The 2018 Mobile Growth Handbook: 100+ Mobile Marketing & Product Best Practices, Tips, & Resources

Mobile Growth
HANDBOOK
2018
Over 100 new tips, growth stories, and best
practices to unleash your mobile app’s growth

INTRODUCTION
01
ACQUISITION REFERRALS
02 05
ACTIVATION ATTRIBUTION
03 06
Mobile Growth Handbook | Third Edition
Are you targeting your users in the optimal way for your
app? Find out with the words of our mobile experts.
Learn how to best facilitate your most engaged users’
contributions to your mobile growth plan.
Start your users off on the right foot with our helpful tips
for optimized onboarding.
Fingerprinting and cookie-based methods are limiting
your view of your users. Learn how to expand this view.
ENGAGEMENT
04
You’ve targeted, sent out campaigns, and brought users into
your app. Now it’s time to engage your users the right way.

2018
1
OVERVIEW

An Overview of 2018’s
Mobile Market
What’s New in 2018?
2018 marks the ten-year anniversary for both
the Apple App Store and Android Market.1
App
Annie predicts that consumer app store spend
will surpass $110 billion in 2018, a YoY growth
rate of 30%.2
In fact, App Annie found that over 40
countries generated $100 million each in app
store consumer spend across the Apple App
Store and Google Play Store in 2017.3
Games account for 80% of total consumer
spend in app stores—however, non-gaming
apps’ growth rate is currently out-pacing
games’ growth rate. 4
In a world with so many approaches
and learnings in the realm of mobile
user acquisition, a closer look
is necessary.
Consumer app store
spend will surpass $110
billion in 2018, a YoY
growth rate of 30%.
1
https://www.appannie.com/en/insights/market-data/predictions-app-economy-2018/
2
https://www.appannie.com/en/insights/market-data/2018-app-predictions-app-store-revenues-will-hit-new-heights/
3
4
| 4
1.1 | Overview

| 5 1
2
https://www.statista.com/statistics/266488/forecast-of-mobile-app-downloads/
Downloads in the
Americas are predicted
to nearly double.
In addition, downloads in the Americas are
predicted to nearly double to approximately 75
billion downloads in 2021.2
App Annie reports that China, India, and Brazil
are the top markets to watch. China’s mobile
growth rate has significantly outpaced the rest
of the world’s, and is expected to continue to
do so. India and Brazil experienced 50% and
30% growth rates respectively in 2017.1
Statista predicts that annual mobile app
downloads in APAC will more than double,
rising to approximately 180 billion in 2021.
Rise in Predicted Mobile App Downloads
1.1 | Overview

Media Time and In-App Time Spent
The in-app share of U.S. mobile time has
continued to increase, while time in the mobile
web has maintained stagnant, according to
data collected by eMarketer.1
Predictions
indicate in-app mobile experience will continue
to claim an ever-expanding part of this pie.
2016 2017 2018 20192015
In-app
1:55
:25
2:11
:26
2:25
:26
2:35
:26
2:43
:27
Mobile web
Average Time Spent Per Day with Mobile Internet
Among U.S. Adults, In-App vs. Mobile Web1
1
https://www.emarketer.com/Article/eMarketer-Unveils-New-Estimates-Mobile-App-Usage/1015611
1.1 | Overview Mobile Growth Handbook | Third Edition
| 6

Multi-Platform and Multi-Touch User Data
According to comScore’s 2018 “Global Digital
Future in Focus” Report, mobile audiences
expanded around the world and across the
board in 2017—by up to 9% in developing
countries like Mexico. Paying attention to
mobile—and multi-platform—users is more
important than ever. comScore’s data indicates
that, by 2020, the number of adults who own
smartphones with access to the Internet will
jump from its current rate of approximately
50% to 80%.1
Mobile (page load) speed matters more than
ever. DoubleClick found that bounce rate rises
to 53% if a page takes more than 3 seconds
to load, and Think with Google found that this
rate skyrockets to 90% if loading time
increases to five seconds.2
In this day and age, digital users are expecting
a personalized UX. Research conducted by
Aberdeen shows that personalized email
messages improved CTR by 14% and
conversions by 10%. BiznessApps reports
that, by 2021, global spend will reach $1 trillion
reinventing the world to make it mobile-first.3
1.1 | Overview Mobile Growth Handbook | Third Edition
| 7
1
https://www.pymnts.com/news/mobile-commerce/2018/comscore-mobile-omnichannel-consumer-spending/
2
https://www.biznessapps.com/blog/mobile-marketing-trends/
3
https://www.biznessapps.com/blog/mobile-marketing-trends/

| 8
The Big Fish Run the Mobile Sea2
Perhaps the largest barrier to mobile app
growth in 2018 is the power law in the App
Store and the Google Play Store. As Alex
Austin, co-founder and CEO of Branch, says,
“App adoption and monetization are heavily
skewed towards the top few apps. It’s nowhere
near 80/20. In fact, let’s call it the App Store
99/0.01 rule.”1
The Power Law
Today’s Barriers to Mobile
App Growth
400 600 800 10002000
1
.5
0
Popularity Rank
Facebook, 1st
Skype, 10th
Pixable, 1000th
RelativeApplicationtoMostPopularApp
1
https://blog.branch.io/mobile-app-developers-are-suffering/
2
https://blog.branch.io/mobile-app-developers-are-suffering/
1.2 | Barriers to Growth

