practices to optimize mobile tracking.
What Is Deep Linking?
Deep linking is a practice that allows users to navigate directly to a specific section within a downloaded app. Just as a regular web link directs users to a webpage, a deep link takes them straight to a particular area or content within a mobile app.
Simply put, deep links help marketers streamline the transition from email, web, social media, and other channels to targeted in-app content.
This streamlined approach connects the audience directly to the content they want, eliminating unnecessary steps.
Here’s a quick example of how in-app deep linking works –
Scenario: Say you are running a limited-time flash sale on laptops on your eCommerce app.
Traditional Linking Practice: Your marketing team sends promotional emails, but the link takes users to the app’s homepage. This wastes their time as they need to search for the sale.
Deep Linking: As per the deep linking definition, this practice allows you to link directly to a specific page or content within a mobile app, bypassing the homepage. So, your marketing team can send them directly to the specific page where the flash sale is happening. This eliminates extra clicks or navigation within the app.
Benefits of Deep Linking: Here, your users are more likely to complete a purchase when they are taken directly to the content of interest. This can lead to higher conversion rates for your flash sale campaign.
Setting deep linking, thus, –
- Streamline user journey and enhance user engagement.
- Improve the overall user experience.
- Enable quicker access to relevant information or actions.
- Enhance tracking, as marketers can track the source and touchpoints that led to in-app actions.
Most importantly, this level of granularity helps in understanding which channels, campaigns, or even specific ads are driving conversions.
Now you know what is deep linking, you may be wondering what happens if the users don’t already have your app installed. What happens in that case?
That’s where deferred deep linking comes into play.
What Are Deferred Deep Links?
As the name states, deferred links allow users who don’t yet have your app installed to stop at the app store to download it (essentially deferring their journey) before being redirected to the content they initially clicked on.
For this reason, deferred deep links are sometimes called indirect deep links.
Here’s a quick example of how this type of deep link works.
Scenario: A user receives a targeted push notification from your bank’s app about a new limited-time credit card offer.
Here’s how the deferred deep linking works –
- User Action: The user clicks the push notification.
- App Not Installed: They are directed to the app store to download your bank’s app.
- Post-Installation: Once the user downloads and installs the app, the deferred link automatically redirects them to the specific credit card application form within the app.
The way of deep linking thus depends on the specific use case.
Here’s a quick summary table outlining the difference between deep links, deferred links, and traditional links.
How Do Mobile Marketers Use Deep Linking
As mobile app usage continues to rise, deep links are essential for optimizing user acquisition, engagement, and re-engagement campaigns. The granular insights can help improve campaign performance and understand user behavior.
However, merely knowing “what is deep linking” is not enough. Besides understanding the importance of deep links, you must also know the best practices to integrate deep links. Setting up custom deep links can be a game-changer.
Here are the best practices to achieve the best benefits of deep linking.
1. Ensure In-App Configuration for Routing
Poor routing can disrupt your user experience, leading to frustration and potential loss of users.
So, ensure your mobile app is configured to handle deep links without errors. It should take the users to specific pages or sections without hassles.
Test your deep linking infrastructure regularly across different devices and platforms (iOS, Android) to ensure consistent performance.
2. Use Deep Linking Across Channels
Don’t confine your deep linking strategy to one channel.
Leverage it across emails, SMS, social media ads, mobile advertising, and push notifications.
For instance, you can run a mobile ad promoting a special in-app offer and set up deep links to take users directly to the page after they click the ad.
Each marketing touchpoint should direct users to the most relevant content within your mobile app.
A consistent experience across multiple channels can drive more traffic to your app’s key sections. Besides, this ensures that whenever users engage with your business, they receive a relevant in-app experience.
This can help boost conversions and retention in the long term.
3. Know Which Type of Deep Link to Use
Deep links work for users who already have your mobile app installed.
On the other hand, deferred links are ideal for new users. The users should install the app first, and then they are taken to the intended content post-installation.
Choose the appropriate deep link format based on user behavior and acquisition status.
This can improve your user experience and maximize ROI by targeting users more effectively.
4. Leverage Deep Links for Retargeting
Reports state that the average click-through rate for display ads is 0.07%. On the other hand, the average click-through for retargeted Ads is around 0.7%.
In fact, retargeted customers are three times more likely to click on an ad than those who haven’t previously engaged with your business.
Deep linking can boost the effectiveness of your retargeting campaigns and prove a game-changer.
It can re-engage inactive or lapsed users by directing them to the content they previously showed interest in, such as a product they browsed but didn’t buy.
