A super successful tactic — once you’ve captured the actual sharing intent — is to surface a pop up encouraging users to share the content directly, instead of simply texting a screenshot.

Here are some examples of screenshot sharing done well.

Audible takes over the whole screen with a sharing pop-up.

Etsy shows a low banner asking to share with friends.

App in the Air makes it extremely easy to share and copy with a branded deep link.

The code snippets below are simple ways to detect a screenshot and show the user a Branch deep link to that content as a pop-up.

On Apple

override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()

NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(self, selector: #selector(screenshotTaken), name: UIApplication.userDidTakeScreenshotNotification, object: nil)

}

@objc func screenshotTaken() {
print(“Screenshot taken! Showing Branch link.”)

//Use the respective BranchUniversalObject and BranchLinkProperties to create a short URL
buo.getShortUrl(with: lp) { url, error in

let alert = UIAlertController(title: “You took a screenshot!”, message: “Tap below to share a link to this page \(url)”, preferredStyle: .actionSheet)

alert.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: “Share”, style: .default , handler:{ (UIAlertAction)in
//Share the link here
}))

alert.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: “Dismiss”, style: .cancel, handler: nil))

//Show the alert

self.present(alert, animated: true, completion: nil)

}

}

var lp = LinkProperties().setChannel(“facebook”).setFeature(“sharing”).setCampaign(“content 123 launch”).setStage(“new user”).addControlParameter("$desktop_url", "http://example.com/home").addControlParameter("custom", "data").addControlParameter("custom_random", Long.toString(Calendar.getInstance().getTimeInMillis()))

val ss = ShareSheetStyle(this@MainActivity, "Check this out!", "This stuff is awesome: ").setCopyUrlStyle(resources.getDrawable(this, android.R.drawable.ic_menu_send), "Copy", "Added to clipboard").setMoreOptionStyle(resources.getDrawable(this, android.R.drawable.ic_menu_search), "Show more").addPreferredSharingOption(SharingHelper.SHARE_WITH.FACEBOOK).addPreferredSharingOption(SharingHelper.SHARE_WITH.EMAIL).addPreferredSharingOption(SharingHelper.SHARE_WITH.MESSAGE).addPreferredSharingOption(SharingHelper.SHARE_WITH.HANGOUT).setAsFullWidthStyle(true).setSharingTitle("Share With")

buo.showShareSheet(this, lp, ss, object : Branch.BranchLinkShareListener {

    override fun onShareLinkDialogLaunched() {}

    override fun onShareLinkDialogDismissed() {}

    override fun onLinkShareResponse(sharedLink: String?, sharedChannel: String?, error: BranchError?) {}

    override fun onChannelSelected(channelName: String) {}

})

The post How to Detect When a Screenshot is Taken and Prompt a Share to Increase App Engagement appeared first on Branch.

Here are the winners in all eight categories:

Best App Adoption Campaign: Recognizing a highly successful app adoption campaign.

Company: Expedia Group

Campaign: Expedia used machine learning to increase app adoption to understand traveler’s needs and make appropriate recommendations through Expedia’s booking experience. They personalized their messaging and content for each user to ensure they were rendering information most relevant to them in order to simplify the user experience and drive engagement. Behind each message, Expedia included a Branch deferred deep link to create a seamless journey into the app.

Best Retention Campaign: Recognizing a campaign delivering the best retention campaign on mobile.

Company: Ancestry

Campaign: To retain existing app users and drive user acquisition, Ancestry, the global leader in family history and consumer genomics, launched a dedicated email campaign featuring the main benefits of the Ancestry app with the subject line, “The Ancestry app can do that?!” Using Branch’s Universal Email, they were able to customize the CTAs and redirects throughout the email to create a personalized experience for their users.

Best Overall Growth Campaign: Recognizing brands that have created new and innovative channels, techniques, tactics, or strategies to increase mobile growth over the past year.

Company: Jersey Mike’s

Campaign: Jersey Mike’s launched the Day of Giving campaign to drive scalable growth, increase brand awareness, and drive donations throughout the month of March. The campaign was promoted across all major channels, including television, offline, paid and organic social media, affiliates, email, text messages, and push notifications. Using Branch, Jersey Mike’s was able to analyze the campaign performance and identify which channels drove the highest number of in-app conversions.

Best Referral Campaign: Recognizing a campaign that has increased app adoption and engagement through best-in-class referral campaigns.

