Introduction Deep links are an essential part of the app marketer’s toolkit. They’re the pathways that connect users from campaign to app, streamlining user experience and exposing users to the right marketing, and the right pages. Deep linking has existed for some time, referring to the practice of sending users “deeper” into a website. Instead of linking directly to the homepage, marketers use deep linking to highlight the pages that work best in the context a user finds that link. For example, you want users to share songs from your music app, so you can add deep links that enable links to open the song straight away, instead of just opening the app. Creating this capability is more complicated than you might think, and this guide aims to give you the rundown of exactly what deep links can do. Getting your deep linking right is incredibly worthwhile, as it will make your mobile campaigns that much more successful.

Contents What are deep links?_{................................................................................................................. 4} Two types of deep links_{........................................................................................................... 5} Default................................................................................................................................................... 5 Deferred................................................................................................................................................ 6 Contextual deep linking?.................................................................................................................... 7 Deeps links are not (necessarily) mobile measurement technology_{................................................................................... 7} How do deep links benefit users?_{................................................................................... 8} How do deep links benefit mobile marketers?_{..................................................... 9} Universal Links_{................................................................................................................................ 10} Adjust deep links_{........................................................................................................................... 12} Adding deep links to Adjust campaigns_{..................................................................... 13}

........... 10</sub> Adjust deep links_{........................................................................................................................... 12} Adding deep links to Adjust campaigns_{..................................................................... 13} Deep link tips_{.................................................................................................................................... 14} Keep track of your click-to-conversion rates.................................................................................. 14 Be aware of bigger platforms............................................................................................................ 14 Capitalize on your users wherever they are................................................................................... 15 Great minds link alike_{................................................................................................................ 16}

What are deep links? Let’s explain with an example INSTALL You have an e-commerce app. The icon looks like this: You want to retarget users who’ve stopped using your app with an offer for items still in their basket, redirecting them back to the checkout page. You begin with a handful of channels, including banner ads, targeted email, and even redirects on a special page on your website, as shown here In the setup phase, it’s not possible to create links to the app in any of these places with regular URLs. That’s because regular hyperlinks, or URLs (like https://www.myapp.com/), don’t contain the ability to link anywhere other than sites within web browsers. The job of directing a user from the web to an app is handled by deep links. Deep links, though they’re URI schemes, look different to URLs because they have another type of destination. Here’s an example: myapp://path?routing_parameter First, the scheme differs from a traditional URL, which begins with https://. In a mobile deep link, it’s the name of the app. Here, that’s myapp://. Routing parameters follow the scheme (path?routing_parameter), controlling how the link functions. Below shows what a deep link could look like if you had an e-commerce app and wanted to point users to a specific product page:myapp://product?product_id=6398342

me of the app. Here, that’s myapp://. Routing parameters follow the scheme (path?routing_parameter), controlling how the link functions. Below shows what a deep link could look like if you had an e-commerce app and wanted to point users to a specific product page:myapp://product?product_id=6398342 This is the most basic form a deep link can take. Such links are known as “default deep links” and are relatively simple to set up. However, they only work if the user has the app installed, on their device. If you want to include users who may not have the app installed, you need to use deferred deep links. The next section covers these differences.

Two types of deep links There are two kinds of links: default and deferred deep links. 1 Default Default deep links only direct users to an app if it’s already installed. If the app is not installed, the link can’t reach the endpoint of an app so an error message is displayed. Default deep links are useful for retargeting campaigns where an app marketer is solely interested in finding users who have the app installed, and want them to return. App installed 0 App opens Click on ad ERROR! App not installed