Unfortunately, it’s not
just app adoption and
monetization that are
skewed towards the top
few apps. Time spent
in apps also follows this
power law.
Top 5 apps
85% of in-app time
Other apps
15% of in-app time
Mobile Growth Handbook | Third Edition1.2 | Barriers to Growth
| 9

| 10
The Explosive Growth of App Stores
antivirus apps. So, while numbers are going
down, the quality of the apps in the store is
thereotically increasing. Overall, the total
number of (and average quality of) apps in
the Apple App Store and Google Play Store is
collectively estimated to be 5.6 million apps,
higher than ever.1
From 2017 to 2018, the number of iPhone apps
in the App Store actually declined by 1 million.
That might seem like a bad sign, as though
the popularity of iPhone apps is declining, too.
That’s not necessarily the case. In recent years,
Apple introduced new standards to improve
the quality of the apps available in the store,
while removing old apps that are no longer
compatible with new versions of the iOS, apps
that copy other apps, and those that provide
tools that aren’t needed on the iPhone like
iOS Apps
2.1 million
Android Apps
3.5 million
20182008 20172009
1
https://www.lifewire.com/how-many-apps-in-app-store-2000252

| 11
The Silent Threat to Mobile Growth
user experiences and measurement across
each platform’s walled garden.1
The solution? Take advantage of the platforms,
and build your own gardens. (Don’t worry—
we’ll show you how it’s done.)
When it comes to user experience,
fragmentation is one of the most pressing
issues in the industry—it plagues nearly
everything mobile marketers, product
professionals, and developers do—but it
continues to get relatively little airtime. There’s
an undeniable battle between Facebook,
Google, and Apple for our attention, rendering
it incredibly challenging to maintain unified
Fragmentation plagues
nearly everything
mobile marketers,
product professionals,
and developers do.
Fragmentation
1
https://blog.branch.io/the-first-mobile-cross-platform-conference-recap-a-review-of-branchout-2017/

| 12
Attribution, like user
experience, must be
cross-platform.
pretty new, but—if you picked the right
partner—it worked pretty well. That all
changed a decade ago with the launch of the
iPhone. Almost overnight, your customers
were interacting with your brand (whether
through ads, email, or another mobile
marketing channel) across multiple channels
and multiple platforms.1
Fragmentation can also wreak havoc on the
other side of the mobile growth coin—
attribution, like user experience, must be
cross-platform.
There was a time not too many years ago when
it was enough to put a couple of trackers on
your site, throw some query parameters on
your links, and call it a day. Attribution meant
web attribution, and that was that (at least for
eCommerce companies). Web attribution was
Fragmentation on the Attribution End
1
https://blog.branch.io/what-is-cross-platform-attribution-and-why-is-it-difficult-to-achieve/

| 13
With most attribution
tools out there today,
users are defined by
channel instead of
behavior.
Fragmentation on the Attribution End
Is this app install due to the Nextdoor ad you
clicked on, even though you downloaded the
app and signed up a few days afterward in a
different session and on a different platform?
With the benefit of a hypothetical bird’s-eye
view, the answer is clearly yes—at least in part.
However, with most attribution tools out there
today, this individual experience would appear
to be two people, one of whom downloaded
the app, and one of whom clicked an ad.
Let’s imagine a scenario: You’ve just moved to
a new city or town, and you’re looking to get to
know your neighbors—you see a Facebook App
Install ad for Nextdoor, and click it. You open
the Nextdoor website, but get distracted for a
couple of days before remembering Nextdoor
and searching for the app directly in the App
Store. Finally, you install the Nextdoor app and
begin networking with your neighbors.

Branch’s 2018 Mobile
Growth Industry Report
Insights from Global Mobile Experts
Sometimes, in such a fast-paced and dynamic
industry, there’s such emphasis on velocity that
mobile professionals aren’t able to assess the
industry in its current state. Branch is here to
fill in the gaps, with our 2018 Mobile Growth
Industry Report. In the slides that follow, you’ll
get an in-depth look at mobile growth around
the world today, and where it’s headed.
The following insights are based on data
collected from 149 mobile experts from
such enterprise brands as A&E, Bukalapak,
Discover, Discovery, Expedia, Grindr, NBC,
Netflix, NPR, Slack, and Office Depot.
In the slides that follow,
you’ll get an in-depth
look at mobile growth
around the world today.
| 14
1.3 | Industry Report

| 15
It’s clear to us how critical mobile growth is to
app success in 2018… but how important is it
to the average mobile professional out in the
industry today?
The data we collected reflects that larger apps
are tending to place more priority on mobile
than smaller apps. However, the fact remains
that all eyes are on mobile—every segment
reported a priority rating of at least 4/5.
Importance of Mobile Growth by Business
Size (MAUs)1
How Important is Mobile Growth in 2018?
<10k 50k-200k 200k-1m >1m10k-50k
4.58
4.72
4.184.28
4.11
4
5
3
2
1
0
1
Branch’s 2018 Mobile Growth Industry Report.

| 16
Importance of Mobile Growth by
Marketing Budget1
Just as larger apps place greater priority on
mobile than smaller apps, apps with larger
marketing budgets also seem to place more
priority on mobile than apps with smaller
marketing budgets—although again, all budget
segments report an average prioritization of at
least 4/5.
Clearly, for all companies—regardless of size,
and regardless of budget—mobile is an
ecosystem critical for success.
CONT: How Important is Mobile
Growth in 2018?
<50k 250k-1m 1m-5m >20m5m-20m50k-250k
4.72
4.60
4.00
4.71
4.53
4.16
4
5
3
2
1
0
1

| 17
Percentage of Marketing Budgets Allocated
to Mobile by Company Size1
It’s no surprise that the percentage of
marketing budgets allocated to mobile
fluctuates according to budget size. While
smaller apps may rely more on cheaper or
scrappier measures of mobile growth and
while the largest apps have budgets that
enable them to simultaneously concentrate on
mobile growth and experiment in other areas,
those in the middle each reported over 50% of
funds dedicated to mobile.
Marketing Budget Allocation to Mobile
<10k 50k-200k >1m200k-1m10k-50k
60%
45%
30%
15%
0
1

