Glossary of app link terms
Written for the person who has to make decisions about this and keeps meeting words nobody defines.
6 August 2026 · PAD team
Browsers and containers
- **WebView** — a browser engine embedded in an app, with its own cookies and no ability to hand URL schemes to other apps
- **In-app browser** — a WebView with an address bar and a menu, as shipped by Instagram, Facebook and TikTok
- **Custom Tabs / SFSafariViewController** — the real system browser rendered inside another app, which shares sessions and opens store links normally
Links
- **Custom scheme** —
myapp://path, opens your app and does nothing at all if it is not installed - **Universal link** — an https URL iOS may hand to your app, verified by a file on your domain
- **App Link** — the Android equivalent, verified by
assetlinks.json - **Deferred deep link** — opens a specific screen after the app is installed, which requires an SDK
- **itms-appss://** — Apple's store scheme, the thing in-app browsers cannot follow
- **intent://** — Android's URL format with a built-in browser fallback, the mechanism iOS lacks
Attribution
- **ct** — campaign token on an App Store URL, reported in App Store Connect
- **pt** — provider token identifying you to Apple
- **referrer** — Google Play's parameter, delivered to your app on first launch
- **SKAdNetwork** — Apple's privacy-preserving install attribution, delayed and campaign-level only
- **Deterministic matching** — connecting click to install through data that travels with the install
- **Probabilistic matching** — guessing from IP, device and timing, unreliable per user and prohibited without consent
Measurement
- **Click** — recorded when the tap happens, regardless of what loads afterwards
- **Arrival rate** — the share of taps that actually reached the destination, which no ad platform reports
- **Click to install** — the ratio everyone watches, distorted by taps that never arrived
That last group is where most confusion lives: three words that sound like the same measurement and describe three different things.
The practical version of all of this is one link that handles the routing for you.