Show HN: Branch – Mobile links that pass data through install and open (opens in new tab)

The use case here is that a user can go from a link in an SMS, email, facebook post, tweet, etc. to app store for install and once installed goes directly to the content shared. Right now a link could take you to the app store to install but once installed you would not be able to immediately see the content that was shared with you since it's difficult to figure out which user had installed the app and whether that user was the one that got the original link. I am going to keep an eye on this for when I'm ready to launch my app...

Edit: Here's a link to the article that describes the use case in more detail http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/23/branch-metrics-raises-3-mil...

Alex with Branch here. Let me try to explain how it works. Basically, we use different technologies in different scenarios with the goal to deliver the user to the app as fast as possible.

First off, the most basic case is where we know the user has the app installed. In this case, we use the standard URI scheme based deep link which opens the app up right away and passes the link data. We also handle the case where they had uninstalled the app, by taking them to the app store.

If we have never seen a user before across our entire network of apps based on our first party cookie, we use a mechanism called fingerprinting. It's commonly used for mobile app install attribution to tell a marketer how many installs were generated from a particular advertisement shown in another app or on a mobile site. Basically, we collect as much information as we can in the browser (time, OS, screen size, IP, etc) before redirecting them to the app store. When the user opens up the app, we generate that same set of information inside the app and send it back to our service to match up with a pending browser fingerprint. In the case of a match, we know that new user came from a particular link and pass in all the data associated with the link. This can happen across install and open. If we have seen the user before, we just match up our cookie to the unique device ID once the user shows up.

The service also comes bundled with a free text-me-the app service which helps pass the link data from a desktop click to the phone and eventually the app.

It's everything that we've always wanted as a linking service for our own apps, plus all the accompanying analytics to measure the performance of your various features. Try it out as it's free. We'd also love recommendations or feedback on how we display the data on our dashboard.

Best, Alex

I'm really curious about this as well. Last I checked, Safari is sandboxed w.r.t. session data, and something like time/IP seems really difficult to use reliably, e.g. if the user is interrupted and waits a while before installing the app. Or they could instantly install the app and wait a week before remembering to open it.

I'd love to use this service, but is the tracking guaranteed?

My guess would be some sort of fingerprinting in the browser like this: https://github.com/Valve/fingerprintjs