Mobile apps become more and more significant part of our life. There are already “apps only” hyper-popular services like Instagram or Uber. If you have a website but also a mobile app, some day you might end up loosing your users if you won’t advertise your app properly on your website. During this talk I will demonstrate you some techniques we use at Booking.com to make our visitors Get The App.

1. How to make your visitors
Get The App
Georgiy Mogelashvili | Team Lead @ Booking.com

2. Agenda
Why?
Why do we need to promote apps
What?
Different strategies and acquisition points
How?
What we do at Booking.com for GTA

3. Booking.com app

4. Offline Confirmation

5. Maps

6. Travel Guides

7. App = Communication
●New channel to get your customer
●Talk to your customers through mobile device
●Be found and noticed at app stores

8. App = Unique features
●Offline support
●Push notifications
●Maps, geo, AR
●Better performance

9. App = Loyalty
●Be with your customer every day, every time,
24/7
●Engage
●Provide better user experience = ♥

10. App = Profit
●Avoid PPC costs
●In-app purchases
●Better conversion

11. Real world examples
●Instagram
●Uber
●Flipkart (eCommerce platform in India)
●Moving entire business to apps

12. Apps are everywhere

13. I have the app…

14. “Get The App”
google.com/search?q=get+the+app

15. Store badges / Banners

16. Store badges / Banners
● Simple and cheap
● Requires no development time
● Can be anywhere

17. Landing page
http://www.booking.com/apps.html

18. Landing page
● Dedicated page
● Describe all app features
● Proxy between website and
mobile

19. Email / SMS

20. Email / SMS
● Shift user from desktop to mobile
● On demand delivery
● Once delivered – stays on the phone

21. QR codes

22. QR codes
● One more way to shift from desktop to
mobile
● Popular in some regions
● China

23. Methods
●Banners
●Landing page
●Email / SMS
●QR code

24. You can have some of those
but better to have all

25. 20 / 80

26. Pareto principle
●Find out where your app has benefits
●Make it “main” feature
●Advertise in relevant places

27. Offline confirmation

28. Offline confirmation

29. > 50% of total app installs

30. Know your user

31. Know your user

32. Know your user
●Understand who already has the app
●Track by email, login, cookie, whatever
●Don’t annoy customers
●If someone doesn’t want app, don’t insist
●Show placements to relevant people
●Remember the choice
●cookies, database

33. Track everything

34. Tracking for Android
●Relatively easy – “referrer” parameter for
every link to Google Play Store
●Maintain unique placement names
●Use Google Analytics to monitor performance

35. Tracking for iOS
●Think different – no out of the box solution
●Can use Google Analytics – some code
changes required
●Fingerprinting devices
●Third party services

36. How does Booking.com do it

37. In-house tracking
●Android + iOS in one dashboard
●Maintain placements
●Access to data
●Analyze
●Follow up
●Retarget

38. All starts with website

39. Desktop website
●Exploit popular placements
●Transition user to mobile device
●Email
●SMS
●QR codes
●Landing page (with all above)

40. Uniqueness
●Unique link for everyone
●Pass tracking data
●Placement information

41. Email / SMS
●“Instant” delivery
●Email – in-house
●SMS – third party providers
●Balance delivery rate, price, quality
●Reach customers worldwide

42. “Proxy”

43. “Proxy”
●Device detection
●More tracking
●Redirect to correct store
●Or landing page for unsupported OS

44. Mobile web
●Banners
●Because this is enough…

45. Here comes the store

46. Google Play
●Supports A/B testing
●Tracks referrals
●Fancy dashboards

47. Apple Store

48. Apple Store
●Fingerprinting
●Third-party A/B testing
●Extra efforts

49. Final step: apps

50. Apps
●Android
●notifies backend about it’s referrer
●iOS
●black magic with fingerprint matching

51. Booking.com tracking workflow
mdot / tdot
iOS
Android
Desktop
Fingerprint
AppStore
Google Play
Backend
MySQL Hadoop
Dashboards
SMS / Email
Tracking data Queue cron
App
Proxy page (apps.html)
Tracking data

52. Sounds easy…

53. …but complex in fact

54. Most common issues
●Fingerprints match in 80% cases
●Installs get lost
●SMS not delivered
●Tracking is broken

55. But it worth it

56. Finals
●Apps help you grow
●If you have an app – promote it
●Do it wise
●And track everything

57. Get the Booking.com App
http://goo.gl/g3AKWq
- or -
App Store
- or -
Google Play

58. We hire
http://grnh.se/va5wg1

59. Thank you!
Questions?
Georgiy Mogelashvili | Team Lead @ Booking.com
Twitter: @glamcoder
Facebook: gmogelashvili
Email: gmogelashvili@gmail.com