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Is there any method to create a referral link to the App Store, with some device ID, for example b7a8913nfs9dfn, in the link, so that when a person downloads the app from the App Store and installs it on the device, after running it for the first time, the device would know the device ID in that referal link?

The whole system is to track people installing some app from their link, and after confirming it, give them a bonus automatically, without any manual promo-codes.

Maybe some Apple affiliate program, like LinkShare can help me? Does anybody have pruf-link information for it?

jscs
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katleta3000
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3 Answers3

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You can check out Adjust.io, it does exactly that. If you want to roll it out yourself, for Android you can use any string in the parameter &referrer in the URL to the play store and retrieve it in the app when it first starts. On iOS you'll have to rely on the IDFA.

EDITED: My initial answer:

The concept of alau.me makes most sense to me here.

It's also not hard to roll this out yourself. Have your own shortlink site where you log the IP address of the user you are going to redirect to the App Store. At the first start of your app you call a web service (or silently send a GET request to a fixed url on your site) where you will again log the IP address.

Combine the data if the time of the web service call is >= 5min (alau.me say they even set that value to 1h) and you know how many customers who used your shortlink actually downloaded and opened the app.

Anton Kaiser
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  • How is IP tracking safe considering NAT for high frequency app downloads? If you use this for payments in affiliate program then you open hole for rogue affiliate fabricating clicks and collecting money which he did't earn. I guess this can be traced later in some statistical analysis but i wonder is there some safe way to detect such scams automatically. – watbywbarif Oct 09 '14 at 12:08
  • Edited my answer to provide a solution which is safer for affiliate programs. When using IP-based tracking, you can also limit evaluating matches only once per hour per IP or whatever. Though it's always possible to trick any system with enough time, so choose your partners wisely ;-) – Anton Kaiser Oct 10 '14 at 15:04
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App Referals should be used in APP. So you send them a code and once they install the app they can then go into a app referaal redemption screen and input that code in and then it will let you know that they have installed it. You can also obtain information like reviews as well but not sure if that is helpful.

Farrukh Subhani
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    thanks for the answer - but it means manual inputing some code in screen's filled, but my question was about auto-tracking system, without any promo-input, so that the referral doesn't even realize that he gave somebody some bonus, and doesn't have to make any manual inputting. It always decrease the percent of promo usage. – katleta3000 Nov 01 '11 at 15:25
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Apple has banned the practice of giving out in-app rewards for installing another app. You can still give a reward for a user clicking a link which redirects them to a page on the App Store - but you cannot condition your reward on the user actually installing the app, only on their choosing to view the page where, if they want, they can CHOOSE to install the app.

To do this, you just open a MobileSafari session to a web page which tracks the page load (for your analytics) and redirects to an App Store URL for the app you're promoting. The easiest way to do this is to use a URL shortener that provides analytics on users of the short link.

Thaeli
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  • yes, i know, that i can track users that click the link, but still maybe there is a solution to track app downloading and installing from appstore. – katleta3000 Nov 01 '11 at 15:38
  • anybody know smth about affiliate program (like LinkShare) ? – katleta3000 Nov 01 '11 at 15:39
  • It is banned by Apple. If they catch you doing it they will reject your app. It's Apple's store and you have to play by their rules. Apple banned "incentivized installs" because it was being used as a means of cheating at the "top download" slots in the store, so they are very unlikely to reverse their decision on this or to make exceptions. – Thaeli Nov 01 '11 at 15:51
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    Can someone direct me to the official Apple policy statement on this matter? My company wants to do the same thing, and before I say it's not allowed, I'd like to cite an official source. Thanks. – Frank LaRosa Nov 03 '11 at 20:57