Company: GoMechanic

Campaign: In order to create a smooth onboarding experience, GoMechanic launched a robust referral campaign to grow its user base while simultaneously rewarding existing users. Using Branch’s deferred deep linking solution, GoMechanic powered its incentive-based referral program by allowing referrers to generate unique Branch Links inside the app and share them with their friends to download the app. Upon completing the required in-app actions, both the new user and the referrer were rewarded.  

Best QR Code Campaign: Recognizing campaigns that have transformed traditional offline marketing by delivering a world-class QR code experience.

Company: New Look

Campaign: To help drive users from mobile web and offline sources into the app, New Look leveraged Branch QR Codes to create a seamless experience for its in-store customers. By using Branch, New Look was able to create unique QR codes for each store to incentivize store managers and measure performance on a store-by-store basis.

Best Organic Social Campaign: Recognizing the most effective organic promotion strategic and marketing campaigns across social to drive app acquisition, engagement, and retention. 

Company: Planet Fitness

Campaign: As a business, Planet Fitness looked to break into the younger generation of budding fitness enthusiasts to increase their social media presence and increase adoption of their mobile-first features. In turn, Planet Fitness announced its High School Summer Pass campaign, or HSSP, across social media. Through this, they encouraged sharing, engagement with followers, and virality across Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. 

Best Influencer Campaign: Recognizing a highly successful influencer marketing campaign that drove app adoption and increased app engagement.

Company: nate

Campaign: In order to break down silos and walled gardens within the affiliate marketing and creator community, nate sought to create a unified shopping solution where creators can guide their audiences to a single destination in order to help brands  get increased awareness, purchase and affiliate commission without cumbersome integrations or upkeep. This introduced nate’s Creator Program. Using Branch’s advanced deep linking solution, the Creator Program allows creators to seamlessly acquire followers no matter which social entry point they come from.  

Best Use of First-party Data: Recognizing a successful campaign that used first-party data to deliver a personalized end-to-end experience for customers.

Company: Domino’s Pizza Indonesia via Capillary Technologies

Campaign: Domino’s sought to convert new users into loyal customers and increase their average order value or AOV while continuously engaging with them to stay top of mind. With a customer-centric approach, Domino’s Indonesia partnered with Capillary Technologies to evaluate gaps in the present understanding of their customer. Using these insights, Domino’s Pizza was able to execute personalized campaigns, based on AI-powered insights provided by Capillaries advanced CRM platform, to create a mobile-first strategy that would encapsulate and encourage loyalty.  

The post Announcing the 2022 Mobile Growth Awards Winners appeared first on Branch.

Here are the finalists in our eight award categories:

Best Overall Growth Campaign: For entries that created new and innovative channels, techniques, tactics, or strategies to increase mobile growth.

• CBS Sports
• Jersey Mike’s
• Dorothy Perkins by Nasty Gal
• BandLab
• YOXO via Data Revolt 

Best App Adoption Campaign: For entries with a highly successful app adoption strategy.

• Expedia
• Tata Digital
• DICK’S Sporting Goods
• CVS
• CBS Sports
• Domino’s Pizza Indonesia

Best Retention Campaign: For entries that delivered the best retention on mobile.

• Ancestry
• Aetna
• Pratilipi
• Sephora
• QVC

Best QR Code Campaign: For entries transforming traditional offline marketing by delivering a world-class QR code experience.

• Coast by Nasty Gal
• GoMechanic
• Nubank
• New Look
• Domino’s Pizza Indonesia

Best Organic Social Campaign: For entries that have a highly effective organic promotion strategy and social marketing campaigns that drive app acquisition, engagement, and retention.

• MyFitnessPal
• Planet Fitness
• Extra

Best Referral Campaign: For entries that increased app adoption and engagement through best-in-class referral campaigns.

• CSC ServiceWorks via Range Digital
• Stake
• GoMechanic

Best Use of First-Party Data: For entries that used first-party data to successfully deliver a personalized, end-to-end customer experience.

• Drizly
• Domino’s Pizza Indonesia

Best Influencer Campaign on Mobile: For entries highlighting a highly successful influencer marketing campaign that drove app adoption and increased app engagement.

• Karen Millen by Nasty Gal
• nate

Selecting Top-of-league Experiences

The submissions to the awards include a wide variety of stories and strategies that ironed out some of the challenges of this year and heightened our joys. Judging these entries are masters of mobile from leading brands such as Acorns, Zillow, JPMorgan Chase, and Coles Group.

For more information, head to Mobilegrowth.org/awards to learn more about this year’s awards.

The post Announcing the 2022 Mobile Growth Awards Finalists appeared first on Branch.

You’ve been at Branch for six years, how have you grown during that time?  

