Consumers increasingly rely on their mobile devices to shop, order food, book travel, manage their finances, and more. With mobile usage higher than ever, the majority of that time is spent in apps, with the average person now spending four to five hours per day using mobile apps. In order to meet rising customer expectations and stay ahead of the competition, it’s critical for brands to prioritize app-first strategies that provide users with a seamless, omni-channel experience.
The importance of deep linking and attribution for great mobile experiences
When it comes to executing great mobile experiences, it’s important to recognize that consumers expect to be sent to relevant content when they click your links on mobile devices. Moreover, users with your app installed expect to be sent to that content in your app rather than your mobile website. Considering app users have 3x higher conversion rates, bundle more often, and have higher lifetime value (LTV), sending users to app content is a win for users and brands alike.
Deep linking from marketing channels like email and social media can help you meet consumer expectations by taking them directly to specific content within your app. Deep linking also helps to drive engagement, increase retention, and generate higher revenue. By partnering with a mobile linking platform (MLP) like Branch, you can scale deep links across marketing channels to ensure users are always taken to the right place in the most optimal platform.
Delivering great experiences is half the battle. But inaccurate or incomplete mobile attribution data can lead to poor decision-making and ineffective campaigns. As a mobile measurement partner (MMP) and the industry’s leading MLP, Branch provides unified attribution for all paid, owned, and earned marketing channels. Holistic mobile measurement allows you to optimize future campaigns and, ultimately, win in mobile.
Let’s review examples of how Branch customers have implemented deep linking and measurement to maximize their mobile app’s potential.
How to create a seamless web-to-app experience
The mobile web is ideal for browsing and discovering content, but when it comes to driving engagement and conversions, it is considerably less effective than your mobile app. Web-to-app smart banners like Branch Journeys can be used to seamlessly guide customers from the mobile web to app content. Smart contextual and behavioral targeting rules help you ensure web visitors have a personalized, non-bombarding experience and see the right message at the right time.
Expedia used web-to-app smart banners, personalized via embedded metadata, to create a seamless customer experience from web to app and saw a 20% increase in app installs.
How to maximize mobile revenue from email
Deep-linked email campaigns are another great way to drive engagement and conversions for mobile brands. App users expect to be taken to app content when they click a link within an email, but executing this experience can be challenging without a partner like Branch.
By using Branch deep links in your email campaigns, you can direct customers to specific pages within your app, where users may already be logged in with their preferences saved. By driving acquisition from email with deferred deep linking and add-to-cart functionality with referral data, you can really elevate the email-to-app experience.
With Branch’s email-to-app solution, KFC allows users to add chicken tenders to their in-app cart in three clicks, eliminating steps in the user’s path to conversion.
Ancestry used Branch’s ESP integration to create a seamless, cross-platform experience. Because of this, they drove app user acquisition from email and saw a 44% increase in app opens and 3x increase in app feature engagement.
How to move users from organic social into your app with Branch links
Walled gardens like Facebook and Instagram are known for keeping conversions within their social media platforms. By leveraging Branch links, you can route users out of organic social channels into your mobile app, leading to increased conversions and revenue. This can also be helpful for driving acquisition from an already engaged social audience.
Jersey Mike’s saw a 43% increase in app installs during their Month of Giving campaign when using deep links to break out of walled gardens
How to drive app acquisition and engagement from the offline world
QR codes grew in popularity during the pandemic. They can be an effective tool for driving app acquisition and engagement from the offline world. By including a QR code in offline marketing campaigns (on signage, mailers, or product packaging), you can direct consumers to continue their engagement within your mobile app.
One important factor to consider is that a QR code is only as reliable as the link behind it. We recommend deep-linked QR codes, which can help improve acquisition and engagement by making it easier for users to download and view specific content within your app.
For their in-store app promotion, New Look used dynamically generated QR codes to acquire new users — and they drove 16K+ app installs in the first month using Branch’s MLP.
Great mobile experiences = more revenue
There are many ways that mobile brands across a variety of industries can improve their mobile experiences — smart banners, deep links, QR codes, and more. By using Branch’s MLP and MMP solutions, you can provide a more seamless and optimized experience, grow your user base, and increase revenue.
To learn more about how to implement Branch for improved mobile experiences, reach out to us!