Update, FBDL is deprecated and service will terminate on August 2025
Benefits of Firebase Dynamic Links
Setting up Deeplinking for any cross platform app is a big chore.
You need to host an AASA file, setup Android App Links, do a bunch of web server configuration, and then after all that code your app to handle the incoming URL.
Firebase Dynamic Links helps to mitigate some of this complexity. It provides a tool to create and manage deeplinks. Through the Firebase console, it’s possible to configure deeplinks without editting delicate files on your web server.
While it is still essential to test your deeplinks on both iOS and Android, Firebase Dynamic Links can save you a lot of time and effort.
User Tracking and Marketting
Firebase Dynamic Links provides a way to track where your users are coming from. This can help you understand which of your marketting efforts are working, and which are not.
Your app’s users are your best marketting tool. If they like your app, they will share it with their friends. This creates a viral loop that can help your app grow exponentially.
And this is just the beginning, campaigns involving email and push notifications are also easily tracked using FBDL.
The Braze SDK, for example, can be configured to send FBDL links in push notifications. This can help you track the effectiveness of your push notifications. As well as drive users towards specific content within your app.
Configuration
URLs or, universal resource links, are a powerful tool for sharing content across the web. They allow users to navigate to a specific location within an app, or a website, without having to navigate through the app or website manually.
Deep linking is where an application that normally does not handle URLs (because it’s not a browser), is handed one by the system. The app’s deeplink code reads the URL and acts accordingly.
Deeplinking doesn’t happen automatically, it requires some level of configuration before iOS or Android will pass the URL to any specific app.
Apple calls the combination of deep linking and URLs Univeral Links.
Whenever a new iOS app is installed, the system checks the entitlements file for any deeplinking configurations. If it finds one, the device goes out to the domain specified and looks for an AASA file.
Checkout Amazon’s AASA file @ https://amazon.com/.well-known/apple-app-site-association to get a sense of what this looks like.
Android does something similar to this using App Links.
But, basically, both of these require some level of configuration on the app side, as well as the server side.
To streamline this process. Google has created Firebase Dynamic Links.
Firebase Dynamic Links provides fallback URLs. If someone does not have your app installed, it will take them to a web page specified in the FBDL console. This could be the web version of your app, or even a direct link to the app/play store.
Conclusion
Deep links are a powerful tool for sharing content across the web. Firebase Dynamic Links makes it easy to create and manage these links.
The best part, is that you can use Firebase Dynamic Links for free. You only pay for the data that you use.
For more information, check out the Firebase Dynamic Links documentation.