I used to run all things related to our Mobile Growth Meetup community, from running the actual events to selling sponsorships to our partners. Eventually I owned other marketing programs like conferences, VIP events, dinners, webinars, revamping our email nurture strategy, working on ABM initiatives like setting up Slack notifications, and launching our direct mail program. I am now heading up field marketing in North and South America. It’s been a whole journey but I’m grateful Branch has allowed me to grow so much in responsibility in the last six years! 

What do you love about your job? 

I love the amount of ownership I get for my projects and how my team can hand me a huge project from scratch and give me the freedom to come up with the strategy on how to execute the project. It’s great to be given an immense amount of responsibility to make major decisions but also have the option to lean on leadership if there’s something I need a second opinion on. Your level doesn’t matter a lot at Branch and I love that the company empowers employees to have a bias for action. It’s nice how everything moves so quickly here because we aren’t bogged down by asking permission for everything. 

What makes Branch different from other places you worked at? 

I like how Branch is always trying to improve as a company no matter what size the company is at. The company puts a strong emphasis on sharing best practices, providing feedback to each other, and educating employees via trainings and book clubs. 

How has being an Asian woman shaped what you bring to Branch?

It really challenges me in a positive way because I don’t want to fit into the mold of what a typical “Asian woman” is – agreeable, easy to walk all over, soft spoken, etc. Being an Asian woman at Branch has reminded me that it’s okay to speak up if you disagree or to bring up issues if I have any. 

What do you value most about your coworkers? 

Their dedication and ownership. I know I can expect the highest quality of work from them and it challenges me everyday to deliver the same quality of work. It’s inspiring to work with a group of colleagues that are so dedicated. 

Tell us a memorable story about yourself or a coworker. 

We hosted a conference in 2017 called Branchout and I remember folding t-shirts with Mike Molinet, co-founder and COO until 4 AM to make sure everything was perfect before the conference started the following day. This is when I knew how high Branch’s caliber of perfection was and how willing the founders are willing to get their hands dirty   

What motivates you?  

Last year I was lucky enough to hire two people to join the field marketing team at Branch. My team, Kara and Claire, inspire me everyday. They both have an incredibly high sense of ownership, go above and beyond, and truly exhibit our Branch values. Their dedication to excel in their job always inspires me to be the best manager I can for them. 

What do you wish people knew about being an Asian woman in tech?

I would say that when I first started working, I tried to be either Asian or American but as time went on, I really liked embracing being both Asian and American and bringing both cultures to the table at work. As an Asian, I was taught to put my head down and let my work shine while American culture generally encourages a lot more self promotion and visibility. Balancing this has always been tricky for me but I’m definitely learning how to navigate this and let my work shine in a humble way. 

Do you have a piece of advice for other Asian women looking to build a career in tech?

I would say to just do it! I can’t imagine myself in another industry and although there may be a few challenges here and there, the rewards are so much more and it’s been exciting to see how I’ve grown personally and professionally.

Check out our careers!

The post Branch Employee Highlight: Cynthia Chiang appeared first on Branch.

While I take immense pride in this announcement along with my fellow founders, I know that what really helped us earn this recognition is the incredible work of our current and past employees to make Branch a special place to work. I recently did a study, interviewing more than 50 of our employees across different regions, departments, and leadership levels, asking what makes Branch different from other places they worked. The response was clear, they all mentioned our people – smart and humble, our mission – to create a more connected, open, and relevant mobile ecosystem, and our culture – all aligned with our internal motto:  “Build together. Grow together. Win together.” 

While this recognition for our culture and progress is something to celebrate, we are not done. As we grow and scale, we will continue to make Branch an even better place to work and we know each person who joins will add to the culture. If you’re the type of person who wants to build, grow, and win together, we’d love you to join us on our journey and help us make Branch even better. We have just raised 300M to continue furthering our mission and we have over 100 open positions across the world. It will be a wild ride, are you in? 

America’s Best Startup Employers 2022 – List Methodology

To determine the list, Statista identified 2,500 American businesses that had been founded between 2012 and 2019 and employ at least 50 people. All companies considered had been started from scratch and not spun out of existing enterprises. Statista evaluated each organization based on three criteria, the first being employer reputation. The firm reviewed articles, blogs, and social media posts pertaining to each employer, searching for specific phrases, such as “corporate culture” and “employee engagement.” Statista then assessed employee satisfaction, evaluating online reviews, as well as growth, examining the organizations’ website traffic and headcounts over a two-year period. The final list ranks the 500 employers that boast the best employer reputations, employee satisfaction, and growth.

