Mobile Deep Linking: Key for Growing User Engagement and Sales
Before we start, tell me your reaction when you want to do something straightly, but you have to pass through useless curves. It’s so irritating!
The same feeling arises when you want to access a specific page of the mobile application by clicking on a link, but the device redirects you either on a browser (if the app is not installed) or app’s home screen (if the app is installed). Browser lands you in Google Play Store or App Store to download the specific app. Have you already installed the app? Then you are a bit luckier as you can directly go to the app’s home screen. But, in both the scenarios, you have to find the required information through manual search.
Mobile Deep Linking aka Mobile App Deep Linking helps organizations to reduce the meaningless processes. It redirects the users to a specific link location instantly. The technique enables companies to improve user engagement by facilitating them with the precise and desired content.
Mobile Deep Linking
It’s an emerging app marketing tactic that allows users to access a specific location in the app. Integration of mobile app deep linking is quite easy and requires minimal efforts.
Developers need to create a customized URL scheme of iOS/Android mobile applications and register it with the operating system.
Once the mapping from the pathway to destinations or tasks is completed in the app, developers can easily set up deep linking in applications.
Now, when users click on a URL received trough notification, SMS, email, or social media, they can access a specific page rather than landing on the app’s home screen.
Let’s understand this with the example of a Twitter mobile app. The app must be registered with a URL scheme so every URL starts with twitter:// will deep link to the app. Thus, users can directly visit a specific page in the Twitter app instead of landing on the app’s home screen.
Types of Mobile App Deep Linking
Standard Deep Linking
In standard deep linking, the mobile app is connected with the web application. For example; https://twitter.com/page can replace with Twitterapp://page. To get the benefits of traditional deep linking, the app must be installed on the mobile device. Because once a user taps on a link, the device searches the app content at the address provided by the URL scheme. If the app is not installed in the device, the phone will not be able to find the relevant content and show an error.
Deferred Deep Linking
Either the app is installed on your device or not, deferred deep linking redirects users to a specific page. If the app is installed, the link will be redirected to the specific page like standard deep linking. In case, the app is not installed, then the link will be redirected to the Google Play Store or App Store to download the app. Once the app installation is finished, users will be redirected to the specific page as the device remembered the content previously accessed.
Contextual Deep Linking
It provides the advantages of standard as well as deferred deep linking. Contextual deep linking stores the data about the users’ desired page to visit. Additionally, it collects various information by analyzing the history of linking such as how the link was originally shared, where the link was found, the value of an offer to the users, and more.
Why is Adoption of Mobile Deep Linking Essential for Organizations?
Enriched User Experience
With the deep linking, users can easily navigate through the different content of the app. Rather than searching for the content here and there, users can directly land on a specific screen that contains the most relevant information.
Exclusive User Onboarding
Mobile app deep linking allows organizations to deliver a more personalized experience to the users. They can identify and analyze the users’ behavior and accordingly strategize their approach for each user. Using contextual deep linking, enterprises enable users with personalized app invites by introducing rewards and incentives in the app onboarding flow.
Related article to read: App Onboarding: Don’t Just Inform Users, Engage Them Too
Effective Promotion of Your Apps
If a company owns multiple mobile applications that are interconnected or work in a sequence, deep linking makes it quite easy to promote other apps while the user is playing with one.
For an instance; there is a gaming app divided into multiple parts and sequence. Deep linking allows the mobile app owners to promote the second part of the game to the users when they finish the first part. Thus, users can reach to the next app from the recent one. The fun continues for them.
Boost up the Campaign Efficiency
Deep linking tracks all the campaign-related information accurately and passes it to companies. It helps them to identify the most effective and successful sources that drive users to the mobile application and encourage them to install the app. Organizations can recognize whether it is social media, email, SMS, referral, or deep linking ads that helps in generating maximum ROI.
Better User Re-engagement
Mobile deep linking URL can be sent to users through social media, notification, email, SMS, etc. When the user taps on URL, device directs them to the relevant content and not on the app’s home screen. When the app is not active during a time period, deep linking engages the users by launching a specific page immediately. Leveraging notifications, organizations enable users with the link to a new feature, an exclusive deal, or other incentives that engage users with app again and again.
Retargeting
You can make use of deep links for the need of retargeting campaigns or for re-engaging users. This will need implementation with deep links setup like when tracking code on the landing page.
End-to-end testing with direct navigation
This will cover deep links for testing scenarios of your mobile application.
Major use cases of deep linking -
• You can invite users for signing up for your app.
• Indexing the app pages having deep links in the pages within your mobile application.
• Re-engaging your users by using deep links for sending push notifications or running email campaigns and also all these will boost customer loyalty.
• Using omnichannel as deep links enable diverse businesses for linking their digital channels.
I breathe, eat, drink and sleep mobility. My passion for innovative mobile apps always inspires me to discover best development practices and execute them effectively. At Intuz, my team builds robust mobile applications with the aim of minimizing client’s investment and maximizing ROI with automated business processes. Take a look at our exclusive work on app development & design.
Also read: 5 Unbeatable App Marketing Strategies Every Business Must Know
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