Not getting Firebase Dynamic Link of users that download app from Playstore

Question

There are 2 cases in Playstore App

1. Normal Installation (Playstore shows OPEN Button)
2. Installation from Dynamic Link (Playstore shows CONTINUE Button)

Test Case:

Download app from Firebase dynamic link, After installation Playstore will show CONTINUE button:

There are 2 options from where user can open app after successful installation .

1. Open app by clicking on CONTINUE Button -> App will get the link, everything works as expected
2. Open app from LAUNCHER ICON, and not from playstore -> App will not get the dynamic link

Most of the users are not clicking the CONTINUE button as it is normal human behavior, therefore I am losing the Referrer link.

Is this the intended behavior of Firebase? How can I avoid this problem?

Related Post here

Answer 1

There are 5 events for Dynamic Links Analytics:

1. Click

2. Redirect

3. App Install

4. App First Open

5. App Re-Open

From the image above, you can see that the request is pass to Play Store and then it is ended over there.

Therefore, possible situations are:

1. Your previous app/website has done its job routing the dynamic link to the intended app or Play Store.

At this point, you can track the Clicks and Redirects.

2. Now, at Play Store, continuing the dynamic link flow, User install the app, You can track number of app installs. Or, user did not install the app, so it did not update the number of app installs.

3. After installation, if the user opens your app through the CONTINUE button, your app will received the data passed in from the Google Play Fragment (Like what you have done here via the Receive Setup). At this point, it will generate the meta data of 'App First Open'. But, if you press the home button, and open the app through your home page/shortcut/app tray, etc. , you will not get an update on it.

This is because no dynamic link meta data is pass when your user open the app other than the CONTINUE. The flow is broken, unless, the user go back to step 1 again to redirect to the app, now the app will track the data of app first open (the app is not open before) or app re-open if the user open the app before.

SUMMARY and CONCLUSION:

Why does the button is showing CONTINUE instead of OPEN is because the Google Play (Fragment) detected the user is directed from the dynamic link (some meta-data (your dynamic link details/info) is passed from the previous app/website).

The meaning of CONTINUE here is actually prompt the user whether they want to proceed to the newly installed app. If yes, Google Play will pass the meta data to your app, and you get the tracking data on App first open. Else, no analytic data will be produce other than click, redirect and app install.

Answering your question, you can only hope the user press on the CONTINUE! It is unavoidable because those app/sites are not in the same context (previous site vs Play Store vs Your App).

Definitions: (from documentation)

dynamic_link_first_open

Logged when a user opens the app for the first time via a Dynamic Link.

dynamic_link_app_open

Logged when a user re-opens the app via a Dynamic Link.