Skip to main content
Your team can set up deeplinks to open your app on an advocate’s device and automatically display the share experience.

​
With an Extole Mobile SDK

When using Extole’s SDK, you can use the extole.sendEvent() method every time the app is triggered to be opened by a deep link. Simply pass in the data parameters to the sendEvent() call and Extole will only show when there are Extole-related keys within the parameters. iPhone screen displaying the advocate share experience for the company Steady

​
Without a Mobile SDK

Your team can configure actions so that they occur when a deep link is opened in app. For the deep links you’ll use to trigger the share experience, ensure that they open the app and then trigger the microsite or advocate share experience for the user. Alternatively, your team can configure your app to listen to promote links for your program. This option will cause the app to open when a user taps on any link that is a part of your branded program domain (e.g., share.companyname.com). A typical experience for app-first clients on the friend funnel is as follows:
  1. The friend taps on a share link.
  2. The friend is directed to the Extole microsite, which provides information about your app and the offer they’re receiving.
  3. The friend taps the button on the microsite to download the app. This is your deep link to send the user to the app store. Extole passes advocate data into this link using query parameters to make it available in the deep link context when the user opens the app after it is installed.
  4. When the friend opens the app, the advocate data will be available through your deeplink provider. Be sure to include the advocate data when you send your initial event from the app to Extole so that we can properly attribute the referral.
iPhone screens displaying the Friend Landing Experience for the company Steady Typically, Extole generates share links in your branded domain like https://share.yourcompany.com/sharelink". These links will redirect to a standard link of your deep link provider (e.g., AppsFlyer) with Extole’s attribution information tacked on as parameters. Your SDK integration then passes these parameters back to Extole via events.

​
What the Redirect Carries

When the share destination is your deep link, no Extole page renders on any device. The only thing that carries the referral across the app store is the query string on the redirect, so it is worth knowing exactly what is in it:
  • extole_zone_advocate_code: the advocate whose link was clicked.
  • extole_zone_share_channel: the channel the share was made on.
  • Your UTM parameters, and anything you add to the destination address’s own query string. A parameter such as extole_zone_shareable_code={[shareable.code]} added there is filled in with the advocate’s share code on every redirect.
Your deep link provider holds these parameters across the install and hands them to your app on first open. Send them back on the app’s first Extole event, and Extole resolves the code to the advocate and records the referral.
On a referred friend’s profile, this path records the referral at the moment of the app’s first event, with no click or landing page event before it. That is the expected shape when no Extole page rendered, not a sign that tracking was skipped.
To see what a friend receives on each device, open the share link with a desktop, an iPhone, and an Android user agent. Expect the destination page, the App Store link, and an Android intent link respectively. The parameters are on every one of them. A hop between devices carries only what is encoded in it. A QR code that encodes your bare app store link, or a bare deep link with no Extole parameters, carries no advocate code, so every install that comes through it is unattributed. There is no later step that can recover the referral. Generate the QR code per visitor, at the moment the page renders, from the parameters on the page’s own URL. The share link redirect put the advocate code on that URL, so a QR code built from it carries the same referral the page received. The same rule applies to a “text me the link” button: the link you send has to include the parameters the page arrived with.
Replacing a destination page that friends can sign up on with a page that only shows a QR code removes the web conversion path. Decide that as a product change, not as a tracking fix.