Check out our careers!

The post Branch Recognized on Forbes America’s Best Startup Employers List appeared first on Branch.

Here are the winners in all eight categories:

Best Mobile Engagement Campaign: Recognizes campaigns that reach customers on their mobile devices, bringing them to brand apps.

Name and title: Julia Miller, Executive Director, Creative Services at E*TRADE Financial Corporation

Company: E*TRADE

Campaign: E*TRADE had a mission to help customers better understand their IRAs and prepare for retirement. To do this, they added mobile messages to their historically email-only IRA communications strategy — mobile messages that reminded each user to max out their 2020 IRA contributions. Customers could link directly to transfer money, enabling them to easily take action.

Best Overall Growth Campaign: A look at the campaigns that created new and innovative channels, techniques, tactics, or strategies to increase mobile growth over the past year.

Name and title: Oleh Myslinskyy, Manager, Digital Activation

Company: Philips

Campaign: In order to integrate the NutriU app into the existing digital ecosystem of the Philips Airfryer, Philips launched an extensive, holistic campaign that included deep links and QR codes on product stickers, YouTube videos, and in-store flyers. Philips leveraged Branch deep linking and attribution to measure the overall impact of the campaign, which saw the NutriU app grow over 120% compared to the prior year.

Best Mobile Viral Campaign: Recognizing one of this year’s most viral mobile marketing campaigns.

Name and title: Julian Dunn, Head of Product

Company: BeautyBay

Campaign: BeautyBay and Disney launched a cross-brand promotional effort to promote the new DisneyColour Eyeshadow Palette. In order to seamlessly direct users from their social media pages to their mobile apps, they included Branch links in their organic social posts on TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter. In addition, given that a significant share of their audience is desktop-based, BeautyBay also added QR codes to the product landing page, backed by Branch links. For the launch period, BeautyBay saw a 350% increase in app users.

Best Phygital Experience: Campaigns that transformed traditional offline marketing by blending the best of physical and digital to improve the consumer journey.

Name and title: Tiago Lessa, Head of Marketing

Company: Globoplay

Campaign: Globoplay had a big challenge: more than 40 live streamings were happening simultaneously during the Olympic Games in different time zones. In order to help their users follow the events that interested them, Globoplay created a WhatsApp channel and advertised it on TV. Using the WhatsApp channel, the company disseminated daily customized event summaries. In total, more than 4.5 million messages were sent during the games.

Best Digital Transformation: Celebrates business innovation through digital transformation, resulting in increased engagement, user acquisition, or revenue.

Name and title: Blaise Lipan, Senior Manager, Software Management

Company: QVC

Campaign: In order to create a seamless OTT-to-mobile-app experience, QVC built a flow to direct users from the OTT app to the same content in their mobile app. Users viewing a QVC livestream receive a “send to mobile” prompt that allows them to send themselves an SMS message with a Branch deep link to the corresponding product page in the mobile app. QVC later determined that 40% of users deep linked to their app completed purchases.

Best Retention Campaign: Campaigns designed to keep users actively engaged with mobile apps and the brands they represent.

Name and title: Taylor Chew, Marketing Manager

Company: WayBetter

Campaign: WayBetter Inc. experiences an annual spike in interest around New Year’s due to weight-loss and wellness resolutions. With the COVID-19 pandemic in full swing, they wanted to encourage their customers to take charge of their lives with the resources that they had on hand. WayBetter created a series of fitness and weight loss games to keep users engaged, the most successful of which performed 60.3% above its projected goal.

Best Onboarding Activation Campaign: Highlighting a highly successful mobile onboarding activation campaign.

Name and title: Roberto Lancione, Director, Software Development

Company: Bell Canada

Campaign: Bell Canada did not integrate registration into its app onboarding process, which meant that customers who installed the app also had to register for an account there — which came with a lengthy verification process.To consolidate onboarding, they sent tokenized Branch deep links when inviting customers to create accounts. This allowed mobile customers to skip the verification process, transforming a 9-step onboarding process into a 3-step one. 

Best Mobile Innovation: Recognizing creative thinking and outstanding innovation on mobile.

Name and title: Mitul Lakhani, Head of Digital Product

Company: Showpo

Campaign: Australian online fashion retailer Showpo wanted to address problems surrounding rapid sellouts of popular products and the customer disappointment that inevitably results. Using the technology from iOS 14, Showpo launched an iOS widget that allows customers to see the latest fashion drops and their order statuses without having to open the app. In addition, Showpo added a visual AI feature that allows customers to find similar items when products become unavailable.

