Mobile App Marketing Attribution, UTM Parameters, and Deep Linking

Mobile App Deep Linking and Attribution

Mobile App Deep Linking, UTM Parameters and Attribution

App deep linking platforms like URLgenius enable marketing campaign managers to launch a page or a feature of your mobile app vs. mobile website. This deep linking capability is possible without SDKs or costly technical development. Marketers gain control over the consumer journey while they strive to optimize mobile app vs. mobile website conversion during mobile moments from any channel.

Pro Tip: Want to create a single app store link with attribution that goes to the right app store depending on the device clicking? See this post.

When it comes to reporting, many multi-channel advertisers have made investments in analytics and attribution. Google Analytics, for example, is the most popular analytics solution, with over 50 million site implementations by some estimates. Channel analytics applications for email, paid search and affiliate marketing are also heavily entrenched in the marketing operations of most companies.

What all these analytics applications have in common is the ability to append UTM parameters to a link for tracking and attribution. A UTM parameter is a word or a set of characters or tags added to a URL in this case a URLgenius link. When your URLgenius link is clicked, the tags are sent back to analytics solution and tracked. UTM parameters help you measure the effectiveness of your campaigns by understanding which marketing channels, campaigns, or audience segments are driving the most clicks.

Apple iTunes SDK and Google Play SDK for Attribution

Mobile app developers also use various analytics packages for tracking attribution in their mobile app. For example, there are now Apple iTunes and Google Play SDKs available. These solutions also support a UTM parameters for tracking and attribution and help marketers get a deeper understanding of traffick sources coming from a browser or another app.

App deep linking platforms like URLgenius are designed to support appending UTM parameters for any analytics application for any marketing channel. You can also append parameters for more than one analytics solution to the same link.

As an example, here is a standard web URL with UTM parameters:

http://www.example.com/?utm_source=adsite&utm_campaign=adcampaign&utm_term=adkeyword

If the parameters are static or not changing an embedded approach could reduce user error. If the parameters are dynamic or changing based on keyword or audience segment they would need to be appended. Email marketing and paid search systems will dynamically append parameters your links (in this case a URLgenius link).

Mobile App Deep Linking Attribution

App Deep Linking and Mobile Attribution Analytics

When appending UTM parameters to URLgenius links, you can look at your mobile attribution analytics dashboard to see the results. Google Analytics, for example, lets you see data from custom UTM parameters in the campaign and traffic sources reporting.

You can also log in to URLgenius at any time to understand how often your link is opening your app. We will also show you some basic referring URL data.

Below is a chart example for daily clicks to your by date.

Mobile App Deep Linking Attribution

Mobile App Deep Linking and Attribution Reporting

Mobile App Deep Linking Attribution

The next chart shows app opens by iOS and Android and by device (smartphone or tablet).
A quick look at your app open rate helps you determine what percentage of visitors have your app installed for iOS vs. Android.
App store visits indicate those who have shown interest in viewing the content of the link in the app but do not have the app installed on their device.

Mobile App Deep Linking Attribution