Blog Smart banners for smart marketers: The c...

Smart banners for smart marketers: The clever way to bring browser users to your app

Amy Gilmour, Content Marketing Manager, Adjust, May 15, 2024.

It’s the classic mobile marketer predicament—great to have a customer browsing your mobile site, but how can you get them to reroute slightly to experience your intuitive and beautifully branded mobile app?

Smart banners are the clever way to bridge that gap between mobile site and mobile app. They are a direct yet subtle call to action (CTA), usually appearing at the top or bottom of the mobile web browser screen, both in iOS and Android. Crucially, smart banners are displayed whether or not a user has already installed an app. They will either prompt a user to move from the browser to the installed app, or prompt a user to install the app via the app store. In both cases, when the user gets to the app, they’ll land on a specified page (via a deep link).

TrueLink, Adjust’s robust deep linking solution within our Engage product pillar, optimizes the effectiveness of deep links—whether they’re implemented within smart banners or elsewhere. From the user perspective, the journey from web to app is seamless and frictionless, and from the marketer perspective, the ability to generate multi-platform links boosts efficiency and mitigates the risk of incorrect or broken links.

Read up on how to maximize engagement by guiding users directly to your app using TrueLink.

Smart banner appearing at the top of a mobile screen

Smart banners are integral to your marketing strategy

Adjust’s Smart Banners solution is more than just a nice-to-have. By driving users—and not just users, users demonstrating an interest in your brand by browsing your mobile site—to your app, your brand presents a holistic user experience. On top of that, you’re supporting efforts to grow user acquisition (UA), in-app user engagement, and LTV.

Visitors to your mobile site vs. your mobile app

Any engagement with your business is great, but the research shows that mobile apps account for the majority of sales on mobile devices. Potential customers may begin by browsing your mobile site—converting them to app users undoubtedly boosts their potential as valuable, returning customers.

Example of a smart banner - screenshot of the smart banner that appears when the mobile site of the Zara retail store is accessed

The benefits of adding Adjust’s Smart Banners to your marketing arsenal include:

Streamlined user experience: From a user’s perspective, they move seamlessly from your branded website to your branded app.
User acquisition: Acquire new app users by converting existing mobile web users. This brings downstream benefits to marketing metrics such as engagement and LTV. As we know, user retention is less expensive than user acquisition—so targeting users already showing interest in your brand makes perfect sense.
Deep linking: Ensure every converted app user starts their in-app experience where you choose. You have the ability to specifically promote a sales event or product, bringing users directly to the relevant page.

Diagram demonstrating the smart banner process flow - smart banner linking directly to an app or linking to the app store to install the app

Customizable banners: Design your banners to match your brand, and set their on-screen position. Create different banners for different audiences, and localize for different languages.
In-app opportunities: Once users are in your app, you can engage them using push notifications and in-app promotions. It’s easier to engage and monetize users in the fully branded and customized app environment.
User retention: Users who already have your app installed are important prospects. They may have forgotten about their previous install—this subtle prompt will shift mobile web activity of these existing app users back to the app environment.

Smart banners are one of a number of web-to-app-solutions

Adjust offers a range of “web-to-app solutions”, all built to simplify and streamline the user journey from web to app, driving higher attribution and engagement rates.

Another key web-to-app solution supporting this strategy is web-to-app scripts. Marketers often build these scripts into smart banner code, attached to a “Download now” link or similar, to make sure that users moving from the web environment to app environment via this link are attributed correctly, removing the risk of this crucial data being lost or limited in the transition from web to app.

Marketers with access to comprehensive attribution data have a clear picture of attribution sources and are empowered to use a data-driven approach to optimize marketing campaigns.

Three steps to get started with Smart Banners

Let’s dive into exactly how Smart Banners are set up in your Adjust dashboard. As always, our user-friendly interface makes it a clear and straightforward process.

1. Make spaces

Managing multiple apps and need multiple smart banners for each? Spaces has you covered. A “space” is a channel-level container for your smart banners. All banners in a space link to the same app and appear on the same website. They also share attribution settings and use the same SDK. Spaces make it easier to manage your banners, as well as making it much easier to interpret data when it comes to analyzing performance.

How will users engaging with a smart banner be attributed?

This part is up to you. When you’re creating your space(s), you’ll be able to set attribution for paid campaign users—either attribute them to the ad they saw before they reached your mobile site, or the smart banner they engaged with when they got there.

You can also set specific attribution windows for your smart banners.

2. Integrate the Smart Banners SDK

As always, SDK integration will allow this solution to function. Integration is required once per space. This stage includes setting up dynamic deep linking too. Deep links can be page-based—if a user is browsing a striped jumper on your mobile site when they engage with the smart banner, they’ll be brought to the same striped jumper when they move to the app. A seamless user experience.

3. Create and customize your banners

Choose the pages your banner is displayed on, and manage settings such as language localization and banner dismissal period (the time gap between consecutive banner displays if a user dismisses your banner). Get creative and customize everything from your banner’s position and size to its imagery, text, font, colors, and button. You want your banners to be an extension of your brand, maintaining consistency across channels—to look the part and be presented to the user as an on-brand, trusted link to your app environment.

Visual representation of Adjust's smart banner customization screen - where imagery, text, font, colors, and button can be customized

It’s as simple as that and you’re ready to go. Check out the full implementation instructions in our Help Center.

Reaping the benefits

Once your smart banners are live, you’ll be able to track their effectiveness in Datascape, alongside all the rest of your Adjust data. Monitor performance in your dashboard and make informed decisions when it comes to implementing quick and impactful edits to banners. Analyze banner metrics closely and optimize your banner design and strategy to enjoy the greatest rewards—increased in user attribution, in-app user engagement, and LTV.

Ready to explore the potential of Adjust's Smart Banners in driving app growth, learn more about TrueLink, and discover Adjust’s full range of web-to-app solutions? Contact your sales rep at sales@adjust.com, or request a demo.

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