We're a small startup team of three, and we're trying to figure out if we should invest in deferred deep linking for our app. We're currently losing around 20% of our users between installation and account creation, so there's a possibility that deep linking directly to a specific screen—like a promotional offer, a referral, or a saved item—could improve our numbers. However, I've noticed that implementing this could be complicated due to various SDKs and differences across operating systems. Given that larger companies like DoorDash and Duolingo benefit from it, I want to know if the return on investment would be significant for a small team like ours.
4 Answers
If your user funnel is small, I wouldn't count on deep links to fix fundamental issues like product-market fit.
If you're losing 20% of users, you might want to dig deeper into your onboarding issues first. It sounds like there may be a more pressing problem. Maybe consider streamlining the account creation process instead of relying on deep links to solve it.
We’re in a similar boat with our small team, and we found that deferred deep links became valuable after we refined our targeting. We used Appsflyer for setup, and while the increase in user activation was modest, it definitely helped refine our approach. I'd say it’s useful, but not revolutionary without prior adjustments.
Deferred deep linking can be beneficial, but it's really effective when combined with a good mobile measurement partner. Using an MMP simplified our flow mapping, which improved our referral rates. However, our biggest wins actually came from reducing onboarding friction rather than just implementing deep links.
I like your approach. I’ll focus on improving the onboarding process.
How did you tighten the targeting?