Deep Linking Glossary
The vocabulary of deep linking and mobile attribution, in plain English.
Deep link
A link that opens a specific screen inside a mobile app rather than a website home page.
Deferred deep linking
Preserving the intended in-app destination through an app install: a user taps a link without the app, installs it, and still lands on the right screen.
Universal Links (iOS)
Apple's mechanism for opening an app directly from an https:// link, verified by an apple-app-site-association (AASA) file hosted on your domain.
App Links (Android)
Android's verified https:// deep links, authorized by an assetlinks.json file hosted on your domain.
AASA / assetlinks.json
The association files iOS and Android fetch from your domain to trust your app for a link. lynkily hosts and serves these for you.
Attribution
Connecting an install or in-app event back to the link, campaign, channel or ad that drove it.
Attribution window
The time span after a click within which an install is credited to that click.
MMP
Mobile Measurement Partner — an enterprise attribution platform (e.g. Branch, AppsFlyer, Adjust). lynkily covers the common deep-linking + attribution needs without the enterprise weight.
SKAdNetwork (SKAN)
Apple's privacy-preserving install-attribution framework for iOS, which reports a coarse conversion value by campaign instead of per-user data.
Conversion value
A 0–63 number iOS reports via SKAN, mapped from in-app events by your SKAN schema.
Smart app banner
A banner on your website that offers to open or install your app, carrying the deferred deep link.
gclid / fbclid
Google and Meta ad click identifiers captured at click time to attribute installs and conversions back to the ad.
Postback
A server-to-server notification sent to an ad network when an attributed install or event occurs.
Fingerprint match
A probabilistic deferred-match using signals like IP, platform and device attributes when a deterministic identifier is unavailable.