According to eMarketer, adults in the U.S. spent 90% of smartphone time and 77% of tablet time in mobile apps vs. browsers in 2018. Linking to apps has become increasingly important for marketers and agencies to increase conversion. Routing traffic to the right place in social apps and brand apps can leads to higher conversion, revenue and return on ad spend.
Combining your brand domain strategy with app deep linking can help agencies and marketers promote brands further and ultimately convey to consumers that they are being sent to the right place in the app by a company they trust. Using a brand domain for app deep linking can also make it easier to operate across today’s complex online advertising ecosystem while satisfying the security requirements for different antivirus platforms.
Creating a link using a branded domain that can open a social or brand app on iOS and Android sounds like a technical project that marketers or agencies can’t easily implement. In fact, most app deep linking solutions require the installation of an SDK. Cloud-based solutions like URLgenius, however, take only minutes to setup and configure. Consider this Facebook event link for a friends and family promotion at Macy’s.
https://www.facebook.com/events/394977914375155/
Facebook URLs will not typically open the Facebook app for iOS or Android from email and other channels and require the visitor to login to the Facebook mobile website where abandon rates are high.
Updating the link with a cloud-based, deep linking platform like URLgenius will enable the link to open the Facebook app directly to the event page. When updated, the link would look something like this:
https://urlgeni.us/facebook/friends-and-family-promotion
This URLgenius link will open the Facebook mobile app without having to login so the visitor can express their interest in the event immediately. There is still no indication in the domain, however, that this event is related to a Macy’s promotion.
Platforms like URLgenius enable marketers or agencies to go a step further by allowing the use of a brand domain in this app deep link making it look like this:
https://deeplink.macys.com/facebook/friends-and-family-promotion
(For illustrative purposes only)
This can be especially helpful to agencies and marketers working with brands that have high recognition or where click-through rates on branded links have proven to be higher.
Pro Tip: To use this feature you must own the domain! When choosing a subdomain for your URLgenius links consider a word like “social” or “go” especially if you plan to link into different apps. Also do not use the word for the app your are linking to for your subdomain (e.g. Instagram, Amazon) because the name of the app will be included in create your app deep links.
Another benefit of branded URLs is that they can be used along with QR codes for offline marketing. Deep linking platforms like URLgenius enable marketers to create QR codes easily without the need for technical resources.
For example, if Macy’s wanted to create a branded URL and QR code designed to drive traffic to their events section of the Macy’s Facebook profile, it would look like this:
deeplink.macys.com/facebook/events
Cloud-based platforms like URLgenius do not require an SDK to setup app deep linking with brand domains. Here are the steps to follow:
App deep linking with brand domains extends your branding to your promotional app engagement efforts. Make sure to avoid setup fees and unnecessary SDKs. Zero tech requirements and free testing make app deep linking with branded domains any marketer or agency looking for that unique competitive advantage.
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