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The company was considering app banners for it's website but the marketing team had little time and there were few technical resources available to dedicate to the project.
App Install Banner Challenges
The company considered implementing Apple Smart Banners which are simple meta tags that render a banner at the top of a mobile web page which promotes the iOS app and leads visitors to the app store for iOS or opens the app if it is already installed on the device. The effectiveness of this strategy, however, would be limited because Apple Smart Banners only support the Safari Web browser and are not visible in other browsers such as Google Chrome or embedded browsers in social apps such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
Solution Requirements
The marketing manager discovered that deep linking was the solution to the problem. Deep linking typically means linking to a webpage beyond the homepage but it also means the ability for a marketing link or a web banner to open a mobile app or send the user to the app store if the app is not installed on the device. Any third party smart banner solution, however, needed to be designed for marketing and be easy-to-use, require minimal technical resources and allow for immediate testing and implementation. For maximum reach, the smart banner had to support all browser and device configurations across iOS and Android.
Solution: URLgenius App Banners for iOS and Android
The company was already using URLgenius technology to deep link to its social profiles to help increase followers and mobile engagement. In this case, the marketing team was provided with their URLgenius app banner as a small snippet of Javascript code that was then pasted into the header of the mobile web page. The banner would only be seen when the page was accessed by a mobile device. Once published, the marketing team simply tested the banner when both with and without the app installed. When the retailer’s iOS app was installed, the banner opened the app. When it was not installed, the banner sent the iPhone and iPad users to the app entry in the iOS app store. Even when the page was accessed from a link within Facebook or Twitter, the URLgenius Smart Banner was visible and routed traffic across platforms as expected. The same behavior was seen on Android. If the banner was clicked by a Windows device, however, the banner clicked through to the retailer’s mobile landing page.
“This was a wildly successful solution for us and the results exceeded our expectations. Not only was the banner visible from all browsers and devices on iOS and Android, it was all done without custom development. We were able to reach our goals without allocating any development resources to the project” – Marketing Manager, Sports and Outdoor Gear Retailer
The Results
URLgenius app banners are the first of its kind to meet the requirement of being visible across all mobile devices and browsers without any custom development. After the first two weeks of the campaign, the retailer reported a 300% increase in app installs across iOS and Android. The company was easily able to see the breakdown of visitors across platforms. Saving time and development resources, the URLgenius cloud-based, app deep linking platform helped solve complex app vs. web challenges without the need for custom development or the integration of Software Development Kits (SDKs).
Contact us to get your app banner code to place your website. We can help you increase app installs and re-engagement for your iOS and Android app with minimal IT burden and maximum results that lower your cost per install.