The Branch Web SDK sometimes plays second fiddle to our iOS and Android SDKs, but it is nevertheless an incredibly important part of the Branch offering. The Branch Web SDK helps with several critical parts of the Branch platform:
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- It allows you to measure web events, which means you can see how your campaigns are performing across both web and app.
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- It makes it easy to create Branch links on your website.
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- It powers the web component of our unique, cross-platform attribution engine.
- Most importantly, it enables Journeys, Branch’s powerful solution for converting web traffic into app engagement via customizable, targeted web-to-app smart banners.
No other mobile attribution provider is able to offer equivalent functionality.
The Goal: A Web SDK That Keeps Up with Your Users
Such an ambitious and robust SDK must operate at peak performance. Specifically, an SDK of this nature should be able to load Journeys banners as quickly as possible—our partners want Journeys to be present on their webpages as soon as those pages load, in order to maximize the chances that web users interact with their Journeys smart banners.
We have recently invested in optimizing the performance of our Web SDK. We began by completing a full assessment of Web SDK performance, after which we identified a few different methods of improving load times. It was important for us to pursue a solution that would yield the greatest improvement in Journeys load times while requiring the least customer effort, as we wanted to avoid requiring our partners to make changes to their existing integrations in order to take advantage of any performance gains.
How Did We Do It?
The solution we chose was to consolidate calls our Web SDK makes to Branch’s servers in order to display a Journey. By reducing the number of round trips between the client and the server, we were able to produce significant improvements in Journeys load times.
The Results
After releasing this new version of the Branch Web SDK, we’ve observed that Journeys loads 20% faster across all apps. Below, you can take a look at a sample of apps from around the world.
We’re excited to announce that Branch’s new, faster-loading Web SDK is now available for use by all apps on the Branch platform. We’d love to hear what you think!
Note: If you’re on a pinned version of the WebSDK, we highly recommend upgrading to the most recent version located at https://cdn.branch.io/branch-latest.min.js.