| 18
Percentage of Marketing Budgets Allocated
to Mobile by Company Vertical1
The allocation of enterprise apps’ marketing
budgets to mobile endeavors also widely
fluctuates by industry vertical, according to
data collected by Branch. In fact, the average
allocations for gaming apps and photo and
video apps are over 3x and 4x the average
allocations for education apps and sports apps.
Marketing Budget Allocation to Mobile
80%
60%
40%
20%
0
Gaming
Entertainment
Business&Utilities
Finance
Sports
Travel
SocialNetworking
News&Media
Education
Medical
Photo&Video
eCommerce
Lifestyle
1

| 19
When asked about specific mobile priorities
for 2018, the majority of surveyed app experts
agreed that creating a better experience in
their mobile apps was a top priority. Clearly,
however, approaches to achieving better
mobile user experiences differ—while many
have chosen to focus on organic growth on
mobile and on increasing app installs, some
have turned to creating unified cross-platform
experiences and optimizing mobile attribution
and measurement.1
Mobile Marketing Team Priorities in 2018
Creating a better experience in your mobile app52.4%
Organic growth on mobile51%
Getting more app installs47.6%
Increasing conversion in your mobile app46.3%
Exploring new mobile marketing acquisition channels40.1%
Improving attribution and measurement on mobile35.4%
Creating a uniﬁed experience between web and diﬀerent apps on mobile29.9%
Other1.4%
1

| 20
For insight into the biggest areas of focus for
mobile teams in 2018, check out the word
cloud extrapolated from answers to the
question, “Where are you focusing your mobile
efforts in 2018?”.1
We’re excited to see the directions that mobile
teams venture this year—as TD Bank’s Miguel
Navarro, writes, “We are only as strong as our
networks. My co-workers, friends, and family
know the answers I don’t. We have at least
most of the answers.”2
Areas of Focus for Mobile Teams in 2018
1
2
Independently-submitted tip by Miguel Navarro, VP & Mobile Product Manager (US) for TD Bank.

| 21
Allocation of Team Efforts by Company Size1
Let’s take a look at how teams allocate their
efforts between the different stages of growth,
broken down by company size. While smaller
companies are concentrating on mastering
organic growth, larger companies (those with
at least 200,000 MAUs) are looking towards
optimizing paid acquisition measures. One
thing remains consistent among apps of all
sizes: every company, regardless of size, is
spending significant portions of time pursuing
all areas of surveyed growth.
Allocation of Team Mobile Efforts
<10k 50k-200k 200k-1m >1m10k-50k
1
.75
.5
.25
0
Organic Engagement & Re-engagement Conversion Paid Acquisition
1

| 22
For a glimpse at innovative growth strategies,
we created a word cloud using responses to
the question, “Which mobile growth strategies
is your team most excited to try in 2018?”.1
Innovative Growth Strategies in 2018
1

| 23
Deep linking, Instant Apps, and Progressive
Web Apps led the charge of technologies that
surveyed mobile professionals believe will have
the biggest impact on mobile teams this year,
according to collected data.1
Game-changing Mobile Technologies
Deep Linking27.3%
Instant Apps21.9%
Progressive Web Apps21.1%
Augmented Reality18.8%
Virtual Reality6.2%
Other4.7%
1

| 24
tricks to attribution must-haves, there’s
something in the 2018 Mobile Growth
Handbook for everyone.
Finding opportunities to subvert the app
adoption and in-app engagement power laws is
a must, as is offering consistent cross-platform
user experiences and attribution.
In this Handbook, we’ll take down the scaffolds
in front of each pillar of mobile growth in 2018,
and we’ll show you an exclusive peek into some
of today’s leading mobile-first companies. With
everything from acquisition tips to referral
A Peek Inside the Handbook
2018 Mobile Growth Handbook
Contents
Share the Handbook
with friends
Spread the word
1.4 | Preview

Tara Hughes Esther Hwang James Meeks Jeff Morris Patricia Morizio Michelle Parsons Ankur Prasad
TURNER POSHMARK EBAY TINDER VERIZON SPOTIFY AMAZON
Daniel Alvarez Ajay Arora Julie Ask Sigal Bareket Carrie Buonaccorsi Effi Fuks-Leichtag Emily Grossman
THE HUFFINGTON POST NETFLIX FORRESTER LYFT PANDORA YELP SKYSCANNER
Toby Roessingh Jazz Singh Zoe Soon Haseeb Tariq Everette Taylor Jules Walter Henry Yan
FACEBOOK NFL MEDIA BUSINESS INSIDER GUESS POPSOCIAL SLACK LINKEDIN
| 25
Mobile Growth Handbook | Third Edition1.4 | Preview
Abridged Contributors2018

| 26
Get full access to this year’s 120+ new tips and best
practices from top mobile growth experts. Contributing
experts span far and wide—hailing from Amazon, eBay,
Facebook, HuffPost, LinkedIn, Lyft, Netflix, Skyscanner,
Slack, Spotify, Tinder, Turner, Yelp, and over 100 more—
but they have one thing in common: they know mobile.
Stay tuned for a peek at what you’ll receive.
Download the full 2018 Mobile Growth Handbook
Enjoyed this taste?
Download
1.5 | Download Details