The post Announcing the 2021 Mobile Growth Award Winners appeared first on Branch.

I was fortunate enough to be able to give PandaConf’s keynote speech at Web Summit 2021 and share some of my insights about where mobile is and where it’s going — as well as how to stay ahead of the curve. You can check out my speech here, but if you’re in a hurry, here are some of most important trends and pieces of advice I discussed:

Trend 1: The mobile landscape is getting more complex.

Privacy is now a prerequisite for web companies, with Apple and Android introducing new regulations designed to protect users’ information by making digital fingerprinting a thing of the past. With companies creating their own measurement programs in the name of privacy, the walls around giants like Facebook have become higher, forcing brands to play by their rules. Governments have also gotten in on the action, with new regulations recently popping up in China and California. Finally, COVID is still driving people to use their phones more and spend more time in apps. The result is that it’s harder for mobile brands to succeed… but not impossible.

Trend 2: Budgets are following measurement, with marketing teams looking to justify their existence.

Brands can only gauge their marketing success using available metrics — so that’s where they focus their efforts. Apple’s new ad tracking rules have made collecting data more difficult, so some brands are buying Android installs. That said, iOS users worldwide spent twice as much money as Android users did in Q1 2021, so Apple is still a priority — and with Apple Search Ads functioning as the only privacy-compliant advertising platform for Apple, brands are spending less with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other platforms.

Trend 3: Companies are reinvesting to create amazing app experiences.

With more of a focus on mobile than ever before, brands are under pressure to build apps that stand out from the pack. We trust that you’ve got that covered.

These trends are playing a major role in the mobile landscape right now. That said, there are some perennial guidelines that can always help you get more users. Here are five tips on that note:

Refocus on owned and organic channels.

While these can be difficult to maximize, the work is worth it. Organic channels have higher retention rates and ROI than paid channels. Use tactics like sales incentives (as seen in the example from Robinhood, below) for recruitment and your own customers can spread the word for you.

Lean into new behaviors.

QR codes skyrocketed in popularity during the contact-free days of the pandemic. You can use QR codes to drive traffic from other channels, such as desktop computers, television, and physical objects.

Craft user journeys with bite-sized steps.

Measuring your progress in increments will allow you to better evaluate the success of your efforts at every turn. You can see the multiple-step process below, in an example from Sephora. If you create an ad or a piece of content, make sure to gauge the ROI accurately.

Retain and reactivate users.

Focus on winning back inactive users before trying to acquire new ones. Popular methods for winning back churned customers include email marketing, push notifications, and ads.

Get users to participate in their journeys.

Fingerprinting was always imperfect. With Branch’s NativeLink technology, users enter their own destination links, which are copied to and pasted from a clipboard to ensure 100% deferred deep-linking success.

It’s truly an exciting time to be innovating in the world of mobile — I can hardly wait to see where the industry goes in the years to come. However it evolves, we will ensure the best experiences for marketers, advertisers, and customers alike. That’s why I’m proud to be a part of Branch.

The post How to Drive Growth on Mobile appeared first on Branch.

Here are the finalists in our eight award categories:

Best Overall Growth Campaign: A look at the campaigns that created new and innovative channels, techniques, tactics, or strategies to increase mobile growth over the past year.

• Sarah Pennington, Senior eCommerce Associate, QVC
• Mahip Dwivedi, Head of Mobile Marketing, Flipkart
• Lucia Aguilar, Founder and CEO, TATAM Digital
• Oleh Myslinskyy, Manager – Digital Activation, Philips
• Maria Lambreva, Performance Marketing Manager, Wirex
• Erica Taylor, Associate Director, Bamboo

Best Mobile Viral Campaign: Recognizing one of this year’s most viral mobile marketing campaigns.

• Waruni Algama, Senior General Manager, Dialog Axiata
• Julian Dunn, Head of Product, BeautyBay
• Suzie Jang, Senior Integration Manager, Ipsy

Best Phygital Experience: Campaigns that transformed traditional offline marketing by blending the best of physical and digital to improve the consumer journey.

• James Quinn, Head of Performance Marketing, News UK
• Tiago Lessa, Head of Marketing, Globoplay
• Phillip Lee, Brand & Product Leader, Afterpay
• Hari Lakshmana, Growth Leader, Credit Karma
• George Boutsalis, Co-Founder and CEO, Cast

Best Digital Transformation: Celebrate business innovation through digital transformation, resulting in increased engagement, user acquisition, or revenue.

