How To Improve the Lifetime Value of an App User With Deep Linking

For a marketer to successfully measure the return on investment (ROI) of a growth or marketing campaign, they must understand the lifetime value (LTV) of their users. Also called customer lifetime value (CLTV), LTV is exactly what it sounds like — the average value of a customer or user over their lifecycle with your app.

However, the jury is still out on the best way to measure LTV. Many in the industry acknowledge that there are multiple ways to measure LTV, and plenty of companies leave it to the app marketer or developer to choose, depending on their type of app and the metrics available to them.

1. How To Improve the
Lifetime Value of an
App User With Deep
Linking

2. Increasing lifetime value with
deep links
Knowing the LTV of app users opens up a whole new world for experimentation and growth. Once
you can calculate LTV, you can prioritize and measure the impact of building new features or
testing different marketing campaigns. Since LTV is a function of three variables, as an app
developer or marketer you have the choice to focus on the variable you think will impact your LTV
the most. For instance, if you know monetization will come later once you reach scale, focus on
virality and retention in the short term. If your users share a lot but have a short lifecycle,deep
linking for retentionis for you.

3. App monetization
Deep links haveobvious use
caseswhen it comes to virality and
retention, but they’re also incredibly
useful for yourapp monetization efforts,
specifically because of their ability to
move users further down the customer
acquisition funnel.

4. Moving app users down the
funnel
The purpose of thefunnelis to demonstrate that the number of potential customers decreases with each
step the user has to go through to become a customer. So it makes sense that it’s best to skip as many of
these stages as possible. That’s where deep links come in.
TakeJersey Mike’s, for example. The company usesBranch Quick Linksacross various channels,
including paid, organic social, SMS, and push notifications to convert non-app users to app users. But it
doesn’t stop there. The deep link stores the parameters of the incoming user, bringing them directly to the
content in the app they were viewing on mobile web. Their first time using the app, users start just one
step from placing an order, automatically applying an offer they just saw on a different channel.

5. Deep linking for reengagement
No app is perfect. Even if you can improve retention, you’re still going to lose users. But they may
not be gone forever. There are certain retention techniques that utilize deep links to boost
reengagement.
One benefit of Branch links is that once you create a link, it will work across any platform or use
case. For example, email campaigns are a common, effective way to reengage users. Email
marketers can send users information about promotions, limited-time offers, and even personalized,
dynamic content. Butemail reengagement is notoriously difficult.Without a dedicatedmobile linking
platform, brands often have to choose between analytics and user experience.
Ancestry®, a family history and consumer genomics company, implemented deep links in its email
campaigns to encourage users to reengage with the app. The campaign titled, “The Ancestry app
can do that?” included calls to action (CTAs) to “Explore the app” and took users directly inside the
app to explore the highlighted feature. By integrating its app and deep linked emails, the company
drove a 3x increase in engagement with app features.

6. Tracking and rewarding referrals
App developers and marketers know that existing users are key to virality and often try to reward or
incentivize these users for inviting others. However, building out complex referral programs proves to be
quite a difficult task. WithBranch referrals, all the logic, routing, and rewarding is handled automatically.
Better yet, since Branch links can store user parameters, there is no need to use referral codes to receive
rewards, further reducing one or more steps in the customer acquisition process.
Rappiused this referral system to equip its 15,000+ influencer marketing partners with unique coupon
codes to offer to their followers. These coupons provided a discount for the new user’s first purchase on
Rappiand were attached to Branch deep links. When a new user clicked the link, they were taken to the
correct app store for their device, and after installing the app, the coupon was automatically applied to the
user account. On the backend, Branch captured all the information about the influencer, channel, and
coupon, so Rappicould track each influencer’s performance.As a result, 50% of new users came from
influencer and referral campaigns.

7. Overall impact of deep links on
customer lifetime value
Now that you’ve seen some proven examples of how to use deep links to
improve app monetization, retention, and virality, it’s up to you to determine
and prioritize which deep link use cases to try. The impact of Branch features
on LTV will vary depending on several different factors. What vertical is your
app in? Are users incentivized to share? How long is your average customer’s
lifecycle? To start, look at your app’s current monetization, retention, and
virality performance and see which aspect needs the most attention.
At the end of the day, no matter which equation you use to measure LTV, deep
links will help.
Want to learn more?Request a demowith our team.

8. Thank you!
Do you have any questions?
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