The Deep Linking Difference—And What It Could Mean for Your Brand [Branch Metrics Partnership]

A few weeks ago, a food and drinks app sent a push notification telling recipients that they were eligible to receive free cups of coffee at participating locations—and to find out more, all they had to do was tap. But when they did, customers found themselves dropped on the app’s main page, with no idea where or how to take advantage of the giveaway. (As a consumer, maybe this sounds familiar to you.)

The campaign could have been easily salvaged. How? With one small addition: deep linking. If the push notification had included a deep link leading users to the appropriate section of the app (or, alternately, to a full-screen in-app message giving details about the promotion), this outreach would have been effective, instead of frustrating.

How Appboy and Branch Metrics’ partnership can help

Helping brands avoid this kind of unfortunate situation is in everybody’s best interest. That’s why, as part of our ongoing work to make it easier for brands to engage, retain, and build lasting relationships with their customers, Appboy and deep linking provider Branch Metrics have partnered to make it easier to take advantage of this essential, multifaceted tool.

If your brand doesn’t already have the ability to add deep links to its push notifications, mobile emails, in-app messages, and other outreach, you can now use Branch Metrics’ deep linking capabilities in conjunction with Appboy’s customer relationship suite. It’s a simple, powerful combination that supports deeper customer data collection and more personal customer outreach. Here’s how.

3 benefits of deep linking

Using deep linking, brands have the ability to gather valuable information about how customers are coming to their app or website, and then use that contextual data to power more personalized (and more effective) customer outreach. Some of the ways that deep linking can make a big difference include:

1. Making your onboarding process more personalized and responsive

How a new customer comes to download your app or visit your website can tell you a lot about them—what their interests are, what social networks they frequent, what sales pitch successfully convinced them to engage with your brand, and more. By making use of Branch Metrics for your deep linking, you can gather detailed install attribution data and use it automatically to improve your customer retention.

After all, a well-designed onboarding process can help you educate new customers about the value that your brand can provide and increase the odds that they return. For instance, one of Branch’s partners built a deep linked, personalized onboarding flow and increased the conversion to sign up by 78%. Additionally, a study carried out by Appboy has found that making use of personalization can make your customer outreach even more effective.

2. Extending the reach and effectiveness of your outreach

Using deep links can help you avoid botched campaigns like that coffee giveaway. But it can also do a lot more. By taking advantage of deep linking’s ability to connect multiple message types in a multichannel campaign, it’s possible to reach more customers more effectively.

If, for instance, you’re looking to let customers know about a new feature, deep linking allows you to engage them with a simple in-app message, then direct those users to a News Feed Card featuring more detail that will stick around in the app, allowing them to refer back to it if they have questions. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a way to re-engage lapsing customers, deep linking allows you to reach those users via an attention-getting messaging channel like push, then send them to a full-screen in-app message or News Feed Card that can include a more detailed, personalized sales pitch on why they should give your brand another shot.

3. Seamlessly connecting your web and app experiences

While app usage makes up the bulk of users’ time on mobile, the web remains a major part of the mobile equation for most brands. Many customers first engage via web, then move on to download an associated app after becoming convinced of the brand’s value. And once a customer has an app, that doesn’t mean that they’ll never visit that brand’s website again.

Deep linking makes it possible to send customers seamlessly between your mobile app and web presence. Encourage active web visitors to get your app by highlighting an app-only feature or piece of content, then use a deep link to allow them to automatically open the appropriate page after their download. Promote your website’s redesign in an in-app message, then link to an in-browser message on the homepage that walks customers through the updates. The possibilities are limitless.

Looking to dig deeper?

For more information about deep linking and how it can improve your brand’s engagement, conversions, and long-term retention, check out this blog post from Branch Metrics’ Will Lindemann on deep linking’s past, present, and future.