• Hilda Limyanton, Head of Funding, PT Bank KEB Hana
• Dave Favicchio, Senior Product Manager, CVS
• Juan Alvear, Marketing Technology Manager, Equinox Media
• Blaise Lipan, Senior Manager – Software Management, QVC

Best Mobile Engagement Campaign: This award is open for entries highlighting a feature or campaign that delivered the best mobile engagement through personalization.

• Julia Miller, Executive Director of Creative Services, E*Trade
• Roberto Lancione, Director of Software Development Bell Canada
• Jason Elk, Head of Performance Marketing, Nine
• Barbara Schädel, eCommerce App Manager, Boohoo.com

Best Retention Campaign: This award is open for entries highlighting a campaign delivering the best retention campaign on mobile.

• Taylor Chew, Marketing Manager, WayBetter
• Lomit Patel, SVP of Growth, IMVU
• Aakash Goyal, AVP of Marketing, GoMechanic
• Sylvia van ‘t Schip, Senior Online Marketing Manager, Talpa Network

Best Onboarding Activation Campaign: Highlighting a highly successful mobile onboarding activation campaign.

• Roberto Lancione, Director of Software Development, Bell Canada
• Jonathan Moss, CRM, and CX Consultant, News UK
• George Boutsalis, Co-Founder and CEO, Cast
• Norman Nielsen, VP Growth – Organic & CRM, Omio

Best Mobile Innovation: Recognizing creative thinking and outstanding innovation on mobile.

• Mitul Lakhani, Head of Digital Product, Showpo
• Sebastian Neylan, Growth Marketing Manager, Up Banking
• Morgane Merlier, Traffic Manager, La Redoute
• Lucia Aguilar, Founder and CEO, TATAM Digital
• Matt Spraley, Senior Engineer, Mailchimp
• Benjamin Okkenga, Senior Product Manager Product & Digital, RTL2

Selecting Top of League Experiences

The submissions to the awards include a wide variety of stories and strategies that ironed out some of the challenges of this year and heightened our joys. Judging these entries are masters of mobile themselves from leading brands such as Reddit, Spirit Airlines, Calm, L Brands, MakeMyTrip, etc.

Celebrating Masters of Mobile 

The award winners will be announced in December.

For more information, head to Mobilegrowth.org/awards to learn more about this year’s awards.

The post Announcing the 2021 Mobile Growth Awards Finalists appeared first on Branch.

The Growth Opportunity with QR Codes

What are QR codes?

What to look for when using QR Codes to send users to a mobile app

How can you create a QR code linking to a mobile app?

How brands are using QR codes creatively to drive growth

What’s next with QR Codes?

The Growth Opportunity with QR Codes

For many offline businesses, QR codes represent a great opportunity to take their offline larger user population and convert them to highly engaged app users with a much greater LTV. Here are some ways brands should think about using QR codes according to their user base:

1. Passive/Low Intent Users

Increase brand awareness and target net-new customers who have yet to engage with your brand by using QR codes in direct mail marketing, print advertising, billboards, TV commercials, etc.

2. Active/Medium Intent Users

Entice casual users to download your app with QR codes placed in relevant engagement areas of the business, like in-store signage, catalogues, product packaging, or inserts in delivered packages

3. Engaged/High Intent Users

Drive app adoption among high intent users already engaging with your business by using QR codes as part of onboarding, on billing statements, in store with service personnel, on receipts at checkout, etc.

What are QR codes?

QR codes (abbreviated from Quick Response code) have been around for quite a while and are  a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional barcode) first designed in 1994 for the automotive industry in Japan. While they received some wider adoption initially, it wasn’t until Apple and Android camera apps were able to scan them directly when they started becoming mainstream — first in Asian markets, and within western markets as a result of COVID accelerating this trend.

What to look for when using QR Codes to send users to a mobile app

Because QR codes are now incredibly simple to scan from a mobile phone, their prevalence has increased significantly over the past year, making them a great way to take users to a mobile app. As you start scaling your offline to online app strategy with QR codes, here are some things to consider:

Ability to measure results

As every marketer knows, if you can’t measure results of a campaign, you can’t calculate ROI, which makes scaling your campaigns increasingly difficult. Using QR codes in your marketing strategy is no different. Whether you use them to promote your app in-store, on your desktop website, on a billboard, in TV commercials, or on printed flyers, the ability to measure results is key. If you use Branch to generate mobile app links and QR codes, every link behind a QR code comes with Branch’s powerful organic attribution that will measure every click after a scan, every install, and every conversion event. That way, you can compare performance of different QR codes, as well as compare them with other organic or paid campaigns.

