Deep linking 101: Everything you need to know in 2023

Deep linking. You’ve heard the term. Perhaps you’ve heard that it improves user experience, resulting in a significant boost of conversions and revenues. And maybe you’ve been searching high and low for the ultimate guide that’ll teach you the basics quickly in simple, non-technical language.

Well, you’re in luck! This guide will guarantee you understand:

• The concepts of deep linking and deferred deep linking
• An explanation on how they work
• A discussion of the benefits of deep linking and how it drives ROX (return on experience)
• An overview on Universal Links, App Links, and URI schemes
• Use cases galore covering different industries and business challenges
• Implementation considerations

Sounds good? Continue on!

What is deep linking?

In the context of mobile, deep linking describes the action of delivering users to specific in-app content from wherever they are.

What kind of specific content? Well, pretty much any in-app destination other than the app’s home screen, from a product page to checkout.

That covers the destination. What about the starting point? In other words, where would you place a “deep link” — i.e. the URL — — that begins the deep linking journey?

That’s easy — any place your potential or existing users may be looking at: Instagram, Snap, an email or text message, chat inboxes, search engines, QR codes on billboards or a pizza box. Mobile users are nearly everywhere, and you should be too.

To help you wrap your head around deep linking, we like to compare mobile marketers to taxi drivers, admittedly a strange comparison at first glance.

It goes like this: The job of a taxi driver and marketer is ultimately the same: driving customers from point A to point B. And while taxi drivers use a car for their job, marketers achieve this by using deep linking technology.

In a nutshell, deep linking is used to bring users from just about anywhere to nearly any digital destination. When it comes to mobile, it is most commonly used by marketers and product managers to drive app growth, engagement, and retention.

How deep linking actually works

Now comes the interesting part. How can marketers and product managers make sure that the same link they’ve placed in a campaign triggers a smooth, seamless journey to specific content for any users — regardless of whether they have the app or not and irrespective of device (mobile or PC), operating system, browser, etc.?

That’s where the magic of deep linking happens.

Using a deep linking engine, marketers define the experience for users that will click on a link.

This can include things like where an app user should be redirected to, as well as different journeys for iOS, Android, and desktop users.

At a very basic level, a deep linking engine allows marketers and product managers to provide two distinct types of journeys — one for app users and one for non-app users:

• If the user has the app — they are “deep linked” seamlessly to the content.
• If they don’t have the app — a mechanism called “deferred deep linking” kicks in, where the user is brought to the right app store so that they download, install, and launch the app, after which the relevant in-app content will be displayed.

Crafting customized journeys for different users on the fly is what enables deep linking engines to create customer experiences that are contextual and personalized. Ultimately, these types of delightful journeys will generate a notable business impact, from boosting retention, to lifting conversions, and improving LTV.

Things you can do with a deep linking engine

Simple things

(1) Increase app engagement for existing users by sending an email with a link that sends users directly to a product page in your app.

(2) Drive app growth via a campaign with paid influencers who embed a link in their YouTube clip description. The links direct new iOS users to the App Store and new Android users to the Play Store, and then they are redirected to the contextual content in the app presented by the influencer in their clip.

More powerful things

(1) Drive app growth by setting up a web-to-app journey that begins with a mobile web banner that captures and reports the sources of incoming traffic, and then redirects users to the right app store, followed by the relevant in-app content.

(2) Increase app adoption by creating a campaign directing users to a mobile web landing page that displays multiple CTA buttons, each of which redirects users to different app stores and ultimately the app. (a la Coinbase’s Super Bowl commercial).

One final but very important factor to understand is the distinction between deep linking and deep linking engines.

• Deep linking refers to the action of delivering users to specific in-app content from wherever they are
• Deep linking engines allow brands to redirect users to different destinations (i.e., deep linking) including digital locations such as web landing pages and app stores.

Great journeys lead to ROX — The benefits of deep linking

Now that you know a little bit more about deep linking, how it works, and some things you can do with it, let’s get back to basics and answer the question: Why do you need deep linking in the first place?

App marketers and product managers use deep linking for a simple reason:

Deep linking allows them to increase conversions by creating awesome, easily-created customer experiences that drive new and existing users to their app from any channel.

By offering great customer experience (CX), marketers take more users to their desired destination — thereby widening the bottom of the funnel. Product managers, on the other hand, can better engage and retain their users.

Great CX leads to business results, and the business impact resulting from investment in customer experience is known as return on experience (ROX).

We’ve been keeping close tabs on ROX for a while and have witnessed the dramatic uplift in click-to-install and share of paying users rates for customers that use deep linking.

• Click-to-install (CTI) rates: While generic journeys –- which lack contextualization and personalization –- score just over 5% click-to-install (CTI) rates, deep linking-enabled experiences deliver up to 6X higher conversion rates.

Take journeys beginning on a brand’s mobile website (web-to-app) and in the physical world (QR-to-app) as examples. They show remarkable 27% and 33% CTI rates across all verticals, respectively.

• Share of paying users: The smooth journey provided by deep linking into a specific app page also increases the share of paying users, which is the percentage of users that make a purchase after installing an app.