2
ACQUISITION
2018

| 28
App Annie predicts that
2018 will see 205 billion
downloads and $106
billion in consumer
spend.
1
https://www.appannie.com/en/insights/market-data/app-annie-2017-2022-forecast/
China’s annual app download rate is expected
to jump from 79 billion to 120 billion, and
India’s annual app download rate is projected
to skyrocket from 12.1 billion in 2017 to 37.2
billion in 2022.1
App Annie’s 2017-2022 App Economy
Forecast reports that 2017 saw nearly 4 billion
connected mobile devices generating 178
billion app downloads and $81 billion
in consumer spend.1
In fact, App Annie predicts 45% growth in
annual mobile app downloads by 2022 (to 258
billion), and a 92% increase in annual consumer
app store spend by 2022 (to $157 billion).1
Mobile app installs and consumer spend are rapidly increasing.
What’s Changed? 2018’s Innovations
in Mobile User Acquisition

| 31
Getting noticed by
organic users in the App
Store and Google Play
Store is tougher than
ever.
own game, and to optimize flow from these
apps into their own platforms.
In addition, everyone knows that the more
complicated the mobile hemisphere becomes,
the more difficult it becomes to reliably track
organic user acquisition metrics.
Due to that pesky power law, getting noticed by
organic users in the App Store and Google Play
Store is tougher than ever.
Furthermore, in-app browsers are used to
construct walled gardens within apps like
Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Gmail, all of
whom want to keep users in their own apps—
even when they’re interacting with your web
pages. Mobile growth experts have had to get
creative to beat these walled gardens at their
Challenges with Existing Organic User Acquisition Models
Breakdown of Organic
Acquisition Channels

| 39
SENIOR DIRECTOR OF GROWTH MARKETING
Sigal Bareket
“I definitely recommend connecting the dots between your different creative
teams. Our brand and growth teams were running disconnected messages in
advertising and marketing. By uniting our designers, we found the right
message. CPL decreased by 31% and conversion rate increased by 6%.”
2.2 | Organic Acquisition

| 42 1
2
people use web search in order to research
products and services prior to purchase.
But here’s the problem: according to Search
Engine Journal’s Eric Siu, 60% of all traffic from
web searches goes to the first three organic
search results. In a world in which SEO leads
maintain an impressive close rate of 14.6%
(compared to an outbound lead close rate
of only 1.7%), the potential benefits of a
well-executed SEO strategy can’t be
overemphasized.
Did you know that 93% of online experiences
begin with search1
, but that 75% of users
never scroll past the first page of Google search
results2
? Getting the chance to drive organic
content-driven acquisition can be difficult, not
to mention time-consuming.
According to SEO expert Neil Patel, Google
displays over 3.5 billion search results per
day—a rate made all the more important to
consider thanks to the finding that 78% of
Why is an SEO mindset important?
93% of online
experiences begin
with search.
2.2 | Organic Acquisition

| 86
acquisition over organic acquisition. Reach
Mob, Inc. co-founder Billy Shipp says, “It’s hard
to understand the value you’re getting from
any organic channel, but paid is very, very con-
sistent.” If you optimize your paid acquisition
strategey, you may acquire high-quality users
at a dependable volume.
While it may be true that paid is consistent, it
can also lead to SDK congestion, duplicated
data, and wasted marketing spend. In addition,
balancing procedure with product is difficult,
and generally costly.
So, how can you optimize paid acquisition
strategies in 2018’s complex mobile world?
The answer is carefully—and with the
following insights in mind.
These days, budgeted mobile professionals
who believe paid acquisition is not worth
investigating are disadvantaging themselves
and their apps. The reality is that paid mobile
user acquisition in 2018 is an expensive but
necessary endeavor—not only to gain a
continuous stream of app users, but also to
learn, grow, and refine mobile strategies.
There are a number of reasons why mobile
professionals choose to prioritize paid
Challenges with Existing Paid Acquisition Models
Breakdown of Paid
Acquisition Channels

1
TIP!TIP!
2.3 | Paid Acquisition Mobile Growth Handbook | Third Edition
1
https://blog.branch.io/how-to-build-effective-facebook-ads-for-mobile-app-installs-in-2018-guide-user-acquisition-campaign-management/
1 Avoid product-heavy selling. Instead,
advertise the benefits of your app or
app-based service.
2 Play to the emotions of your audience.
Instill a sense of urgency, fear, or love in the
viewer of your ad—this will drive them to take
action. You can use anything from a timing
constraint (only 10 minutes left!) to an offered
charitable donation for every app install.
3 Ask your audience a question to get them
thinking. For example, you could ask, “Are you
tired of losing your keys?” Then, offer a solution
to their problem.
4 Being negative can actually be a positive
thing. Using negative words can grasp your
audience’s attention. For example, something
along the lines of: “Your current food delivery
app is letting you down.”
To make sure you’re optimizing CTAs, check out
this helpful list of best practices:
5 Not all words are created equal. Hubspot and
Hootsuite’s AdEspresso found the best words
to get the attention of your audience are You/
Your, Free, Now, and New. Test out a few
combinations and see what works best for
your app.1
| 91

| 126
“If you have a high LTV, you can afford to pay for your users. Figure out how
much you’re willing to spend, and then A/B test your way to success. If you
have a low LTV and can’t spend, find channels that play to your strengths.”
PRODUCT
Ajay Arora
2.3 | Paid Acquisition

3
ACTIVATION
2018

| 130 1
https://www2.branch.io/WBN-2017MoEngageAppEngagement_LP-Registration/
Requiring users to
register immediately
leads to a 50% drop in
users before they’ve
even activated their
accounts.
If you can optimize your download to
activation flow, you’re already well on
your way to improving your initial
engagement numbers.
The process of walking users through the
registration and function of your app should
be easy, right?
As many of us know based on professional
experience, it’s actually very difficult to make
a good first impression. In fact, Branch and
MoEngage report that requiring users to
register immediately leads to a 50% drop in
users before they’ve even activated their
accounts.1
Don’t lose your users as soon as you’ve acquired them!
Mobile User Activation
in 2018

| 133
As part of its 2018 Mobile Growth Industry
Report, Branch found that most mobile apps
are pursuing UX and UI, push notifications, and
onboarding optimizations to improve
conversion rates.2
Tactics for Triggering Mobile Conversion
3.1 | Activation
Improved UX and UI66.2%
us otiﬁcation59.6%
Onboarding57.4%
Personalization48.5%
Deep Linking45.6%
Emails45.6%
Retargeting Ads29.4%
Seamless Login26.5%
Other2.2%
1
https://www.smartinsights.com/mobile-marketing/mobile-marketing-analytics/mobile-marketing-statistics/
2

