Deep linking is making people’s lives easier than ever. Deep links are an essential part of the mobile marketer’s toolkit; they can be used as an engagement tool as well. In this blog, we will talk about how to use deep linking to boost mobile app engagement.
User intent, behavior, and sentiments are ever-changing. Users have come to expect a personalized app experience. Businesses and apps development companies are always looking to offer as much personalized and enhanced experience into users’ hands as they can, and deep linking is one proven tool to make it happen.
Users who were deep linked showed double the activation rate and retention rate. Sending one onboarding-related push notification to newly acquired users in the first week after install can increase retention by 71%. Deep linking allows sending content to users directly, making it easy for users to view new content and ultimately help businesses keep their users engaged and intact with your app.
What Really Is Deep Linking and What Makes It So Effective?
In layman’s terms, deep linking is the ability to link directly to content in your app; that’s it. Deep links are a type of link when clicked, users directly land on the app’s respective screen instead of a website page, improving mobile user experience.
Let’s try to understand deep linking from an example — if you search for the best food delivery app on Google, and you happen to see the “DoorDash” app’s link, it may open the app (if already installed) or take you to the app store to download it if you don’t have it.
The process might appear confusing to you, but it’s actually something we are all using on a daily basis. The approach is especially useful for those who sought out generating better revenue from the app.
9 Ways Deep Linking Can Help Your App Boost Engagement
Retargeting Conversion
Deep links are all about retargeting wisely. You can literally direct users anywhere (relevant) like offers, rewards, or even buying pages. Getting to the users who already have an app installed means more power when it comes to shaping their app experience. That said, e-commerce companies are leveraging deep links to send users directly to the shopping cart for effortless order placement, meaning more sales and better ROI.
Referral Benefits
Whether you want to attract new users or targeting specific existing users to return, deep links can become a quick hit that can bring users back to your app. Using referral programs, incentives, offers, discounts, promo codes, etc. can anytime enhance your app’s engagement. Uber is a great example of using a referral program as a deep link to gain more customers.
Social Sharing
Social media is a great marketing tool in today’s time that can drive engagement as positive reinforcement from friends. You can embed your app into users’ social circles for easy app sharing and rewarding. Deep linking to your social media creates a much smoother user experience for people. Deep links give users the option to open a social media page (or even a specific post) within the relevant app – this level of convenience can work wonders for social media strategy.
Cross-App Promotion
Cross-promotion is a powerful example when it comes to talking about deep links. Did you remember the collaboration between Shopify and Shazam? When Spotify partnered with Shazam, deep links from Shazam were placed from one app to the other. This improved engagement with a potentially high-value userbase because Spotify holds a big place in the hearts of music lovers.
Push Notifications
A timely, personalized, and well-written push message can be incredibly effective in engaging users. Try understanding the user’s behavior, intent, and interests to send the right kinda push notification that can persuade your users to click on the link and encourage them to buy. A well-thought-out push notification can any day boost engagement, conversions, and retention.
Location-Based Content
How can location-based triggers enhance the user experience when it comes to deep-linking within mobile apps? Deep-link to location-based content can be really beneficial in engaging the right kind of audience by emphasizing deep linking to a nearby restaurant’s page or coupon while a user is in the area.
Performance Tracking Emails
Performance tracking emails are highly common for educational, fitness, and food and beverage apps. Performance tracking is a popular means to keep your users aware of both how they’re doing and of your product and brand. For example, a fitness app like Google Fit often tracks your weekly performance, providing a summary of a single user’s performance over a week.
Personalized On-Boarding
Acquiring new users is a primary aim of mobile apps, and the majority of them put so much effort into it. With a deep link in your app, you can ensure a personalized on-board, which is in trend these days as it delivers better outcomes. While implementing the same, you need to be focused on behavior-based personalization that helps in the user engagement to a greater extent.
Re-Engagement Campaigns
Deep links can surely be used to improve re-engagement campaigns. If your inactive users are not opening your app, you need to use external channels like emails, social campaigns or push notifications to reach them. You can use deep links to send these users straight to your in-app content and encourage them for the actions that are proven to re-engage users.
Closing Thoughts
And that was it. By emphasizing these nine ways, you can easily leverage deep linking to enhance your app user engagement. Carefully plan how your deep linking strategy will work with your app’s structure and logic to enhance the user experience. Which among these points did you find the surefire way to increase the engagement?
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