A deep link is a URL that opens a specific screen or state inside a mobile app rather than just launching the app to its home screen — a particular slot, a specific promotion, a pre-filled registration step, or a sports market.
Definition
A deep link is a URL that opens a specific screen or state inside a mobile app rather than just launching the app to its home screen — a particular slot, a specific promotion, a pre-filled registration step, or a sports market. A deferred deep link carries that destination through the app-install process, so a brand-new user who taps an ad, installs the app from the store, and opens it for the first time lands directly on the intended screen instead of a generic welcome.
Deep links exist because every extra step between an ad and the intended action costs conversions. If an ad promotes a specific game or a specific bonus, sending the user to a home screen where they have to search for it loses a meaningful share of them at each tap.
Deep linking removes that friction by making the ad's promise and the app's first screen the same thing.
In context
Technically, deep linking depends on correct app configuration (registered URL schemes and universal or app links) and, for deferred deep links, on an attribution SDK or mobile measurement partner that stores the intended destination against a device fingerprint or install identifier and reunites them after the install completes. On iOS this reunification is degraded by App Tracking Transparency, which limits the identifiers available, so deferred deep linking is less reliable there and often falls back to probabilistic matching or a manual code the user enters.
In iGaming user acquisition, deep links are used to route an ad for a named game straight to that game's screen, to carry a bonus code so it is pre-applied at registration, or to send a re-engagement push for a live sports event directly to that event's betting screen. The conversion uplift is real but conditional on the plumbing working end to end; a broken deep link silently dumps every user on the home screen and the buyer only notices in the conversion rate.
Worked example
A push ad promotes a specific slot. On Android the deep link opens that game's screen directly after install, and registration-to-first-spin conversion for that campaign is 41%.
On iOS, where the deferred link often fails post-ATT, the same ad drops users on the lobby and the equivalent conversion is 27%, so the buyer bids lower on iOS to compensate.
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