Have you wondered, however, where the popularity of deep links comes from? How do they affect user experience? Is it possible to maximize the benefits resulting from their use, or when is it particularly worth using deep links?
Deep link – what is it and how does it work?
A deep link is any link that directs the user to a target destination within, for example, a website. Regardless of whether it is a page within the same domain where the recipient is located, or it leads outside, e.g., to Wikipedia.
Such a link can be, for instance, an address directing straight to an article about Marketing preparations for holiday advertising campaigns. It does not transfer the potential user to the home page, but immediately into its “depths”, i.e., to the appropriate tab/product/publication (here, to the blog, and more specifically – directly to an article on our company blog).
Although deep links directing between websites are the most popular, they are not the only type. A deep link can also transfer from a website to a mobile or desktop application (e.g., it opens a specific profile on Instagram), from an application to a website, or between two applications (e.g., a link sent through Messenger that directs to the YouTube application and opens it on the recipient’s device).
Deep links – Android, iOS and mobile applications
Links related to mobile applications are most commonly known to us from directing a user deep into the Google Play (Android) or App Store (iOS) online store, from where they can download a specific application and install it on their device.
Much more often, however, we want the user to be redirected directly to a specific place inside the application itself, e.g., to a barcode with a discount coupon, to a card presenting a specific product, or to your company’s Instagram profile opened immediately in the Instagram application that the recipient has installed on their phone.
But what about the situation when you direct to a specific place within an application, and the user does not have it on their device? Should they receive a message in this case that the link is invalid and cannot be opened? Such a scenario certainly does not seem the best. Fortunately, it can be avoided.
The so-called deferred deep links come to the rescue. They direct to the indicated place within the application. In case the user does not have it installed on their device, they will be redirected to the Google Play Store on Android phones or to the App Store on iOS phones. More precisely, to the card enabling the download of your application. Only after clicking “download” and installing it, it will open the target destination to which the deferred deep link directed them.
It is also worth noting that applications very often use deep linking. Almost every notification, push or CTA (call to action – a button encouraging the user to take action, e.g., “check details”) directs us not to the home page or the application menu, but directly to a specific place, e.g., to a given profile on Instagram or to the “activity/notifications” tab on Facebook.
Deep link – why do I need it and what benefits does it bring?
Are you wondering why it is worth deep linking and what the world would look like without this type of links?
Firstly, deep linking increases user comfort, and consequently improves the UX related to the reception of our website or application. Let’s assume that you want to encourage a user to familiarize themselves with a blog post that was published some time ago, but is still popular. For this purpose, you place a banner on the home page that encourages reading it. However, the user cannot click on it, but must manually go to the “blog” tab, to then find the entry on one of the subsequent pages or, at best, use filtering. How many of your recipients do you think will devote their time to undertake such an effort?
Now translate this situation to the customer’s purchasing path. You run an online store and have just created filtering that makes it easier to display all men’s products from the summer collection at a discounted price. You have two options to choose from: you create a banner in which you explain how to use the filtering or you publish a visually attractive message with a “BUY NOW” option, and the user, after clicking, is immediately transferred deep into the store, to a subpage with the filtered products covered by the promotion. They will most likely spend the saved time browsing them.
Let’s assume an alternative scenario in which, using a social media ad or a mailing campaign, you inform users about a new product in your offer, but you send them a link to… the home page. It is worth knowing that research conducted by Cloudflare shows that a website loading a second longer significantly lowers the conversion rate. One can therefore imagine what impact “forcing” the user to independently find specific target pages can have on conversion, where each click causes another reload of a subpage.
As you can see, deep linking improves the user experience resulting from using a website or application. Moreover, thanks to shortening the so-called purchasing path, it can contribute to an increase in conversion: making a purchase, but also signing up for a webinar, a newsletter, or even clicking on a banner itself (depending on what will be the desired conversion for you in a given campaign).