| 141 1
https://apptimize.com/blog/2016/04/ultimate-guide-user-onboarding/
opportunities to inject personalization into the
onboarding process.
The top apps have learned how to master this
onboarding trifecta, and have done so with
a sleek and engaging user experience. In this
section, we’ve got tips from some of the best to
help you along your way.
According to Andreessen Horowitz’s Andrew
Chen, the average mobile app loses 71% of
its users one day after they download or less.
After a month, that number approaches 90%—
after three months, 96%.1
In order to avoid average performance (or
worse), mobile marketers must make good first
impressions and minimize friction experienced
on the part of new users, all while leveraging
The average mobile
app loses 71% of its
users one day after
they download
or less.
Challenges with Existing
Activation Strategies
3.1 | Activation

| 144 1
https://blog.branch.io/how-to-set-up-analytics-metrics-for-mobile-apps/
Say that you give your users the ability to share
your app with friends. New users are much
more likely to onboard (and subsequently
engage) if you offer a personalized welcome
screen and experience.
Trip.com (formerly Gogobot) saw a 78%
increase in sign-up conversions from simply
adding the referrer’s photograph to the new
user’s onboarding screen, as well as the piece
of information the friend shared.1
Elements of Activation:
Personalized Onboarding
Regular
78%
Personalized
Onboarding Onboarding with Branch Links
Conversion to
signup
3.2 | Elements of Activation: Personalized Onboarding

| 151
More than 3.7 billion
people worldwide (over
half of the world’s
population) use email.
1
https://www.lyfemarketing.com/blog/importance-email-marketing/
2
https://www.lyfemarketing.com/blog/importance-email-marketing/
for mobile and mobile apps, however, you start
to realize how many challenges mobile
presents for email.
Different platforms, email clients, and devices
handle emails in disparate, unpredictable
ways. “Responsive” email design is stuck in the
2000s, but the most pressing email marketing
issue is that email clicks on mobile send users
to the web, where context is lost. Email user
experience is broken, but there’s a solution.
Most marketers today have come to accept
that email remains an integral part of any
winning marketing strategy. Lyfe Marketing
reports that, according to Radicati Group, more
than 3.7 billion people worldwide (over half the
world’s population) use email.1
Data from Pew
Research shows that 92% of U.S. adults have
access to email in some fashion, and that a
surprisingly large portion of these American
email users—61%—interact with email each
day.2
Once you choose to optimize your emails
3.4 | Elements of Activation: Email
Elements of Activation:
Email

| 172
3.8 | Elements of Activation: App-to-App Partnerships
“We partnered with T-Mobile to share 3 months of Pandora premium, and saw
a 14% uptick on number of trial starts. Partnering with the right companies or
brands can be extremely beneficial on both sides.”
SENIOR PRODUCT MANAGER
Carrie Buonaccorsi

1
| 173
TIP!TIP!
Construct seamless app-to-app journeys
with deep linking.
Proposing an experience where sending
people to your app enhances the user
experience of the other app can form a highly
convincing, clearly valuable, perhaps even
irresistible app-to-app marketing proposition.
For instance, consider SpotHero (a parking app)
and Waze (a driving directions app). As users
are getting directions to specific locations in
Waze, they can go directly into SpotHero and
find parking at their destination. This, clearly,
can serve as strong encouragement for an app
downloader of one to become a (serial) app
user of both, but it depends on convenience of
app use for both SpotHero and Waze.
3.8 | Elements of Activation: App-to-App Partnerships

4
ENGAGEMENT
2018

| 176 1
https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Presentations-and-Whitepapers/2018/Global-Digital-Future-in-Focus-2018
First thing’s first: When designing a mobile
user engagement strategy, it’s important to
keep in mind that mobile media use continues
to fluctuate throughout the day, as well as day
by day. Take a look at the display to the right,
from comScore’s Global Digital Future in Focus
Report.1
Mobile Media Use Fluctuates
Throughout the Day
2018’s Innovations in
Mobile User Engagement
Early Morning Daytime Early Evening PrimeLate Night
7am - 10am 10am - 5pm 5pm - 8pm 8pm - 12am12am - 7am
Percentage of Each Platform’s Average Daily
Impressions by Hour

| 179 1
https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Presentations-and-Whitepapers/2018/Global-Digital-Future-in-Focus-2018
The verdict’s in: according to comScore, U.S.
digital minutes spent on smartphones dwarf
U.S. digital minutes spent on tablets and
desktop devices. In fact, U.S. smartphone
usage is officially more than double U.S.
desktop usage.1
Share of Total Digital Minutes by Platform (US)
In the U.S., Smartphones Reign King
4.1 | Engagement
100%
75%
50%
25%
0
J F M A M J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A S O N D
2016 2017
Desktop Smartphone Tablet
34.0% 29.3%
54.5% 61.9%
11.5% Tablet
Smartphone
Desktop
8.8%

| 207
TIP!TIP!
4.4 | Engagement Tactics: Push Notifications
3
The norm for accepting standard push
notifications is 32% (though this varies across
industries).
Don’t get discouraged, though—studies show
that communicating the value of push
notifications in conjunction with an
aesthetically-pleasing request interface can
raise the opt-in rate to 50%.
Optimize the request to send
push notifications.
32% 50%

| 209
4.4 | Engagement Tactics: Push Notifications
“Everyone gets excited about push notifications, but—depending on your success
with push enablement—it may be like when a tree falls and there’s nobody there
to hear it. For the Wall Street Journal and Barron’s, we’re focused on that moment of
convincing a user to enable pushes.”
DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT OPTIMIZATION
Peter Gray

