I want to have referral links to get the referral code with in the application (after installation) to provide credits based on the code for both Android and iOS.
I was able to explore these options:
1. Play Install Referrer API
Where the url would look something like: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.example.myapp&referrer=utm_source%3Dstaff-referral%26utm_content%3713491235
Where I can get the content 713491235 using the Play Install Referrer API. However the problem here is this is very specific to Android and cannot work for iOS.
2. Firebase deep linking
Where the url would look something like: https://myapp.page.link/?link=https://mywebapp.com/713491235&apn=com.example.myapp
Where I can get the url https://mywebapp.com/713491235 using the Firebase deeplink api. This seems to solve for Android and iOS, but there isn't much information on how long the deeplink is alive, meaning
- What happens if I install the app using deeplink but don't open the app for few days. Will it still be available when I open the app later.
- What happens if I click on the link, but do not install then are there. Instead install it later by searching on playstore and installing. Will I still be able to get the link once the app is open?
- Is there a way to combine both the Play Install Referrer API and Firebase deeplink? like - https://myapp.page.link/?link=https://mywebapp.com&apn=com.example.myapp&afl=https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.example.myapp&referrer=utm_source%3Dstaff-referral%26utm_content%3713491235 so that if the app is not installed on Android, we can use the Play Install Referrer API(which looks more reliable).
- And I am not able to understand the purpose of Play Install Referrer Links, if they are not converted to universal links, because often we don't know which device the url will be used on. Sharing a link specific to playstore doesn't seem to help. What exactly is the usecase of Play Install Referrer?
Because in case of Play Install Referrer API they were clearly mentioning:
Caution: The install referrer information will be available for 90 days and won't change unless the application is reinstalled. To avoid unnecessary API calls in your app, you should invoke the API only once during the first execution after install.
I'll answer your questions one by one - I think Firebase Dynamic Links are the better choice for you, based on your requirements.
I couldn't find anything in the documentation for this, but it seems that the link will expire roughly 1 hour from install time (as said here and here).
Android and iOS integration methods are interestingly different in Firebase - if an new iOS user taps the link, it will copy the Dynamic Links URL to the clipboard and read it when the app is opened, whereas Android calls the intent handler for the URL, which in turn calls a Firebase function that extracts the link. This means that an iOS link, until a user copies something else, should still work - which effectively means a short lifetime, as you can't rely on your users not copying something else. For Android, though, the intent handler is the link - if a user breaks the flow, it'll no longer work.
From a technical view, you could completely create a double-link - I'm not sure whether that would be needed, though, as I'm not sure on how the Play Install Referrer API works and I assume it will use a similar method with them both being developed by Google.
The main use case of the Play Install Referrer API is to track the effectiveness of ad campaigns on a mobile app - the data received from the API is similar to the UTM parameters at the end of a URL (e.g. utm_campaign, utm_source) that tell the website owner where the user comes from. They can be used in situations where the advert knows what your device OS is - for example, an advert inside another app.