Notes from the front of mobile growth.
Attribution, deep linking, privacy, fraud, and the bits of mobile that nobody warns you about until you ship them.
Featured · 10 min read
The Firebase Dynamic Links replacement: a migration guide
Firebase Dynamic Links has shut down. Here's what you lost, what to replace it with, and how to migrate without breaking the links already out in the wild.
LinkTrail Team
Engineering
E-commerce playbook: a flash sale that survives the install gap
An e-commerce vertical playbook — turning a 24-hour flash sale into attributed, deep-linked installs that land on the deal.
Stop sending paid installs to your homepage
You paid for a tap on a specific product, then dropped the new user on your home screen. Here's how to carry intent through the install.
Fitness app playbook: a referral program that actually attributes
A fitness vertical playbook — friend-gets-friend referrals that survive install, credit the referrer, and resist abuse.
Influencer attribution: giving UGC channels the credit they earn
Blended dashboards quietly starve fingerprint-heavy channels. Influencer is usually the biggest victim. Here's how to slice the data so budget goes where it works.
Music app playbook: an artist drop that opens straight to the track
A music vertical playbook — turning a release-day link into installs that land on the track, crediting the channel that drove the stream.
One link for every channel: smart links for TikTok, email, SMS, and QR
TikTok, email, SMS, QR, desktop — one URL that always lands the user in the right place on the right platform, and tags itself per channel.
News app playbook: a subscription funnel without dead ends
A news and media vertical playbook — moving readers from a shared article to an attributed app install that opens the same story.
Re-engagement deep links that don't dump users on 'Welcome back'
Your win-back push earned the tap. Don't waste it on a generic landing card. Land returning users exactly where they left off.
Promo codes that survive the install
The code was in the share. The user installed. The code is gone. Carry it through the install gap and apply it automatically.
Web-to-app handoff for a freemium funnel
Let users start onboarding in the browser and resume mid-flow in the app — no restart, no lost progress.
Managing link verification across multiple apps and bundle IDs
One AASA, several bundle IDs, debug plus release fingerprints — kept correct automatically as you add build targets.
Building an install-attribution pipeline with webhooks
Stream install.attributed events into your warehouse, verify the signatures, and reconcile probabilistic, deterministic, and SKAN in one place.
The post-IDFA attribution playbook: signals, scoring, and what to ship next
Five years after ATT, the playbook has settled. Here's the waterfall we recommend, the signals worth scoring, and the trap most teams still fall into.
Why deferred deep linking still matters in 2026
App Clips, Instant Apps, web-first onboarding — surely we don't still need to bridge the install gap? Yes, you do. Here's the math.
Building a multi-signal fingerprint scorer that doesn't lie
What goes into a probabilistic match? Walk through the weights, the gotchas, and the test harness we use to keep accuracy honest.
SKAdNetwork 5: what changed and what to ship this quarter
Re-engagement, coarse conversion values, and the new postback structure. A practical migration guide for teams still on SKAN 4.
The growth marketer's guide to measuring real install lift
Incrementality is a word that's been beaten into mush. Here's a working definition, a measurement design, and the three places your numbers are lying.
App Links vs Universal Links: the practical setup guide nobody wrote
AASA, assetlinks.json, MIME types, scheme fallbacks. A field-tested checklist for shipping deep links that actually open the app.