For instance, if your mobile app user added an item to their cart but didn’t check it out, a retargeting ad with a deep link can bring them directly back to their cart.
Retargeting with deep links can thus drive higher conversion rates and reduce friction in the buying process.
5. Fix Broken Links
It’s a no-brainer. Broken deep links are detrimental to your mobile app’s user experience.
They can lead users to generic landing pages or errors, causing frustration and app abandonment.
What’s more? A broken link in a campaign can waste your ad spend and tarnish your app’s reputation.
So, frequently audit all your mobile deep links to ensure they function. Besides, ensure you set up fallback URLs in case a deep link fails. Incorporating a deep link standard can help maintain consistency across your campaigns and improve user experience.
6. Don’t Ignore Breadcrumbs
Incorporate breadcrumbs into your mobile app’s design. This allows your users to understand their location within the app and easily backtrack whenever required.
This is crucial when using deep links to direct users to specific in-app content.
For instance, if the user clicks a direct deep link to a product page, breadcrumbs help them navigate to broader categories if they want to explore other options.
This practice can minimize bounce rates and encourage users to stay within the app longer.
So, ensure you implement a well-structured breadcrumb trail to improve overall navigation, making it easier for users to explore without feeling lost.
7. Optimize Deep Link URL Keywords
Optimizing your deep link URLs with relevant keywords can improve your app’s visibility in search engines and the app store. This works similarly to traditional web SEO.
For instance, use product-specific keywords to create custom deep links.
Say, you are an eCommerce store growth manager owner. You want to target a specific category of mobile phones.
Instead of a general deep link like (store.com/mobilephones), you can create a product-specific custom deep link like this –
(store.com/mobilephones/abc-s23-ultra)
This deep link takes users to the product page where they can find the exact item without browsing multiple listings.
8. Rely on Technology
Leverage mobile measurement partners (MMPs) to track deep link performance accurately.
Integrating MMP’s SDK (a piece of code) into your app offers granular insights into user journeys and helps attribute installs, in-app behavior, and campaign outcomes to specific deep links.
It allows you to track how users interact with deep links—whether they convert or where they drop off—and adjust your strategies.
This automation saves time, helps improve Return on Ad Spend (ROAS), and ensures your marketing efforts are directed toward the most effective channels.Ensure the MMP you choose should offer analytics capabilities to crunch data across mobile, CTV, web, CTV, and PC and Console campaigns in one place.
Apptrove Makes Setting Up Deep Links Easy
Apptrove’s deep linking suite is a one-stop solution for all deep linking campaign requirements.
Our best-in-class mobile measurement platform and analytics suite offer dynamic deep links for each campaign and partner, helping you deliver personalized experiences across platforms with precise ROAS tracking.
Besides, it provides advanced retargeting links with built-in de-duplication to avoid duplicate user data.
What’s more? Apptrove has an advanced audience segmentation feature that ensures every install turns into an engaged user. You can segment your audience based on intent, app behavior, and communication preferences, creating tailored experiences that drive higher lifetime value (LTV).
The best part? Apptrove leverages next-gen technologies to help you extract detailed insights.
It uses –
- Probabilistic modeling and deterministic aggregation to accurately attribute app installs and in-app activities across both Android and iOS devices.
- Dedicated dashboard for SKAN analytics to track user journeys and identify bottlenecks in your conversion funnel.
- Predictive analytics to forecast campaign success, personalize in-app experiences, and detect and prevent fraud early.
- SDK integration is designed to be triggered by custom events defined by developers, offering flexibility and precision.
- 7-layered fraud protection that ensures your data is safe from duplication, misattributed installs, and other errors. It is customized to suit each campaign, partner, and channel.
Apptrove offers configurable fraud shields that allow you to customize your fraud prevention strategy with custom rules for each partner/campaign.
The Validation Rules Admin Console optimizes all fraud prevention rules from a centralized hub.
Summing Up
Standard deep linking guides your mobile app users directly to specific in-app content and reduces friction. It creates a seamless experience for your app users while optimizing tracking and enhancing mobile attribution accuracy.
The best practices to implement deep linking shared in the post can ensure your marketing efforts are targeted and effective. Besides, leveraging the mobile measurement platform and analytics suite like Apptrove can make deep linking effortless.
Apptrove simplifies the mobile deep linking process and enhances audience segmentation, predictive analytics, and fraud protection. Built on a cutting-edge technology framework, it drives better returns on ad spend. Talk to our sales team now to take complete control of your mobile marketing efforts.
