Today we’re excited to announce Deepviews – a tool to help you bridge the gap between new users and your native app.
Deepview n. [deep-vyoo]
A browser-based rendition (splash page) that is visible on desktop or mobile web, of content that resides within a native app, accompanied by a deep link that routes the user to the appropriate content within the app.
Examples of Deepviews
1. “When a user clicks on one of our links, they see a Deepview if they don’t have the app. Otherwise, they get taken straight to our app.”
2. “We use Deepviews as our desktop splash page for our app, with an SMS-to-download field that sends a deep link to users’ phones, allowing them to download the app.”
3. “Deepviews allow for more organic growth since our native app is now discoverable and viewable on web search.”
Origin of Deepview
First Known Use: New product naming brainstorm session, Branch offices, Palo Alto, July 2015.
Related to Deepview
Deep links, mobile web splash, Branch links, interstitials.
A Deepview is a Preview of Your App Content
You’ve seen them. Generic interstitials that prohibit people from using the mobile website with the intention of driving an app install. A user clicks on a link and is taken to a full page advertisement for the app. It’s basically the worst.
Thousands of apps use Branch deep linking to route users to the right page after they install the app. We wanted to take this to the next level and give app developers the ability to route users to the right page before they install. What started out as a suggestion from a few developers in the Branch community has turned into a full-fledged product offering. We’re excited to unveil it today.
Branch Deepviews are previews of your native app content that are:
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- dynamically created
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- automatically formatted
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- fully customizable
- desktop or mobile web compatible
Every Deepview comes loaded with a download call-to-action (CTA), powered by a deferred deep link, that will route users to the App Store and give them a personalized post-install experience. If a user already has the app, the Deepview will not be shown and the user will be taken directly to the content in the app after they click on the link.
You can enable Deepviews on our dashboard with the flip of a switch for all Branch links, or control them on a per link basis.
How Does it Work?
When you create a Branch link, you have the option to set many different configuration options. One of these options is Open Graph (OG) tags, which dictate how the link is displayed on Facebook and other channels that show link previews. In order to dynamically generate a Deepview, we’ll first attempt to read the title, description and image URL OG tags that you have provided. If you don’t provide these, we’ll scrape them from the provided desktop URL. Note: If you don’t provide OG tags or a desktop URL, we’ll have nothing to work from to create your Deepview.
Once we have the high-level information about the content, we dynamically populate a template that you have selected with all of this information so that it appears in a beautiful, rich post when a user clicks a link. You’ll even be able to add your own templates on top of the few we provide.
From an analytics perspective, we track the views, CTA clicks, and the number of installs. If the user has the app, and it’s opened right away, we’ll show that as well. With this, you know exactly how this funnel is working and what you need to do to optimize.
What If I Already Have a Website?
So you think this sounds awesome but you’re really proud of the website and beautiful interstitial that you’ve already built. Don’t worry. You can easily add our web SDK and a Branch link to power your interstitial to turn your existing mobile web page into a Deepview.
The simplest way to do it is to generate Branch links for every share message that goes out and point their fallback URLs to the mobile site. Next, install the Branch web SDK and dynamically create a link that will power the interstitial. This gives you the click-view-install tracking plus powerful post-install deep linking that you’d get with a Deepview, all hosted on your site.
You can read how to do this on our documentation portal.
What Results Can I Expect From a Deepview?
Branch has been testing Deepviews with our select launch partners, 9Gag, Yummly, WeHeartIt, iHeart Radio, AllTheCooks, TheChive, and Close5, and we’ve seen amazing results.
For AllTheCooks, a recipe-sharing app shown below, Deepview links have a click-to-install rate of 22.4%. This is compared to a click-to-install rate of 2.9% for links that route users directly to the app store, resulting in an over 6x increase in link click-to-install rates.
Across all of the apps we’ve tested, we’ve seen a 2 to 6 times increase on average in link click-to-install percentage for users that see a Deepview before going to the app store.
Why are Deepviews so Effective?
When a user clicks on a link that you’ve provided, they’re making an emotional investment in you. To meet these expectations, you have to deliver some sort of contextual satisfaction based on their intent when they click the link. Deepviews hit the conversion sweet spot between satisfying a user’s intent with a preview of content and motivating them to pursue more within the app.
Deepviews have been designed to magnify the purchase intent by offering a large, engaging image preview, a brief item description, and a single call-to-action, channeling the user naturally into the app.
Deepviews also lead to engaged users, not just installs. By deep linking immediately to the Deepview content after install, you can provide a completely continuous experience that engages new users from the first time they open the app. As seen in our case studies, this increases three-day retention by 2x.
How Do I Get Started?
If you’re new to Branch, get started with Deepviews at start.branch.io or select the Get Started button below.
If you’ve already integrated the Branch SDK, enabling Deepviews is very easy — you can find more detailed instructions here.
We’re incredibly excited to provide the developer community with this new product. We believe Deepviews will be an essential tool to help drive app discovery by exposing the content within the app to new users.