Setting up deep linking

Deep linking sends a mobile visitor directly into the destination's own app — already logged in, with their saved payment details — instead of the mobile website, when that app is installed.

Turning it on

1. Open a link's targeting page and find the Deep linking card.
2. Switch on Open in app when available.

That's it — no separate configuration. It only makes a real difference when the destination is a retailer we recognize (Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Etsy, Home Depot, and Wayfair today); for anything else, the link behaves exactly as it did before.

What actually happens, honestly

This works differently depending on the visitor's platform, and it's worth knowing the real limits rather than assuming it "just works" everywhere:

• Android — reliable. We hand the visitor an intent:// link, Android's own built-in mechanism for "open this app if it's installed, otherwise fall back to the browser." This is a real, well-supported OS feature, not something we're approximating.
• iOS — we don't do anything special. Safari already opens a supported app automatically for a plain link (called a Universal Link) with zero help needed from us, and there's no equivalent to Android's intent:// trick we could add on top of that.
• Clicking from inside Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook's own in-app browser — this is the one real weak spot, on either platform. Those apps deliberately suppress automatic app-opening to keep you inside their own browser. This isn't something affi.link (or anyone else) can fully work around — if most of your traffic comes from a bio link opened inside one of these apps, expect deep linking to help less than it would from a link opened in a normal browser or messaging app.

For a link with deep linking on, mobile visitors pass through a brief (a fraction of a second) redirect page first — the same one used for retargeting pixels — instead of the usual instant redirect. Desktop visitors are completely unaffected either way.

Deep linking is available on Pro and up (see plan comparison). If you downgrade, a link that already has it on keeps the setting saved but stops actually deep-linking until you upgrade again — turning it off is always available, even on Free.