[MUSIC PLAYING] RAN MOR: When your mobile
users click on a web link, how can you make sure they
are taken into your app? We've heard this question a lot. You have a great app. You invested time and
resources to build it, and it provides a great
experience for users. Now you would like to ensure
your mobile users benefit from this great app experience. How? All you need to do is
implement deep links. My name is Ran Mor, and I'm a
product manager on Google Ads. Today, I will quickly discuss
the benefits of implementing deep links in your app and
present a new iOS validation tool we're launching
in Google Ads. LIDIA GAYMOND: And I'm Lidia
Gaymond, a product manager on Google Play. After Ran's introduction,
I'll walk you through the new deep
links management tools in Google Play Console. So let's get started. [MUSIC] RAN MOR: As a quick
refresher, deep links are links that open
an app and send users to a specific piece of content
or action inside the app. Deep links have many benefits. First, apps usually have a
much smoother user experience than mobile websites. If you want to provide the
optimal experience for users, it's better to lead
them into your app. Second, deep links allow
you to drive more traffic into your app. They can be used in multiple
use cases, such as marketing, emails, and SMS. And more traffic to your app
means more in-app purchases, checkouts, and conversions. Third, with deep links, you can
include targeted URL parameters to create a personalized
app experience. Remember, users
tend to delete apps that don't make it easy for
them to complete their goals, whether it's interacting
with other users, verifying some data, or adding
the right items to the cart. With deep links, you can
pass all the information your app needs to help your
users accomplish their goals with minimal effort. And last but not
least, deep links drive long term engagement and
boost the return on investment you get from your app. We've seen that on
average, companies who have implemented
deep linking are seeing over two times
uplift in conversion rates. So the return on
investment is much higher for both you and your users. Implementing deep links
involve two main steps. First, in your
app's manifest file, you need to create intent
filters that define what URLs your app can open. And then you need to add logic
to launch the right content in the respective activity. Second, on your
website, you need to upload a JSON
file that proves you're the owner of the domains
you've declared in your app. For more details on how
to implement deep links, you can take the deep
links Crash Course, which we've added a link to in
the description of this video. To help you with prioritization,
implementation, and validation of deep links, today
we are announcing the launch of new tools
in Google Play Console and in Google Ads. Over to you, Lidia, to
talk about the new deep links management
tools that we are introducing in Play Console. [MUSIC] LIDIA GAYMOND: Thanks, Ran. Last summer, we
launched a new page in Play Console
dedicated to deep links. To access it, simply log
in to Play Console and use the navigation menu to find Deep
Links in the growth section. You can view your full deep
link setup per app version. The is available for active
versions in any track. If you go to the
deep links page now, you'd see a few main sections. The domain section
gives you an overview of all the domains
and subdomains you have declared for
your app manifest, alongside their
verification status. It helps you make
sure Android is able to associate your
website URLs with your app, creating app links. The Web Links section shows
you your web link setup as is defined in your app's
manifest, including path, domain, and activity details. Each of these can
be further examined by selecting the blue arrow. The same view is also available
for your custom schemes if you have any. Note that all tables on the page
are searchable and sortable. Search goes through the full
inventory of path, domain, and custom schemes. Sorting sorts the
currently loaded data. Search can be used, for
example, to understand which intent filter's path will
be responsible for handling URL pasted on the search bar. We know that identifying
issues with your setup is not always easy
and may require a significant investment. To make it easier for
you to spot issues, we'll verify your setup per
each individual app version and highlight potential
issues requiring a fix. It could be a domain failing
verification, broken links, or outdated custom schemes. The summary of your
setup issues would be highlighted at the top
of the Deep Links page and throughout for
you to take action. To make troubleshooting
easier, you can examine each individual
issue in more detail by selecting Show More, which
gives you contextual guidance on how it can be fixed. In this example,
the domain ownership is failing verification. This means that until
the issue is addressed, all the traffic going to this
domain will resolve on the web. To fix it, you'd need
to update and publish your digital asset
links JSON file with some additional
missing information. We highlight the missing
information for you. And all you need to do is copy
and paste the code snippet, update the file, and publish
it to the location suggested. The generator will take
