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Ahsan Ali
Founder, LinkTrail
Ahsan Ali is the founder of LinkTrail and the engineer behind its SDKs for iOS, Android, React Native, and Flutter. He started the company after the Firebase Dynamic Links shutdown left teams with links that opened the store and forgot where the user was going — and after too many vendor calls that ended without a price. He writes here about deferred deep linking, install attribution after ATT, and the parts of the mobile growth stack the category tends to leave vague.
All 19 posts
- Engineering27 Jun 2026·7 min readThe Firebase Dynamic Links replacement: a migration guideFirebase Dynamic Links is shut down. What you lost, how to replace deferred deep linking and smart routing, and how to migrate without breaking live links.
- Growth26 Jun 2026·5 min readE-commerce playbook: a flash sale that survives the install gapAn e-commerce vertical playbook — turning a 24-hour flash sale into attributed, deep-linked installs that land on the deal.
- Growth24 Jun 2026·6 min readStop sending paid installs to your homepageYou paid for a tap on a specific product, then dropped the new user on your home screen. A deferred deep link carries that intent through the install — here's how.
- Product23 Jun 2026·5 min readFitness app playbook: a referral program that actually attributesA fitness vertical playbook — friend-gets-friend referrals that survive install, credit the referrer, and resist abuse.
- Attribution20 Jun 2026·5 min readInfluencer attribution: giving UGC channels the credit they earnInfluencer marketing attribution is systematically undercounted: blended dashboards starve probabilistically-matched channels. Slice by match type and the budget follows.
- Growth19 Jun 2026·5 min readMusic app playbook: an artist drop that opens straight to the trackA music vertical playbook — turning a release-day link into installs that land on the track, crediting the channel that drove the stream.
- Growth17 Jun 2026·5 min readOne link for every channel: smart links for TikTok, email, SMS, and QRSmart links route every tap by device — TikTok, email, SMS, QR, desktop — one URL that lands users in the right place and tags itself per channel.
- Product16 Jun 2026·5 min readNews app playbook: a subscription funnel without dead endsA news and media vertical playbook — moving readers from a shared article to an attributed app install that opens the same story.
- Product12 Jun 2026·5 min readRe-engagement deep links that don't dump users on 'Welcome back'Re-engagement deep links land returning users exactly where they left off — whether the app is still installed or has to survive a reinstall on the way.
- Growth9 Jun 2026·4 min readPromo codes that survive the installDeep-linked promo codes survive the install gap: carry the code in the deferred payload, apply it automatically on first open, and guard against abuse.
- Product5 Jun 2026·5 min readWeb-to-app handoff for a freemium funnelWeb-to-app handoff without the restart: pass onboarding state through the install so users resume mid-flow — the activation lift freemium funnels compound on.
- Engineering2 Jun 2026·5 min readManaging link verification across multiple apps and bundle IDsOne AASA, several bundle IDs, debug plus release fingerprints — kept correct automatically as you add build targets.
- Engineering28 May 2026·5 min readBuilding an install-attribution pipeline with webhooksStream install.attributed events into your warehouse, verify the signatures, and reconcile probabilistic, deterministic, and SKAN in one place.
- Attribution8 May 2026·7 min readThe post-IDFA attribution playbook: signals, scoring, and what to ship nextMobile attribution after ATT: the matching waterfall, how to score probabilistic matches honestly, and the reporting trap that quietly skews budgets.
- Product19 Apr 2026·6 min readWhy deferred deep linking still matters in 2026What deferred deep linking is, why the install gap still exists in 2026, and how carrying context through the app stores roughly doubles first-open conversion.
- Engineering2 Apr 2026·6 min readProbabilistic attribution: building a device fingerprint scorer that doesn't lieHow probabilistic matching works: the five device signals, the weights, the precision-recall harness — and the consent requirement most guides skip.
- Privacy21 Mar 2026·6 min readSKAdNetwork 5: what changed and what to ship this quarterSKAdNetwork 5 migration guide: re-engagement postbacks, coarse conversion values across the new windows, and how it carries over to AdAttributionKit.
- Growth4 Mar 2026·5 min readMeasuring install lift: the growth marketer's incrementality guideIncrementality testing for mobile installs: a working definition of lift, a clean measurement design, and the three places your ROAS numbers are lying.
- Engineering12 Feb 2026·8 min readApp Links vs Universal Links: the practical setup guide nobody wroteiOS Universal Links vs Android App Links: how AASA and assetlinks.json actually work, the MIME and cache pitfalls, and a checklist that opens the app every time.