3 Ways To Demystify Deep Links

Though many people recognize the importance of deep linking in user experience, only a few truly understand how to create entirely new ways to connect with users. 

On the web, links (or deep links) are simple technologies that direct users to specific pages of your website.  

On mobile devices, deep links connect users deep in the context of mobile apps. 

So, if you are building a deep linking strategy, you need to keep in mind the three primary types of it- 

1. Deep linking on mobile devices is a URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) scheme that links a user to a specific location within an app. For example, a shoe ad on an e-commerce web page will route the user to launch the app on that specific offer. Without deep links, mobile links will interrupt the flow and open the standard app home screen. 

2. Deferred deep linking

It refers to the process of deep linking within your app, but only after the app is installed. Once the app is installed, it ensures that the user gets to the right location within the app.  

3. Contextual deep linking 

These are the links that contain data about the user, such as who the user is, what device they are using, which channel/campaign they are coming from, who is referencing them, etc. And hence, deliver a contextually relevant experience on the basis of these collected data points as soon as the user opens the app.  

Deep links offer many benefits to marketers and app developers. They seamlessly connect users across platforms and are a great way to retarget via email or SMS messages or to re-engage users through social media ads.  

Deep links can convey contextual information throughout the installation process, allowing your app to deliver custom welcome messages and personalize your app's onboarding experience. 

However, deep linking isn’t as sexy to work on as it sounds. Great deep linking can be complicated to create and deals with thousands of edge cases.  

Here are a few things that make deep linking challenging- 

Backward compatibility:  

It ensures that existing deep links keep working in older versions of the app, even after significant navigation or logic changes.  

 
iOS and Android deep link implementation differences.  

The biggest challenge with deep links is how neither iOS nor Android provides an opinionated approach on how to design and test deep links. The deep linking process for both platforms is completely different. Currently, there are no clear standards to extend the feature across both iOS and Android. Because of this, app developers must manually create a separate deep link for each operating system on each device which makes it a time-consuming and labor-intensive task. 

Lack of upfront planning.  

Deep links are often added later after multiple versions of the app have been shipped. However, unlike the web, where adding links / deep links is easy, improving your deep linking strategy can be a real technical challenge. Deep links are connected to state management and navigation architectures. 

Deep links are just a way to identify users, address them, and direct them to specific content in your app. The future value of deep links lies in how we use them and what’s built on top of them.

Mobile deep links, though more than half a decade into existence, have started to find utility rather late. But their potential to revolutionize the marketing strategies makes them indispensable for any brand or company. 

At Hashbrown Systems, we have successfully implemented deep linking strategy in our eCommerce app ‘Machine Dalal’.  

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