into account what is already on your domain, so
it's perfectly safe to take all the contents
and paste as is, or download the file. We already see many developers
using the step-by-step guidance, dramatically improving
user outcomes as a result. And once you fix
the issue, you can use Play Console to verify
that the deep links are working correctly again. Today, we're also sharing
v2 of the Deep Links page that will be coming
to Play Console soon. The new version gives you
more context and confidence in managing a deep link setup. We're adding a few things. First, Ad Traffic view, lets
you see all the landing pages from your advertising campaigns
and their deep link status. To view this, all you need to do
is to link your AdWords account to your Play Console account. Second, web crawled
URLs will allow you to review top
performing URLs and identify missed
opportunities when it comes to your deep links coverage. And finally, we're introducing a
new metric called user outcome, which shows you what
percentage of your users land in your app versus the web. All this new information
will be added to the new Web URLs
tab in the Deep Links page in Play Console. Ad Traffic allows you to see
each landing page from your ad campaigns, associated
clicks, user outcome, and deep linking status. In this section, we help you
identify missed opportunities highlighting the URLs
for your ad campaigns that you might want
to consider deep linking to improve
customer experience and drive bigger
business impact. The Web Crawled
URLs section helps you understand the deep linking
status of your top performing web URLs so that
you can prioritize which URLs to deep link next. We're introducing
two new metrics to help you understand how
comprehensive your deep link setup is. The first metric is
called user outcome. The user outcome
percentage shows you how many of your users
have been directed to your app versus the web. Additionally, you can now
see your deep links coverage, an aggregated number showing
what percentage of your top web URLs are deep linked. To help you validate
your deep links, we're also adding a
simple way to compare your app versus
your web experience to a given URL side by side. We hope that these new
tools will make it easier for you to add deep links and
keep your deep links setup up to date in order
to provide a better experience for your users and to
help you achieve your business objectives. Now over to you, Ran, to
talk about the new tools Google Ads are
introducing today. [MUSIC] RAN MOR: Thanks, Lidia. To make it easier to
validate iOS deep links, we're launching a
new validation tool in Google AdWords that
performs a series of checks and provides
recommendations that will help you fix any
misconfigured links in your iOS app. To get to the tool
in AdWords, you click on Tools and Settings and
then on the App Advertising Hub under Planning. To start the
validation, you need to choose iOS as the
platform, select your iOS app, and enter the link
you want to validate. The tool performs
a set of checks based on the link you entered
and the apple app site association file that you
publish in your domain. This file is similar to the JSON
file you uploaded for Android. You then get information for
each check the tool performed. And if failed, you can
get detailed instructions on how to fix the issue. If all the checks on the apple
app site association file passed, you can scan
a QR code and check whether you're taken to
the right page in your app. Testing the QR code requires the
app to be installed on a device you're testing with. Many companies have been
benefiting from extensive use of deep links. And today, we wanted to
share a few examples of how the use of deep links
can dramatically improve your business performance. Boozt, a fashion
retailer, noticed that many of its customers
started their journeys on the web and finalized
their purchases in the app and decided to make
its app a larger part of its overall
business strategy. Using Web to App Connect,
Google's one-stop solution for in-app conversion
measurement, bidding, and deep links, Boozt
implemented deep links to create a seamless web-to-app
experience and saw great results-- a 4.5 times higher conversion
rate, 55% lower cost per acquisition, and two
times higher average order value on the app compared
to the mobile web. Fashion retailer
Boohoo also recognized that the most valuable customers
are its mobile app users. Boohoo also used the
Web to App Connect to implement deep links
to direct customers to their mobile app, and they
witnessed strong results. Boohoo achieved a 25%
increase in revenue, a 5.5 times higher conversion
rate compared to web, a 33% higher return on ad
spend, and an 8% increase in net conversion volume. So to summarize,
we recommend you to use deep links for a
better user experience and engagement with your app. Generally, the more deep
links you have in your app, the richer the user experiences. To help you improve
deep link setup, use the new Google Ads iOS
validator and the deep link management tools in Play Console
to identify new opportunities, fix misconfigured
links in your app, and drive higher
business impact. That's it for today. We are excited to bring these
new tools to our developer community and look
forward to seeing what you can achieve with them. [MUSIC PLAYING]
