Deep Linking Tip #2: Send users searching on branded terms directly into your app

Brands and retailers spend millions of dollars on search marketing every year. Expected to reach over 130 billion USD in spending worldwide, paid search continues to be a top driver of brand engagement and sales for all types of retailers.

As consumers spend more time in apps – more than 86% of their mobile time by some estimates – they subsequently do more searching on mobile devices. Retailers need to find ways to capitalize on this trend and reduce the number steps to conversion within today’s more time sensitive consumer experience.

One important way to do that is to deep link from the search results page directly into the retailer app when it’s present on the device instead of sending users to a mobile web site by default. Users that have the retailer app installed typically do not want to be sent to a mobile web site to login only to navigate further to find what they want. The result can be a high abandon rate at the point of login to the mobile website.

In our own study last year during Cyber Monday and Black Friday we deep linked into top retail apps from search results and found that searches on branded terms are a reliable indicator that the user has the app installed on the device. We cited the results in an article published earlier this year and found that 35 percent of consumers conducting a search on a branded term from their mobile devices had that brand’s app on their smartphone. Some brands had app penetration rates as high as 57 percent (and even higher on tablets).

To enable app deep linking from the search results page, an important first step is to enable URL schemes in the app that match the top web landing pages for branded terms. After getting your app ready for deep linking, the URLgenius platform can be implemented quickly without the need for SDK or API integration.

Once the structure is in place to route customers into the retailer app if present, marketing teams can then begin testing campaigns, content and assumptions. Companies like REI are taking actionable insights acquired through deep linking into their customer segmentation, campaign and promotion strategies.

Need some help getting your apps ready for mobile search marketing? We can index your apps for iOS and Android then once your app is ready we can typically get test links for URLgenius setup within minutes!