We’re all learning to put mobile first, right? And also learning, by the way, that mobile can’t be treated simply as an extension of the web experience. Constraints on the UI, the consequent constraints on mobile web design, and above all the opacity of the app world, make it hard for brands and marketers to offer a seamless customer experience, from discovery to conversion.
“An app is like a black hole,” Lei Sun told me. “It sucks in data and never passes it back.”
Lei Sun, CEO and co-founder of Yozio, is a software engineer, data advocate, and growth scientist. Yozio, an Oakland, California-based three year-old, seeks to boost organic mobile app growth for companies like Pinterest and Airbnb. One way it does so is by increasing visibility into who is using the apps and how they’re using them.
Fragmentation in the mobile eco-system, right down to different versions of the same app, together a lack of customer data from app stores, together create two top-of-mind challenges: knowing who the customer is, and taking the customer where they want to go.
As Sun explained, a potential customer who expresses interest by clicking on a link–on a mobile web page, in a social update, or in an email–can be redirected to the relevant app as a prospect for conversion. But the app will be ignorant of the customer’s interest and intention, typically delivering a generic landing page. The customer then has to search within the app–likely by typing into a tiny interface–to rediscover the product or service. If the app isn’t pre-installed, the customer takes the long route via the app store, and the brand has no way of knowing who the customer is, or the reason for the download.
A world without cookies, as we all now know.
Yozio proposes a solution: deferred deep linking. (It’s not the only vendor working in the space. As examples only, Tapstream has a deferred deep linking solution, and Parrable is working on tracking uses across mobile devices.) Yozio’s approach connects the dots between Yozio “super links,” which clients install on their mobile sites, and associated apps. A signal are sent to the Yozio server when the link is clicked, finger-printing the device, and another signal when the relevant app is opened or installed (“deferred” deep linking refers to the sleeper response in as-yet-uninstalled apps). Algorithms match the touches–according to Sun, with something like 80 to 90 percent accuracy, improving in real time through unsupervised machine learning.
This strategy allows apps to be responsive, delivering the information the customer sought all along. Customers visiting the app who already know what they want–and that’s most of them, said Sun–will say, “This is where I wanted to be. This is what I wanted to do.”
The additional appeal for brand marketers is that data culled from the improved customer experience gives visibility into the app’s performance. They can now know who is installing the app, and why; and they have insight into which pages or features within the app are drawing prospective purchasers.
Marketers can experiment with apps and test different configurations; the customer experience is optimized. “It’s a win-win,” said Sun.
Yozio is serving large businesses with very heavy mobile traffic, and has powered 60 million installs across more than 400 apps. It reports striking increases in activation and engagement rates.