Ability to update the link behind a QR code at any point

One of the hardest challenges with QR codes is that once they are printed on a piece of collateral, they are very difficult to quickly update at scale when websites change, promotions expire, etc. That’s why when using QR codes, it’s important to use a system like Branch that actually allows you to update the link behind a QR code at any point in time.

You can edit the redirects for every Branch link behind a QR code at any point

Ability to deep link or personalize the experience

It’s important to understand that a QR code is a wrapper that makes it easy for someone to access a link without having to click or type an address, so the quality of a QR code experience is as good as the quality of the link behind the QR code. As with all mobile linking to apps, it’s important to consider the ability to detect the OS and deep link into an app on both Android and iOS, and to set up a fallback for users to either go to the mobile web or appropriate app store if they do not have the app installed. If you use Branch for your links and QR codes, make sure you set up deferred deep linking if you choose to take them to the app store if they don’t have the app, so that a user gets taken to the relevant in-app content, promotion, or product after install. If you decide to take them to a mobile website instead, you can use our Journeys banners to convert them to the app later and maintain the attribution to the original QR code. 

How can you create a QR code that links users to your mobile app?

If your main goal is linking users from QR codes to your mobile app, I suggest using a mobile linking and deep linking tool like Branch. If you use Branch for your mobile linking, all quick links come with a QR code that automatically generates when creating a Branch quick link in the dashboard or in the Link Creator Chrome extension.

Every Branch quick link has a QR code attached to it

You can get the QR code for an existing Branch link by clicking the three dots next to a quick link and choosing QR code.

How brands are creatively using QR codes to drive growth

Using QR Codes in real-world locations to drive users to the app 

Joe & The Juice promoting the app on store windows and to-go bags

Peet’s Coffee promoting the app on to-go cups and store doors

Generating contests between store locations to drive app downloads

Belk used QR codes in stores to drive app downloads via app-only features such as coupons, the ability for customers to find more sizes and colors, and more. In addition, they created something called App Attack – a campaign to get their employees in stores to drive more app downloads. You can hear their story in the recent episode of our podcast How I Grew This, featuring Belk’s Senior Mobile Delivery Manager Matt Hudson.

Using QR codes to drive users from desktop website to the mobile app

QR codes are quickly becoming brands’ preferred method for bringing users from the desktop website to the mobile app due to their ease of use.

Hungry Jack’s desktop to app flow

Canva’s desktop to app experience

Using QR codes to drive and track results with direct mail

Lowe’s direct mail app promo

Wendy’s direct mail promo

Using QR codes drive and track results with print media

While publications can give you good estimates when it comes to circulation and views, ad conversions are still hard to track. Using a QR code can help improve the user experience and help you measure the campaign or ad.

QR code in John Lewis magazine

Times newspaper ad

Using QR codes to drive and track results of packing inserts

Placing QR codes on packaging inserts has become a very popular way for brands to track how packaging insert promotions are performing and to drive app adoption from users already engaged with the brand. Below are just a few examples from John Lewis and Wine.com.

John Lewis packaging insert

Wine.com package insert on a first-time order.</p class=”caption”>

Using QR codes to drive and measure app downloads from TV ads and promotions

With the results of TV promotions being hard to track, QR codes are increasingly being used on TV ads to drive users to the app and measure results. Dunkin Donuts did a promotion during America’s Got Talent sending viewers to a specific sweepstakes co-branded page in the NBC app.

Dunkin and NBC promotion</p class=”caption”>

TBS and Lego Partnership</p class=”caption”>

What’s next with QR Codes?

As QR codes continue  to grow, we are working on a QR code API that will allow our customers to create dynamic, programmatic branded QR codes at scale for their campaigns. You’ll be able to create unique QR codes for every customer with just a few lines of code, all powered by our Branch links. More information coming soon! 

Interested in learning even more about how you can incorporate QR codes to drive app growth? Check out our on-demand webinar with Wine.com and Belk discussing their QR code strategies and how they’ve bridged the offline-to-online gap during COVID. Watch here.

The post How to Create and Measure QR Codes to Bring Users to Your App and Drive Growth appeared first on Branch.

The program includes multiple award categories, and here are the winners across them.

Best Mobile Viral Campaign: Recognizing one of this year’s most viral mobile marketing campaigns.

Name and Title: Shivangi Gupta, Associate Manager

Company: Limeroad.com

Campaign: Limeroad.com wanted to drive virality through social sharing with friends. As part of the campaign, users can share selected product links with friends to reduce the price of the products. The value proposition is straightforward, invite more friends to ‘cut the price’ or get bigger discounts on your favorite products.