For example, when food and drink brands use text messages to engage their users, an average of 14% of users make a purchase

Deep linking, Universal Links, and App Links, oh my

Any basic primer on deep linking would be incomplete without a discussion around Universal Links, App Links, and URI schemes. This is going to be a brief introduction but if you feel like deep diving into the topic — this dedicated blog and our Dev Hub can offer plenty of insights.

Let’s start with Apple Universal Links and Android App Links. First of all, they’re not really links.

Universal Links (iOS) and App Links (Android) are very similar mechanisms that can be applied to any campaign link in order to send users directly into an app (provided they have it).

Users sent to the app are then brought to the right in-app content (i.e., deep linked) based on the routing behavior defined in the deep linking solution.

There are a number of clear benefits to using Universal Links and App Links:

1. Improve customer experience — Universal Links and App Links open an app in a rapid, seamless way, presenting users with the most relevant in-app content without skipping a heartbeat, or having to launch the app, search for the correct content, and all that tiring stuff no one has time to do.
2. Boost app conversions — A welcome by-product of improved customer experience is a boost to conversion rates. The quicker and more smoothly a user is brought to the content they want to see, the more likely they are to convert.
3. Increase retention rates — The overall improved experience results in higher engagement and retention. It’s well known that it’s easier to re-engage with an existing user than to acquire a new one, which makes engagement maintenance imperative.
4. Provide a secure path for users to follow — Universal Links and App Links are designed by Apple and Google, respectively, to prevent hackers from hijacking unsuspecting users to fraudulent apps.

What about a URI scheme? That would be another mechanism that allows users to open an app that’s installed on a device. Because URIs are considered less secure than Universal Links and App Links, they’ve gradually become less popular.

Deferred deep linking basics and benefits

At the beginning of this guide, we briefly introduced the concept of deferred deep linking. Since it’s part and parcel of any deep linking solution and has become an essential element of any mobile marketer’s UA toolbox, let’s dig in a little more.

Why is deferred deep linking so critical to building great mobile journeys? In the simplest terms, it’s a way to deliver app-less users to their in-app destination in the smoothest, quickest way possible.

Here’s an example:

• Thanksgiving’s just around the corner, and I stumble across a great clip with an influencer sharing a recipe for a lovely holiday dinner.
• The clip’s description includes a link that will allow me to buy the ingredients online at a nearby grocery retailer.
• Luckily, the marketer at the grocery brand has given the influencer in the clip a link created by a deep linking engine.
• I’m redirected to the App Store, where I download the grocery store’s app.
• After launching the app, I am deep-linked to the checkout page with all of the ingredients already populated in my shopping cart.

What would happen without deferred deep linking? That would depend on a few variables, such as how the grocery brand’s marketer set up the rerouting paths.

The marketer would have to create different links for various scenarios and edge cases, and I would have to follow a tedious, multi-step process to get to the recipe:

• I’d see links in the description of the influencer’s clip to download the app in different app stores.
• I’d head to the App Store to download and install the app.
• Then I’d head back to the clip to find another link to the in-app content (the checkout page).

In short, without deferred deep linking, it’s nearly impossible to provide a smooth, personal, and contextual path to the right place in the app, which would clearly undermine the ability to ramp up acquisition goals.

Deferred deep linking helps drive UA and return on experience (ROX). Smooth, contextual CX results in delighted users, and up to sixfold boost in click-to-install we see with deferred deep linking users.

Deep linking implementation

Implementing deep linking is relatively straightforward. A handful of deep linking providers offer SAAS products, and can walk you through the creation of deep links for mobile marketing campaigns.

At the highest level, marketers and product managers use deep linking solutions to define the journeys they’d like their end-users to take once they click on the deep links they create:

For non-app users:

• Where should iOS or Android users be rerouted — an app store? A web landing page?
• Should the users be redirected to a specific page in the app after installing the app, i.e., should deferred deep linking be used?

For app users:

• Where in the app should iOS users be routed?
• Where in the app should Android users be routed?
• Where should Android users be sent if you only have an iOS app?

Marketers and product managers can also use the power of deep linking engines to better understand campaign performance. For example, by measuring installs, revenues, share of paying users, and LTV, or for capturing the sources of users who have clicked the deep links.

What about developers? Do they have a role in deep linking implementation? The answer is: they typically do, given the fact that the app needs to open on the deep-linked page. A good deep linking solution provides ample guidance on the hand-offs between developers and marketers / product managers.

One last word on implementing deep linking. You should identify a provider that offers more than just that. Adding another solution to your marketing tech stack is typically less desirable than using a rich, robust mobile marketing platform that includes deep linking functionality in its core feature set.

Key takeaways

• Deep linking is critical for mobile UA and engagement. Marketers and product managers use it to help them compete and achieve their UA and engagement goals.
• Deep linking effectively addresses key business challenges such as cart abandonment, web-to-app migration, in-store conversion, brand awareness, and more.
• The primary benefit of deep linking is driving return on experience (ROX), leading to significant business impact in the form of conversions and revenue.
• It’s best to work with a technology provider that offers deep linking as part of a robust mobile marketing platform that includes attribution, fraud prevention, and campaign measurement.

Thanks for reading this post! Leave a comment below if you have any questions. Be sure to follow By all measures on Medium to get the latest tips, tricks and insights on digital marketing, mobile growth, and app UX.

This was originally posted on the AppsFlyer blog