Everybody reading this blog probably once knows what we midpoint when we talk well-nigh an MMP. In specimen you’re wondering, an MMP is a “mobile measurement partner.” Now, if we mention an MLP, plane fewer of you will know what we mean. MLP stands for “mobile linking platform,” a powerful deep linking and attribution tool for your owned and earned channels. Increasingly on that later. Let’s talk deep linking first.
The incubation of deep linking
Deep linking has been virtually for a long time and started popping up in tech media virtually 2006 to highlight the growing practice of providing Google (and other search engines) a way to create visibility for content vastitude just a website home page. Over time, deep links turned from a simple tool to bring you to a web page into hair-trigger technology that has wilt ramified and powerful. Deep links can now be used wideness all channels and platforms, embraced today by scrutinizingly every global omnichannel brand.
Businesses that saw the long-term potential of deep linking have evolved to wilt experts in everything related to deep linking including routing, measurement, privacy, security, and industry change. Many of these companies have now grown into MMPs that focus solely on paid ad channels.
However, a smaller subset of companies like Workshop have wilt industry leaders not only as MMPs but moreover as MLPs that focus on owned and earned channels. The wholesomeness of using a partner like Workshop is that you have a solution that provides well-constructed deep linking and attribution coverage of all your channels (i.e. paid, owned, and earned), ad platforms, and networks. The worthiness to leverage and understand all possible channels is a huge plus in a mobile world of unvarying change.
What exactly is an MLP?
While MMPs only offer deep linking and measurement for paid ads, MLPs offer deep linking and measurement for owned, earned, and organic channels. They provide a reliable and configurable linking solution for brands that want to ensure their deep links work — reliably and always. Mobile linking platforms moreover provide insights into performance wideness non-paid marketing channels.
At its core, a mobile linking platform is a hosted platform that will route all your deep links and provide a portal for creating, editing, and measuring deep links. A mobile linking platform does this while permitting collaboration among teams. Not only that, but you should moreover expect an MLP to maintain user context wideness devices, providing detailed measurement reports and valuable insights well-nigh how your links (and campaigns) are performing. Ultimately, your mobile linking platform should provide the tools to help your trademark momentum conversions and increase return on investment (ROI) wideness non-paid channels such as email, QR codes, organic social, and smart banners.
An MLP should unhook a personalized deep linking user wits and measurement that will slide conversion growth and increase ROI for any omnichannel trademark with an app. You can consider these platforms as deep linking and attribution experts with a deep understanding of how every facet of linking works wideness channels.
How is an MMP different?
An MMP focuses solely on paid ad channels. While a mobile measurement platform will leverage deep linking technology and measurement tools similar to an MLP, it moreover has to engage with ramified ad networks that require deep links to work differently at times with many possible edge cases. For example, mobile measurement platforms have to contend with SKAN data and each of the numerous self-attributing networks (SANs). This requires them to prioritize reducing fraud and ensuring privacy compliance wideness each network.
So while there is a lot of technology crossover with an MLP, the difference in how MMPs manage links and collect data can be profound. Incorporating a mobile linking platform into your omnichannel strategy will goody you in multiple ways.
How does an MLP work?
An MLP is expected to tie together the deep linking wits and attribution for your owned and earned channels. So what does that mean?
Cloud-based, hosted platform
An MLP determines which linking wits to use for each visitor. On the web, browsers handle their own routing based on the data contained in the link URL, so the wits feels very seamless to users. However, mobile links can get increasingly complicated. For example, if the app isn’t installed, the user can get an error message. So, the primary purpose of a hosted platform is to gather the relevant user data (e.g. device type, app installation status, data from link opened) and determine the weightier possible user wits (website, App Store, Play Store, directly to app), and then seamlessly route users.
SDK interaction
SDKs indulge each app or website to receive instructions from the hosted platform (e.g. an MLP) well-nigh what content to display. The app or website leverages the deep link data to understand what content the visitor requested and fires any supersensual tasks required.
All of this sounds easy, but it does require shielding choreography so the process feels invisible to the user. SDKs are very valuable considering they facilitate deep link usage by wrapping user-friendly programming interfaces virtually calls to the hosted platform, making them a very powerful tool that a linking platform brings to the table.
All of this sounds easy, but it does require shielding choreography so the process feels invisible to the user. SDKs are very valuable considering they facilitate deep link usage by wrapping user-friendly programming interfaces virtually calls to the hosted platform, making them a very powerful tool that a linking platform brings to the table.
