Adjust Shortlinks

[Badranh]

Hello, We are trying the new adjust branded domains and short links and it's great thanks.

Used Adjust version : 5.0.1

However, two things that can dramatically improve the short link behaviour maybe they exist or maybe it is a bug:

if we have the link :

https://example.go.link/abc1de configured for app destination profileScreen

clicking it will forward to the app : https://example.go.link/abc1de in the intent data instead of the deeplink destination myapp://profileScreen or the app link example.go.link/profileScreen .

Second point, is there any way where we could pass query params in the short links https://example.go.link/abc1de?user_id=1234 ? or what is the recommended way here?

I know there is a function that could help to resolve the deep link but isn't resolving it in browser will result into easier integration with apps? and also adding abc1de to the app of the generated links isn't feasible even if they don't change.

[eduardbosch-jt]

Hey @Badranh,

I'm not part of Adjust, but I'm also dealing with ShortLinks right now and I came to your question.

1. Nope, you app should start with the short link version and then you should use Adjust.processAndResolveDeeplink(…) to resolve the app link.
2. It does not make much sense to add query parameters to the short link as it won't be short anymore. You can add the query parameters to the deep link that Adjust will resolve to you with Adjust.processAndResolveDeeplink(…).
3. I agree it would be much easier to resolve the links in the browser as Firebase did, but I guess that's not possible anymore and I haven't seen any service that do it. So we need to do a network call (with Adjust.processAndResolveDeeplink(…))to resolve the app links when our app is opened from a short link.

I hope that someone from Adjust can confirm this.

[karthik-kannan-adjust]

Hey @Badranh I am a Product engineer at Adjust and happy to elaborate on what @eduardbosch-jt mentioned (thanks a lot, appreciate it!)

1. If https://example.go.link/abc1de is the short link and example.go.link/profileScreen?adj_t=xyz12 is the long link under the hood, then there are 2 possibilities

a) Universal Links/Android app links opens the app
Then your app will receive the short link version, and you should use Adjust.processAndResolveDeeplink(…) to resolve the app link. This will help you retrieve the long link along with the destination, example.go.link/profileScreen, and you can use this to route to the right in-app screen in your deep link handling logic

b) Universal Links/Android App links does not open the app
In this case, the link click goes through the Adjust server redirect. We will automatically map the short link to the relevant long link path, i.e. /profileScreen, to convert the long link into its corresponding App scheme link, i.e. myapp://profileScreen

So either way, you will be able to route to the right in-app content.

2. If https://example.go.link/abc1de is the short link, there are 2 ways to pass custom data like a user ID into it

a) Generate unique short links (via API if needed); add the query parameters to the deep link field within the long link under the hood. Then resolve it, retrieve the user ID, and use it as mentioned above

b) You can append a parameter as https://example.go.link/abc1de?user_id=1234 to the short link. As @eduardbosch-jt mentioned, the downside is that it won't be short anymore. But if you're okay with that, then you can proceed this way. We'll simply accept the query parameters and add them to the long link under the hood. You will still need to resolve the short link using Adjust.processAndResolveDeeplink(…) and retrieve the User ID from the response to use it within your app.

Hope this helps!