Deep links and their impact on SEO and website positioning in Google
Popular search engines, e.g., Google, Bing or Yahoo increasingly appreciate content that is not only fully compliant with SEO principles, but carries real value for users, therefore deep linking will have an impact on the assessment of content quality on your company website or online store.
Deep links enable you to deliver content much more precisely, which corresponds with your intentions. And this will allow obtaining a better rating given by the algorithms of Google and other technological giants. Thus, thanks to deep linking, the position of your website in search engines may improve.
Remember, however, that it is best to link to proven, reliable websites that enjoy widespread trust. Deep linking to unproven domains (e.g., to websites considered a scam or publishing fake news) can bring an effect opposite to the intended one.
Internal linking (to one’s own domain) also, whenever it positively affects the user experience, i.e., facilitates navigation on the website and shortens the user’s path to the goal, is positively evaluated by search engine algorithms and by the end users themselves.
How to correctly create deep links?
You already know what deep links are, why it is worth using deep links and how they translate into the experiences of users of your website, application or ads that you publish.
How, however, can you create deep links, especially those that lead to a specific place within a mobile or desktop application?
All you have to do is use the deep link creator placed below. Fill in the fields below, and you will receive a deep link ready to be pasted anywhere (check where to use deep links!).
Remember also that most mobile applications have an easy way of obtaining a link to the target destination – usually it can be copied by selecting the “share”/”share” etc. option.
Free deep link generator
Link dla Androida:
Link dla iOS:
Where to use deep links?
You now have a deep link. Think now about for what purpose you want to use it. Depending on this, the places where such a link will be found will differ. Let’s take a look at the most popular of them.
The first place that comes to mind is campaigns run in social media, such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or Pinterest. Regardless of whether you run paid campaigns or act organically, deep linking allows your recipients to comfortably visit the target destination to which you want to send them.
This can be, e.g., a specific profile on Instagram. A quick transfer of the user to this place can encourage them to familiarize themselves with the content of the profile. Importantly, such a link will open in the application (where the recipient is already permanently logged in), and not in the browser (where to become your follower, they would have to go through the login process in a new browser). In this way you will significantly facilitate the conversion of the recipient of your advertisement (here: following the profile on Instagram).
A similar role is fulfilled by deep links in the case of advertising banners. Regardless of whether you run a campaign using the Google Ads system and display ads, or maybe you bought a banner directly from the website owner – surely you care that after clicking the user is redirected to a specific place on your website, e.g., to the card of a given product or to a dedicated landing page (or a part of it), and not simply to the home page.
The previously mentioned mailings, including also periodic newsletters or those informing about promotions, will also be an ideal place to use deep linking. In this case, all kinds of buttons and CTAs should direct the user to a specific place inside the website. A good example can be a deep link directing to abandoned carts – the user will immediately be able to go to the checkout with the products they previously selected.
If you have a mobile application and plan to run a campaign to your users by sending them internal notifications or pushes – remember that here too a deep link is necessary. This is a popular practice among others, including banks, which using the application send notifications about new, attractive loans or deposits, and the user after clicking is transferred to the offer card with a form inside the application or to the bank’s website dedicated to this specific offer.
Examples can of course be multiplied, but the rule is simple: if your goal is to send the user to a place other than the home page of a website or application, you need a deep link. It will open a specific subpage on the site or launch the mobile application in the appropriate place along with already saved user data (logged in account, linked payment methods etc.), shorten the conversion path and make your potential customers stop being just potential anymore.
Tracking deep links
Remember however, that deep links, although they play a key role in the analytics of marketing activities, can themselves be useless in this regard. Often, their potential is not fully utilized when it is not checked how often they are clicked. You can prevent this, because every link, including a deep link, can be tracked using UTM parameters.
Therefore, it is worth learning how to correctly measure the effectiveness of the links you publish. This is the next step to professionalizing your marketing activities. You already have deep links behind you (knowledge and a tool for creating them). Now is the time for correct measurement of everything you show to your recipients.
You will learn about the conscious use and measurement of links thanks to UTM tags from the article about UTM tags on our blog.