5
REFERRAL
2018

| 238 1
https://www.extole.com/blog/15-referral-marketing-statistics-you-need-to-know/
Who trusts referral advertising?
With user acquisition costs rising across the
board, mobile referrals are becoming more
important to mobile brands at all stages
of growth and across all verticals. From
e-Commerce to gaming, mobile marketers and
product professionals are investing more and
more in sharing and incentivization referral
mechanisms. In its annual Global Trust in
Advertising Report, Nielson reported that
referral marketing outperformed every
other marketing channel across every
single demographic.1
Referral Marketing—What’s the Big Deal?
5.1 | Referral
83% 85% 83%
80% 79%
Gen Z Millennials Gen X
Boomers Silent Gen

| 239 1
https://www.extole.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Extole_Fact_vs_Fiction_ePaper.pdf?
2
https://influitive.com/blog/infographic-17-stats-about-b2b-referrals-you-should-know-but-probably-dont/
3
https://www.extole.com/blog/15-referral-marketing-statistics-you-need-to-know/
28% of millennials say
they won’t even try a
product if their friends
don’t approve of it first.
As Extole’s Chris Duskin writes, “Referral
programs combine a seal of approval with the
one-two punch of a reward.”3
Nielsen’s favorable view of referral marketing
is just the tip of the empirical evidence
iceberg, however.
Extole reports that 28% of millennials say they
won’t even try a product if their friends don’t
approve of it first.1
In fact, Influitive
reports that B2B companies with referrals
enjoy a 70% higher conversion rate than those
who don’t have referrals, and that they report a
69% faster close time on sales.2
CONT: Referral Marketing—What’s the Big Deal?
5.1 | Referral

| 244 1
https://branch.io/attribution/
Widespread
channel and platform
fragmentation has
rendered it harder to
identify multi-channel
and multi-platform
users.
Mobile brands relying on legacy attribution
models are finding that referral marketing
strategies with fingerprinting or cookie-based
attribution (rather than people-based
attribution) aren’t identifying users they could
be identifying, and thus are missing out on
insights and relationship-building moments.
They also aren’t realizing what tactics are or
aren’t working, and—as such—they aren’t
learning from their mistakes.1
Widespread channel and platform
fragmentation has rendered it harder to
identify multi-channel and multi-platform
users, further complicating the process of
delivering personalized experiences that
delight and impress new users. If you can’t
recognize prospective and existing users across
all the channels, platforms, and devices in your
growth marketing stack, you’re not setting
yourself up for true, unfettered success.
Challenges with Existing Referral Strategies
5.2 | Challenges with Existing Referral Strategies

| 248
The best incentives are resonant, scalable, and
relevant. Let’s look at an example. In order to
move up the waitlist, a user of The League can
refer a friend to install the app, thus allowing
The League to generate hype and drive more
installs. The League rewards active users with a
special VIP ticket that allows one friend to skip
the waitlist and onboard straight into the app.
The Best Incentives for Mobile Referrals
5.4 | The Best Incentives for Mobile Referrals

| 249 1
https://branch.io/referral/
The League uses contextual deep links enabled
by Branch to scale link generation, referral
tracking, reward attribution, and credit
balance. With deep linked referrals, rewards
are automatically applied and new and existing
users see personalized experiences without
the need for promo codes. The League
quickly saw significant increases in app installs
and conversion to signup, and even a 2x
increase in engagement among referred users.
The League’s Referrals Strategy:
Under the Hood
+30%
Boost in
installs through
user referrals.
+31%
Increase in
conversions to
signups for
referred users.
2x
Increase in
engagement for
referred users.

1
| 251
TIP!TIP!
Automatically apply coupons and
promo codes to marketing links.
Throughout commerce history, companies
across industries and growth stages have
created wildly successful product promotions
through the use of coupons. Promotions are
a surefire way to drive growth across a vast
array of marketing channels, including email,
web-to-app (or app-to-app) smart banners,
and social media.
With promo codes, however, you risk losing
each user who tries to dig through previous
emails or texts to find original coupon codes.
Click here to learn how to provide your users
with links that automatically apply these
promo codes, across all channels.

| 255 1
https://www.referralcandy.com/blog/referral-program-incentives/
It is better to reward
the referred user rather
than the referring user.
Who Should Receive Incentives?
This is not to say that all referrals require an
incentive, however. As mentioned earlier,
games and social apps are using shared
experiences and in-game mechanics instead of
material gifts as incentives to gain traction.
When building a referral marketing strategy,
one of the largest hidden variables to consider
is the allocation of referral incentives across
referring and referred users. Depending on
factors such as the strategy, the growth stage
of the app in question, and the budget in
question, sometimes rewarding both users just
isn’t feasible. In these cases, it is better to
reward the referred user rather than the
referring user.1

| 257
Mobile Growth Model: 5% Increase in Retention
and Acquisition
5% increases in retention and user acquisition
rates can lead to a 220,000 user increase over
six months. Check out our mobile growth
modeling calculator here.
Mobile Growth Modeling Calculator
5.5 | The Why and How of Influencer Tracking
200k
150k
100k
50k
o

6
ATTRIBUTION
2018

| 262 1
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/28/10-facts-about-smartphones/
2
https://www.forrester.com/report/Mobile+Moments+Transform+Commerce+And+Service+Experiences/-/E-RES115853
3
https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Presentations-and-Whitepapers/2017/2017-US-Cross-Platform-Future-in-Focus?
As the Pew Research Center reported in 2017,
more than 75% of U.S. adults reportedly own
at least one smartphone (a sharp and telling
increase from the 35% reported in 2011).1
Forrester reports that U.S. consumers spend
over 90 hours on their smartphones every
month, or 3 hours per day.2
The total mobile
time spend now accounts for nearly 70% of all
digital media time.3
Before the mobile domination, desktop web
provided a reliable platform for brands to
engage with and convert consumers through
websites. Technologies developed during this
time period enabled digital marketers to
measure and attribute digital campaigns
relatively effectively. The introduction of
mobile as a digital platform, however, has
fundamentally disrupted that equilibrium.
Instead of the sole reliance on the web,
consumers have quickly adapted to the new
norm with smartphones.
More than 75% of
U.S. adults reportedly
own at least one
smartphone.
What’s Changed?
Innovations in Mobile and
Cross-Platform User Attribution

