Deeplink tracking best practices

[leo28]

Hi! We are in the process of adding deeplink tracking to our mobile and OTT apps and I want to see if anyone can share best practices on how to track them.

My main questions at the moment are:

1.-is it recommended we consider the deeplink variable as a new boolean page variable? (just true or false)

2.- or should we try to add the new variable to an existing page variable, like page template?

The template doesn't actually change for deeplinking so I am more inclined towards the first option, but I wanted to know if anyone know the best practices here.

thank you!

Leo

[Jennifer_Dungan · Accepted solution]

How you want to report on it will likely drive your decision.. I don't know if there is a handbook for best practices on something like this, since the best part about Adobe is the customization to fit your needs.

However, in my case, I have set aside an eVar that I call "Direct Entries".. and I actually classify the different types of deep links (push notification, universal link, app links, etc)

This way my other variables stay clean (since the page isn't actually changing), and I can correlate the pages that have these types of direct entries or classify the entries on their own. Since apps don't have referrers, I can use this information to break out what is driving app usage with a little more clarity (and take it beyond just a simple true/false). You will need to work with your developers to ensure that they can actually identify the different usage of deep links based on their tech stack.

[leo28]

Thank you very much!

Yes, the one we are implementing is super simple, but I wanted to see what other use cases I could have... the app push notification one is a great example of a direct entry we don't have the ability to track yet, but I can push my developers to see if it can be included and then have it in the same evar.

thanks again!

[Jennifer_Dungan]

You're welcome. My general approach to tracking is to look at both the "now" and the potential future needs... While I can never cover all scenarios, we started with Universal Links, but I knew Push would be coming soon, then others.. 

Now, I have had things that I originally built with "true/false" type values and after a few years I had to re-work the tracking to accommodate more options, but I try to help people to think about where they think the tracking may go and how it may have to change if certain things come to pass.

Nothing is set in stone, but the more you can plan ahead the better, and I would agree with your instincts that that first option was the better way to go (others might disagree), but also showed how to extend upon. 

Good luck with your deep links!