As we are gearing towards the end of the year we are thrilled to see the excitement around our $10k Mobile Growth Challenge. While our current partners have a good idea on how they can use Branch to grow, one question that I hear from developers new to Branch is, “How can I use Branch to run and measure a mobile growth experiment for the $10k Challenge?”
Mobile Growth Experiments with Branch
Below are four experiments run by our existing partners that may provide inspiration for your team to get started. Keep in mind these are just a few examples of what you can do with Branch – we can’t wait to hear what you come up with!
Converting Web Users to App Users with Marketing Emails
The Experiment: While social media has provided a lot of new ways you can interact with your users from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to services like Intercom, email is still one of the best ways to engage with your mobile audience. You can use Branch links in marketing emails you send to your existing subscribers, Facebook fans, or web users, and those links can help drive higher installs and conversions to your mobile app. Branch allows you to customize the experience for app users that come from your email marketing campaigns and help convert your web users into mobile users at a higher rate.
3 Execution ideas:
- Promote different app content to different segments of your audience and deep link those users to that content as soon as they install and open your app.
- Give incentives and promotions to specific users through email to incentivize them to download the app.
- Streamline the new app experience for users. If you already have information about your users, you can securely embed it in the download link so they are automatically logged in once they download the app.
Real Life Example: Charlotte Russe sends app promotion emails to their web users by giving discounts that can only be used in the app. They use Branch to detect whether users clicking on a link have the app installed or not, and take them to their respective app store or directly to the app. Once in the app, Branch helps them detect whether the user came from an email or the app store so they can show different promotions after they open the app.
What to measure:
- The number of new installs you get from marketing emails.
- Compare the conversion of users who get a customized app install experience versus users who get a generic one.
Converting Web Visitors to Mobile Users with Smart Banners
The Experiment: While app discovery is continuing to improve, today it’s still easier to get web content discovered. Smart app banners help developers convert their mobile web users into native app users. What makes the Branch app banner different is that it takes a new app user right to the content they were seeing on the web, regardless whether or not they have the app already installed.
Execution ideas:
- Add a smart banner to your mobile web content and take users to that content once they install the app.
- Show an app install button on your main mobile webpage.
- Show a “text-yourself-the-app” banner on the desktop version of your site.
Real Life Example: Pinterest shows an “Open Pin In App” banner powered by Branch on all their mobile pin pages. If they have the app, clicking on the banner will open the Pinterest app and bring them to that pin. If they don’t have the app already installed, they are first asked to download the app before being brought directly to the pin.
What to measure
- Number of new users that come from the smart banner.
- Which drives the most app installs. (Coming soon.)
- The conversion of users who came from mobile web content versus users from the app store.
Content Sharing for Improved Conversion to Install
The Experiment: If you haven’t figured it out yet, content drives app virality. Just look at how the largest apps have grown – it’s through users trying to share content, whether that’s messages in WhatsApp, images in Instagram, or Snaps in Snapchat. One easy mobile growth experiment is to add deep linked sharing with Branch to your app and measure how much of your growth comes from users sharing content.
Execution ideas:
- Use Branch’s share sheet to easily add sharing to your app – new users who come from a shared link are taken straight to the content that was shared.
- Create your own sharing feature that gives you more design flexibility. We found that sharing over SMS converts better than other channels.
- Customize the new user experience for new users that come from a shared post.
Real Life Example: Gogobot allows users to share travel lists they create or cool local experiences they find in the app. Once their friends click on those experiences and download the app, they see a personalized welcome screen before they are taken straight to the content that was shared with them.
What to measure
- Number of new users that come from users sharing content.
- Which content drives the most app installs. (Coming soon.)
- Which sharing channels have the best conversion.
- Conversion of users coming from a shared post versus users coming from the app store.
Create Content Links for Influencers and Affiliates for Improved Sharing
The Experiment: Sometimes your most powerful virality tool are your users. Branch allows you to utilize these users by creating personalized link for them to share. With our dashboard, you can track the metrics around installs and engagement that come from each of those links, allowing you to reward each influencer or affiliate appropriately.
Execution ideas:
- Find your top influencers on the Branch Dashboard and create an affiliate link for each of them to track the installs and engagement they drive.
- Create specific content links for your different influencers based on what their audience is looking for.
- Create interesting affiliate relationships with other apps that can help drive traffic to the content in your app.
Real Life Example: Magra, a weight loss and fitness community, empowers influencers in the community with Branch links to their profiles. These links drive app installs and allow Magra to measure the impact of each influencer.
Instacart created an affiliate relationship with Yummly that benefitted both apps and gave users a better experience. When Yummly users pick a recipe, they can choose to open the recipe ingredient list in Instacart and have it delivered to their door.
What to measure
- Number of new users that come from affiliates and influencers.
- Which content works best for influencers to share.
- Conversion of new users from influencers compared to users that come directly from the app store.
These are just a few ideas on how you can use Branch to drive growth to your app. Use one of the experiments above, or come up with a new one, and show us how you drove app growth to win one of the four prizes in our Mobile Growth Challenge. Registration closes on Nov 30th and submission are due on January 15th.