6.1 | Attribution Mobile Growth Handbook | Third Edition
1 The explosive growth of mobile has
introduced widespread fragmentation across
devices, platforms, and channels. The fluid na-
ture of a given consumer’s journey requires
measurement solutions that can map the
entire digital footprint, across
all touchpoints.
2 Existing attribution solutions are limited.
As consumer digital journeys become
increasingly cross-platform and cross-channel,
legacy attribution solutions have largely failed
to evolve and adapt. Attribution technology
born in the age of the web fails to incorporate
native app activities, whereas newcomers fail
to tie app attribution back to the web.
Challenges with Existing
Attribution Strategies
3 A people-based approach to attribution is
vital. Measuring the true consumer journey
is critical to every B2C business. It enables
advertisers and marketers to gain the right
insights, optimize spend, and drive ROI.
People-based measurement allows companies
to achieve all of the above and more—you
can now integrate marketing efforts with
confident reporting.
| 263

| 264
From the technology you should consider
implementing when building your app, to the
steps you’ll need to build a marketing and
PR strategy, Branch’s App Launch Checklist is
chock full of useful content. Explore the whole
list as a learning experience, or build a launch
plan that makes sense.
Build a launch plan that
makes sense.
App Launch and Attribution Strategy
A Moment for New Apps

| 265
“One of our secret weapons for internal products is to launch on Android first. User
acquisition is much cheaper, and you can publish app changes in hours
instead of days. Launch a v1.0 on Android, acquire users cheaply, and get feedback
from them. Then, revise the app for the iOS launch and subsequent iterations.”
Ben Lee
CO-FOUNDER & CEO
| 265
6.2| A Moment for New Apps

| 282 1
https://www2.branch.io/rs/315-FTT-121/images/WP-2018-TheUltimateGuidetoWebandAppUserAttribution.pdf
2
https://www2.branch.io/rs/315-FTT-121/images/WP-2018-TheUltimateGuidetoWebandAppUserAttribution.pdf
The identification inconsistency between
cookies and device IDs effectively forced
cross-platform attribution companies to
develop new ways to match web users to app
users. As a result, device fingerprinting has
become the most common tactic for achieving
cross-platform attribution.
The “fingerprint” method generates a snapshot
of a web user, consisting of a device’s IP
address and user agent (the device operating
system, the OS version, and other device-
specific parameters), and generates another
snapshot when this user opens the app. The
attribution provider then attempts to find close
matches among the collected web fingerprints
and app fingerprints. This method results in
varying degrees of accuracy, but can never be
100% accurate.
To make matters worse, fingerprinting
attribution methods often fall victim to ad
fraud. With a market size reportedly at $83
billion in the US alone,bad actors are
rampant across the ecosystem, and show no
signs of slowing down.1
In fact, CNBC estimates
that businesses lost $16.4 billion to ad fraud
in 2017.2
The Evolution of Attribution:
Stage 3 (Web and App)
“Fingerprinting”: Today’s Common Standard
Web App
App Web
?

| 284 1
https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/what-brand-marketers-need-to-know-about-mobile-ad-fraud/
According to AdWeek, the app install ad
business alone is an estimated $5.7 billion
market.1
As ad spend increasingly shifts to
mobile, fraudsters are focusing their attention
on experimenting with methods of stealing
from the mobile ad revenue pie. Whether you
are paying for impressions, clicks, installs, or
in-app purchases, fraudsters have devised
ways to falsely claim credit.
While mobile ad fraud techniques have
become more and more sophisticated,
anti-fraud approaches have unfortunately
lagged. Tactics to check for virtual machines or
emulators that mimic user behaviors are
limited, since fraudsters have evolved to use
install farms that emulate human behavior.
Similarly, new techniques like click-hijacking on
Android devices are rendering older methods
of detecting attribution fraud (analyzing install
rates for abnormalities, for instance)
ineffective. With a junk app installed on the
mobile device of a user, click-hijacking can
fake a perfect ad click to claim credit and
receive payout.
6.5 | The Challenges of Mobile Fraud
The Challenges of Mobile Fraud

| 285
The limitations of fingerprinting mean that
if two users use the same public wifi or are
in close proximity on the same network in a
24-hour period, and they happen to have the
same device model and operating system
version, a model using fingerprinting will label
these users as identical, causing inaccurate
attribution (also known as “False Attribution”).
Imagine there exist two users, Jack and Jill.
Jack is in Union Square on his iPhone
browsing the web. He clicks a display ad
that directs him to Company X’s website.
He browses, but ultimately decides not to
download the app. Later that day, Jill is also in
Union Square, and a friend tells her about a
product that Company X is selling. Jill decides
to download the app on her iPhone, and
ultimately makes the purchase.
Since Jack and Jill share very similar device
fingerprints, the legacy attribution provider
will claim that Jack’s ad click led to Jill’s install
and purchase, falsely assuming Jack and Jill
are the same user.
Fingerprinting’s Role in Perpetuating Mobile Fraud

| 286
To reduce inaccuracy while mitigating false
attribution, attribution providers set time
windows for when a match can be made.
These time windows are usually less than 24
hours, meaning that if a user clicks a web
display ad and installs the app over a day later,
the user’s web activity and source will not be
matched to the user’s app activity.
Ironically, this introduces additional inaccuracy
for the exact opposite reason: attribution
providers will misattribute users as organic
installs simply because they converted outside
of the 24 hour attribution window. This could
easily mask gaps in acquisition strategy, as well
as channels that seem to be underperforming
but in reality are driving substantial revenue.
False Attribution
Reality
Ad click
False Attribution
Ad click Organic visit
Organic visit
A
B
A

