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Branch now offers its Deep Linked Email solution on a majority of ESPs

The company says it makes it easy to set up deep links to apps from links inside emails, which are mostly read on mobile devices.

Barry Levine on August 31, 2017 at 2:50 pm

Let’s say you open an email on your phone about a new travel package to Italy. You click on a link in the email, and it takes you right to a screen in the Hipmunk travel app with the specific flight and hotel info.

That’s a key scenario for Branch’s Deep Linked Email solution, now available exclusively via eight additional Email Service Providers (ESPs) following an announcement this week by the Palo Alto, California-based company.

Branch said the new integration with the eight providers — Blueshift, Epsilon, Mailjet, Mailgun, PostUp, Sailthru, Vero and Zeta Global — means that its solution is now offered on a majority of ESPs, given that it is already available through providers like SendGrid and Oracle Responsys.

Using the Deep Linked Email dashboard, a marketer can configure whether a click on the email link takes the user to a specific screen inside an installed app, to the screen in the appropriate app store to download the app if the app is not installed, or to a related web page. With the new ESP partnerships, Branch is also announcing easier ways to configure deep linking settings in its dashboard.

If the email link is clicked on a desktop, the user is taken to a desktop web page. If the path is to the app download screen in an app store, the appropriate screen inside the app is automatically opened after the app is installed.

Branch CRO Eric Stein told me that this app-install-to-correct-screen path is not available on Apple’s deep linking solution, Universal Links.

Additionally, he said, Universal Links’ click traffic and attribution stats, showing the path a user took to a sale or other action, are not always available for all email clients. Branch’s solution, he said, tracks link clicks and attribution on all clients, while “link wrapping” that many ESPs otherwise provide to track Universal Links often breaks the link connection to an app.

Google’s comparable App Links for Android, he said, only works on Android 6 and above, while devices with older Android versions — representing about half of all Androids — require a different solution. Branch says its solution works on all Androids.

Linking from email to apps can be an important path for marketers. A Criteo study found that conversions are more than 300 percent higher in native apps than in mobile web, and a Movable Ink report says that 69 percent of emails are opened on mobile devices.

About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.