A best-in-class MLP works overdue the scenes to requite you peace of mind that your links will just work, that you are capturing well-judged data, and that the user wits will be seamless.
Should I build an MLP myself?
Sure, it is possible to create and deploy deep links without the use of a technical partner. You can plane try to capture attribution by cobbling together data from variegated platforms. But, unelevated we highlight key reasons why you shouldn’t go lanugo this road.
1. Deep linking requires a lot of technical expertise
You will need a team of developers who are familiar with variegated types of mobile devices and operating systems. This includes knowing how to handle the variegated types of links that can be created and the data that can be captured, which is very complex. They would moreover need to constantly monitor the links and data to ensure they are performing correctly while troubleshooting any problems.
2. A wrenched wits will negatively impact your brand
It can take weeks or plane months to build a deep linking and measurement infrastructure from scratch. And, if you’re not careful, it can be easy to make mistakes, like losing context withal the user journey or duplicating attribution, causing frustration for users and yourself. Without a user-friendly or reliable deep linking experience, you will see a negative impact on your trademark and lose ROI.
3. Deep linking can be expensive
You can hands spend a significant value of upkeep and resources to build and maintain your own deep linking infrastructure. An MLP will indulge you to hands create, edit, and measure your link campaigns with a much lower investment while providing tools for data reporting and team collaboration.
If you decide to build this type of linking and measurement infrastructure in-house, you will miss out on many of the benefits of an MLP.
What are the benefits of an MLP?
Let’s drill lanugo into the key benefits of an MLP. At its core, a mobile linking platform is a powerful linking infrastructure. It moreover provides trusted attribution for owned and earned channels and summarizes data and insights in one place with wangle wideness teams.
Scalable and reliable deep linking that just works
A significant goody of an MLP is to unhook deep links that can be hands deployed wideness every owned and earned marketing channel, plane when users transition from one device to flipside (for example, desktop to app). A mobile linking platform will alimony context by understanding how to route users wideness use cases where they would typically disappear from view, such as when passing through the App Store or Play Store or in Facebook. Your MLP should moreover handle those unique whet cases for you so users get a reliable deferred deep linking wits wideness complicated scenarios, plane without install. The most worldwide example of this is deferred deep linking.
Powerful visibility and measurement for owned and earned channels
An MLP helps you measure things that were nonflexible or untellable to measure previously. Its primary goal is to provide brands the tools to virtuously symbol installs, opens, and down-funnel, in-app conversions for owned and earned channels while providing a powerful dashboard that displays your performance with detailed insights and flexible reporting. This rich data vacated makes an MLP a worthwhile investment.
Unlock new ways to reap and engage app users with less investment
As many of the old mobile marketing standbys (i.e. paid ads) are getting increasingly difficult and increasingly expensive, an MLP will unshut up new ways for you to grow your app. You will moreover save minutiae time with a reliable linking infrastructure. An MLP makes it easy to create and scale links via API, app, dashboard, or Chrome extension wideness use cases and channels — like customized smart banners, email promotions, and app-enabled QR codes — without a technical lift.
Industry expertise that will future-proof your mobile growth strategy
When major changes are spoken from Google or World (e.g. Private Relay), you won’t need to rebuild your linking strategy with an MLP. Your MLP should have the expertise to quickly understand the impact of these industry changes and provide defended deep linking experts who will proactively develop solutions to alimony your linking and measurement working as expected.
Overall, an MLP provides reliable, powerful deep linking and measurement experiences. It moreover helps you stay superiority of your competitors by constantly developing new, innovative tools to support your ramified mobile linking strategies and mobile growth goals.
Branch is a best-in-class MLP solution
The mobile industry is in a state of unvarying transpiration and deep linking is not immune to this reality. In addition, major platforms protract to try to alimony their users within their walled gardens, making it challenging to link outside of their ecosystems. With Branch, you can offer a personalized link wits wideness all your channels, virtuously measure and symbol your results, and save a ton of minutiae time. Branch’s NativeLink
solution is a unconfined example of this type of approach.
Branch’s best-in-class MLP understands how to transmute to all these changes and challenges while permitting you to hands deploy, monitor, and measure deep links. Our MLP delivers unparalleled match rates and links that just work. This, in turn, allows you to momentum your mobile growth with increased conversions and higher lifetime value (LTV) users wideness owned and earned channels.
Learn increasingly well-nigh Branch’s Mobile Linking Platform.