| 287
Most attribution
providers are left to
focus on either web or
app, rather than both.
What does this mean for you, the theoretical
advertiser? App user conversions originating
from any source on the web have a good
chance of being incorrectly attributed or not
attributed at all. Single-platform attribution
providers are essentially appropriate solutions
only for companies that separate their web
attribution from app attribution. As mentioned,
the paradox in this approach is that users
never interact with justone or the other.
Due to difficulties that accompany accurate
cross-platform web and app attribution, most
attribution providers are left to focus on either
web or app, rather than both. In the rare
cases that legacy app attribution providers also
report on web channels, they rely on requiring
a user to sign in on each applicable platform.
Given that users rarely login on multiple
platforms, most would not be attributed to
their original web source, even in this scenario.
CONT: False Attribution

| 288
What is People-Based Attribution, and How is It Done?
The Solution:
People-Based Attribution
fingerprint, a short-lived identifier based on
not-so-unique parameters, Branch has built
an Identity Graph that matches a device’s web
cookies to its unique app identifier as one user
across web and app platforms.
Ultimately, without consolidating the entire
user journey, it is impossible for companies to
identify and optimize digital touchpoints that
can provide smoother user experiences while
driving higher ROI across platforms.
The solution? People-Based Attribution enables
companies across industries and stages of
growth to perform reliable cross-platform
attribution without fragmentation-induced
misattribution. Rather than generating a
Web App
App Web
ID

| 291
People-Based Attribution offers advertisers and
marketers the ability to connect all touchpoints
across all web and app marketing channels
and platforms.
Legacy measurement models offer
marketers an undeniably siloed view into
their customer’s digital journeys, oftentimes
misattributing conversion events to the wrong
channel. People-Based Attribution stitches a
user’s journey together, offering marketers and
advertisers a single, de-duplicated
persona that represents a real human
consumer, rather than an unreliable
“fingerprint” or cookie. The user will be
available to reference across every channel
and platform for accurate measurement
and personalized user experiences.
Benefits of People-Based Attribution People-Based Attribution
User activity over time
Legacy Attribution Systems
User activity over time
6.6 | People-Based Attribution

| 292
People-Based Attribution enables marketers
and advertisers to optimize marketing spend
and user experience.
The benefits of a reliable and advanced
attribution solution go far beyond accurate
data. With the ability to map out real consumer
journeys across web and app, marketers can
finally access an integrated and comprehensive
view across all marketing campaigns.
Marketers and advertisers plugged into
People-Based Attribution can allocate digital
marketing and mobile budgets based on the
performance of previous and current web and
app campaigns. As such, they can maximize
ROI and scale campaigns with confidence.
Last but not least, Branch’s attribution platform
enables marketers to build optimized user
experiences with Branch links in marketing
campaigns. Branch provides the most
advanced deep linking technology available,
ensuring consumers are routed to the optimal
destination across every touchpoint.
By helping brands create lasting connections
with users through data-driven, optimized ex-
periences, Branch helps marketers reach their
ultimate goal: engaged, retained users. You
deserve cross-channel, cross-platform
attribution that’s on your side. Click here to fix
your mobile attribution with Branch today.
CONT: Benefits of People-Based Attribution
6.6 | People-Based Attribution

| 296| 296
6.7 | Summary
“Don’t be afraid of traffic going from one channel to the next. Conversion rates by
mobile may never be what they are on desktop, and that’s okay. What’s important
is driving revenue, so you need to look at ‘touched by mobile’.”
James Meeks
HEAD OF MOBILE

| 302
“There’s never been a more exciting time to be in mobile.
Just keep building.”
CO-FOUNDER & CEO
Alex Austin
6.7 | Summary

| 304
Peter is a content marketer at Branch. He obtained his
B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, and has been
featured from TED to Teen Vogue for his work as a
writer, editor, and publisher. At Branch, he oversees
the blog and social media platforms, and contributes
to all additional areas of growth marketing content.
In his spare time, Peter serves as the founder and
editor-in-chief of the Adroit Journal, and as the
founder and director of its free, online summer
mentorship program for teen writers around the globe.
Peter LaBerge | EDITOR
Michael is a landscape photographer and graphic
designer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Michael’s
professional career in graphic design has spanned
14 years, wherein he has created design direction,
including marketing, advertising, and brand building,
for global brands. Michael has been recognized and
published by Outdoor Photographer and Popular
Photographer among others in the photography
community as well as being recognized for his
design work, and currently serves as Branch’s
Creative Director.
Michael Hindman | DESIGNER
7.2 | About Branch

| 305
Branch is committed to providing the leading
mobile linking platform that unifies user
experience and measurement across devices,
platforms, and channels. Branch provides links
for over 6 billion users across the globe, and is
a trusted solution for Airbnb, BuzzFeed,
Pinterest, Target, Tinder, Slack, Starbucks,
Yelp, and more than 30,000 more.
About Branch
To learn more about
our platform today
Visit Branch.io
7.2 | About Branch

| 306
Get full access to this year’s 120+ new tips and best
practices from top mobile growth experts. Contributing
experts span far and wide—hailing from Amazon, eBay,
Facebook, HuffPost, LinkedIn, Lyft, Netflix, Skyscanner,
Slack, Spotify, Tinder, Turner, Yelp, and over 100 more—
but they have one thing in common: they know mobile.
Download the full 2018 Mobile Growth Handbook
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The 2018 Mobile Growth Handbook: 100+ Mobile Marketing & Product Best Practices, Tips, & Resources