COMPANY The Knot

Turning Web Visitors into Loyal Mobile App Users with Journeys Web-to-App Experiences

The Knot is the leading provider of wedding resources for

couples looking to seamlessly plan and execute dream

weddings. By creating personalized web-to-app experiences

using Branch Journeys, The Knot doubled conversion rate

of pageview to app install in just two months, and continues

to exceed goals with Branch. In addition to driving far

higher user engagement and conversion across both web

and app, The Knot has optimized acquisition strategies and

product roadmaps with the valuable cross-platform data

provided by Branch’s People-Based Attribution Engine.

2xconversions

in-app

35%app growth

on iOS

45%app growth on Android

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Ready to ignite your mobile growth? Visit branch.io to request a demo or get started today.

Mobile Success with The Knot

Founded in 1996, The Knot, the flagship brand of XO Group Inc. (NYSE: XOXO), is the leading wedding resource

devoted to providing couples with the trusted information, products, and advice they need to easily plan and

execute their dream weddings. The Knot’s native app has long been an essential part of this customer journey, but

is best introduced after the couple has started to engage with the brand.

Knowing how and when to introduce the native app as the next step in the user journey has historically

been a challenge for The Knot’s product team. If they asked users to download too early in the user lifecycle,

drop-off would be high, as app install is a high-friction process. Introducing the app too far along in the customer

journey, however, leads to a relatively low mobile web conversion rate that quickly takes its toll on the funnel.

By creating personalized web-to-app experiences using Branch Journeys, The Knot has doubled conversion rate

of pageview to app install in just two months with highly successful app adoption results, and continues to

exceed their goals with Branch, ultimately driving higher engagement and conversion across both web and app.

Beyond Branch Journeys, cross-platform data from Branch’s People-Based Attribution Engine has empowered

The Knot’s product team to optimize acquisition strategies and inform strategic product roadmaps.

Bridging the Web-to-App Journey

Having inspired more than 25 million wedding plans, The Knot strives to offer the best possible wedding planning

experience on the most preferred platforms. At some point in the consumer journey, they needed to suggest that

the user download the native app in order to optimize the remainder of their planning activities. Branch’s Journeys

web-to-app optimization platform and people-based attribution engine made the perfect pairing to help The Knot’s

team connect the user experience dots with confidence.

The Data-Driven Approach

The Knot has taken a data-driven approach to getting the most value from Journeys. With Journeys’ highly

intuitive user interface, ability to create unlimited templates, and ability to execute A/B testing, The Knot quickly

achieved a significant lift in conversion. Specifically, The Knot deployed a wide array of banners that leveraged

Journeys’ flexible and intuitive audience targeting capabilities.

Customized Journeys for Targeted Audiences

Instead of rolling out a single ubiquitous Journeys banner across the entire website (the fastest option), The Knot

analyzed traffic data, determined the most important web pages in terms of volume and intent, and created custom

copy and creatives to match the intent. Creating individual Journeys campaigns for each section of the site paid off

immediately. The team was able to iterate on the messaging extremely quickly, doubling the average conversion

rate of pageview to app install within the two months of Journeys implementation.

Testing and Optimizing

Serving the most optimal banner to the right audience was no easy task, as the user journey is often complex and

difficult to anticipate. The A/B testing capabilities of Branch’s Journeys platform were invaluable for The

Knot’s product team to test banner elements ranging from design to messaging, and to segment where each

banner appears on the mobile website. In addition, Branch’s attribution platform has illuminated where the most

engaged and loyal customers originate, and what features drive the greatest value for them (at least initially). These

learnings have become major drivers of everything from acquisition strategies to finessing product roadmaps.

From Insights to Actions The insights from Branch’s Journeys have also provided critical input for The Knot to decide what needs to be built

and supported across the mobile website and the app.

As the team drives increasing mobile app adoption with Branch, they have started using Journeys to determine

whether a certain feature should be built for the mobile website, or whether a mobile web version is needed at all.

More specifically, The Knot can put up a full-page Journeys banner in a matter of minutes and drive web visitors into

the app with the same content in the most frictionless way. This capability enables the team to easily test the ROI

of acquiring an app user vs. driving adoption of a particular feature on mobile web, drastically reducing the

cost to test new features while speeding up product decision making.

Ready to ignite your mobile growth?Visit branch.io to request a demo or get started today.

Results

Using Branch Journeys, The Knot doubled conversion rates in two months, achieving app adoption goals months

ahead of schedule. With further optimization, The Knot has achieved significant and sustained app growth on

iOS and on Android in a short span of six months, all without increasing paid media support.

Branch provides the leading mobile linking platform with solutions that unify user experience and measurement across different devices, plat-forms, and channels. Branch powers deep links for over 6 billion monthly users across the globe, and is a trusted solution for over 30,000 apps — including Airbnb, HBO Now, Pinterest, Starbucks, Target, Tinder, Yelp, and many more — to grow and stay engaged with their mobile audiences.

© 2018 Branch Metrics, Inc. All rights reserved.

We’ve long viewed our customer journey as beginning on our web properties but ultimately ending with

engaged native app users. Maintaining the user’s context through the app install, and being able to

attribute the download source, has always been a huge undertaking. With Journeys, we’ve quickly

deployed and iterated various web-to-app user flows, all while letting us measure every step of the way.

We’ve also expanded beyond Journeys to leverage Branch in our email, social, and paid marketing. Long

story short, Branch has allowed us to finally start living up to our cross-platform users’ expectations,

more or less with the flip of a switch.

Conner BoydSenior Product Manager @ The Knot