WP7: Is it possible to get a referrer from the installation page/link?

Question

This question involves both programming and architectural subjects. Firstly, sorry if it was asked previously, with other words or in another way. I just haven't found anything that matches with my issue.

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Here we go. Supose that you have developed a WP app and uploaded it to Windows Store. Now supose you have a webpage named "any_dynamic_name_that_can_change.php" with a button that redirects you to your Windows Store app's page. And now, FROM THE APP (after you install it on your device), you want to know the page's name from where the Windows Store was accessed.

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I've checked WP docummentations and I'm fully aware that WP SDK don't have any features that allow us to implement this behavior. In android SDK, one can make use of Referrer/BroadcastReceiver features to pass arguments through your page and Google Play. I've sussccesfuly made it in my Android's app version.

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My question is: is there a solution to implement this "know-from" behavior? I don't care if it involves using third systems or saving arguments somewhere, or even if the solution is a "hard-to-do" task. I'm just looking for it, if it exists...

Any hints, comments and answers will be very welcome! And sorry if my question wasn't well explained, or if it is too broad!

Answer 1

Unfortunately the Windows Phone Store does not provide this and has no way of providing the information that would be needed to implement this either.

The nearest thing you could do would be to look at the IP address of requests to the pages with the links and the first request from the app. Obviously there are lots of reasons why this wouldn't be a perfect solution but it may be better than nothing.

The only other solution would involve the person viewing the page(s) and the app to provide a unique identifier such as their credentials.

An alternative approach would be to track clicks on the individual pages. It wouldn't be able to tell you conversions once the person gets to the store but it could tell you which pages were the greatest drivers of people to your apps in the store.

Answer 2

There is a not so complex way to do that.

Requirements:

• Register protocol handler into your app like myappname:// or similar.

The big flow for tracking installation referrer is:

1 - Redirect the user to your site into device system browser http://mysite.com/start_tracking

2 - in that page add cookie to keep track of source page

3 - then Redirect user to the windows phone market installation page

4 - ** INSTALLATION PROCESS ** (this register the protocol handler myappname://)

5 - On the first launch of your native app you need to open the system browser with http://mysite.com/referrer_2_app location, then sys browser send to your web server cookie information stored in step 2.

6 - Then your /referrer_2_app redirect the browser to myappname://cookievalue

7 - This automatically re-open your native app and .....

8 - You are able to read /cookivalue and close your tracking

Hope that this big picture is enough.

If someone need more details let me know.

Tobia