Best Overall Growth Campaign: A look at the campaigns that created new and innovative channels, techniques, tactics, or strategies to increase mobile growth over the past year.

Name and Title: John Ostrowski, Conversion Marketing Manager

Company: Brainly  

Campaign: Brainly wanted to increase retention by creating an optimal web to app experience for the end-user. By partnering with Branch, Brainly was able to reinforce its organic acquisition loop, which leads to more organic installs and more brand awareness.

Best Phygital Experience: Campaigns that transformed traditional offline marketing by blending the best of physical and digital to improve the consumer journey.

Name and Title: Brita Voris, Marketing Manager

Company: Wine.com

Campaign: Wine.com takes advantage of all of their resources when building an omnichannel experience. Most recently, they started using QR codes on their packaging inserts to promote the Wine.com app which offers even better experiences and personalization than the web. They pair the QR code with an in-app exclusive offer to further incentivize users to convert.

Best Digital Transformation: Celebrate business innovation through digital transformation, resulting in increased engagement, user acquisition, or revenue.

Name and Title: Ershad Ahamed, CMO

Company: OVO (PT Visionet Internasional)

Campaign: OVO wanted to provide customers with flexible payment and investment options during the pandemic to prevent churn. To do this OVO supported digital transformation for previously unbanked/underbanked individuals by partnering with the government as an official e-money partner for Prakerja, a state-stimulus program to offer benefits for job-seekers who are impacted by COVID-19. OVO enabled beneficiaries to seamlessly activate an e-wallet, perform e-KYC or electronic-Know Your Customer, and receive the stimulus benefits without any physical interaction. 

Best COVID Adaptation: Highlighting a feature or campaign designed to adapt to changing consumer needs during COVID.

Name and Title: Marisa Johnson, Marketing Director

Company: Sanvello Health

Campaign: Within days of the World Health Organization declaring COVID-19 a global pandemic, Sanvello leadership approved offering free Premium access to Sanvello — evidence-based techniques, coping tools, and peer support — for the next five months. The team quickly rallied to remove the paywall, issue a press release, pitch media outlets, draft user communications, prep every internal team, and more with the ultimate goal of helping as many people mentally affected by the Covid crisis as possible.

Best COVID Retention Campaign: Highlighting a campaign delivering an improvement in engagement and retention during COVID. 

Name and Title: Achint Setia, Vice President and Head of Marketing

Company: Myntra Designs

Campaign: During lockdown in India, Myntra launched its content-led social commerce platform, Myntra Studio, to provide fashion inspiration and keep the audience engaged in the absence of commerce. Myntra launched the platform with 1000+ influencers who created their accounts on the platform and created shoppable, inspiration-led content at scale.

Best Onboarding Activation Campaign: Highlighting a highly successful mobile onboarding activation campaign.

Name and Title: John Dickson, Mobile Marketing Specialist

Company: Hibbett City Gear

Campaign: When Hibbett decided to take the leap into the mobile space they knew they needed an enticing platform and smooth activation flow to be successful. Hibbett offered app-exclusive raffle entries to key sneaker releases where users had to download the app and create an account to enter. They provided CTAs at appropriate places in the user journey across web, social, SMS, push, email, etc. to capture users’ attention.

Best Mobile Innovation: Recognizing creative thinking and outstanding innovation on mobile.

Name and Title: Ratnesh Neema, Engineering Manager

Company: Lenskart

Campaign: Lenskart used a unique, high-tech implementation hidden behind deceptively simple UX to solve customers’ biggest problems: size. To help customers determine the proper fit, how the glasses frame looked, and to provide a trial run, they built an integrated experience of 2 features:

1. Frame Size: it allows users to shortlist glasses that will fit them well, after taking just a selfie using our machine learning algorithm.

2. Augmented Reality: by giving access to the camera, glasses popup to users’ faces in 3D with very high fidelity to give a near real-life experience of having them on.

Both have significantly helped improve their digital experience.

Selecting Top of League Experiences

The submissions to the awards include a wide variety of stories and strategies that ironed out some of the challenges of this year and heightened our joys. Thank you to all of our incredible judges from leading brands such as Twitter, Airbnb, LinkedIn, 9Now, InMobi, and Mobile Marketing Influencers who helped select this years’ winners.

For more information, head to Mobilegrowth.org/awards to learn more about this year’s awards. 

The post Announcing the 2020 Mobile Growth Awards Winners appeared first on Branch.