Referrers, deep links and cross-navigation events

• Page referrer information on Web
• Deep links in mobile apps
• Link click tracking on Web
• Cross-domain tracking on Web

Page referrer information on Web

Along with page view events, the tracker tracks the URL of the referring page that linked to the current page. The URL is tracked in the atomic event properties, under the page_referrer property.

Table Column	Type	Description	Example values
page_referrer	text	Referrer URL	http://www.snowplow.io/

Deep links in mobile apps

Deep links are URLs or hyperlinks that take users directly to a particular location within a mobile app. They are received by the mobile operating system and passed to the related app.

Deep link received event

This event is manually tracked when the deep link is received in the app.

Event: deep_link_received

Represents a deep-link received in the app.

Schema URI: iglu://com.snowplowanalytics.mobile/deep_link_received/jsonschema/1-0-0

Web	Mobile	Tracked automatically
❌	✅	❌

👀 Example

{
  "url": "https://example.com/notes/123",
  "referrer": "https://snowplow.io"
}

📃 Schema properties definition

Table

Property	Type	Description	Required?
url	"string"	URL in the received deep-link	✅
referrer	"string"	Referrer URL, source of this deep-link	❌

JSON schema

{
  "$schema": "http://iglucentral.com/schemas/com.snowplowanalytics.self-desc/schema/jsonschema/1-0-0#",
  "description": "Represents a deep-link received in the app.",
  "self": {
    "vendor": "com.snowplowanalytics.mobile",
    "name": "deep_link_received",
    "format": "jsonschema",
    "version": "1-0-0"
  },
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "url": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "URL in the received deep-link",
      "format": "uri",
      "maxLength": 4096
    },
    "referrer": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "Referrer URL, source of this deep-link",
      "format": "uri",
      "maxLength": 4096
    }
  },
  "required": [
    "url"
  ],
  "additionalProperties": false
}

❓ How to query the event in the warehouse?

Snowflake

select
  unstruct_event_com_snowplowanalytics_mobile_deep_link_received_1 deep_link_received_1
from
  atomic.events
where
  events.collector_tstamp > getdate() - interval '1 hour'
  and events.event = 'unstruct'
  and events.event_name = 'deep_link_received'
  and events.event_vendor = 'com.snowplowanalytics.mobile'

BigQuery

select
  unstruct_event_com_snowplowanalytics_mobile_deep_link_received_1_0_0
from
  PIPELINE_NAME.events events
where
  events.collector_tstamp > timestamp_sub(current_timestamp(), interval 1 hour)
  and events.event = 'unstruct'
  and events.event_name = 'deep_link_received'
  and events.event_vendor = 'com.snowplowanalytics.mobile'

Databricks

select
  unstruct_event_com_snowplowanalytics_mobile_deep_link_received_1
from
  atomic.events events
where
  events.collector_tstamp > timestampadd(HOUR, -1, current_timestamp())
  and events.event = 'unstruct'
  and events.event_name = 'deep_link_received'
  and events.event_vendor = 'com.snowplowanalytics.mobile'
  and unstruct_event_com_snowplowanalytics_mobile_deep_link_received_1 is not null

Redshift & Postgres

select
  "deep_link_received_1".*
from
  atomic.events events
  join atomic.com_snowplowanalytics_mobile_deep_link_received_1 "deep_link_received_1"
    on "deep_link_received_1".root_id = events.event_id and "deep_link_received_1".root_tstamp = events.collector_tstamp
where
  events.collector_tstamp > getdate() - interval '1 hour'
  and "deep_link_received_1".root_tstamp > getdate() - interval '1 hour'
  and events.event = 'unstruct'
  and events.event_name = 'deep_link_received'
  and events.event_vendor = 'com.snowplowanalytics.mobile'

Context entity attached to screen view events

This context entity is attached to the first screen view event automatically after tracking the deep link received event.

Context entity: deep_link

Entity that indicates a deep-link has been received and processed.

Schema URI: iglu://com.snowplowanalytics.mobile/deep_link/jsonschema/1-0-0

Web	Mobile	Tracked automatically
❌	✅	✅

👀 Example

{
  "url": "https://example.com/notes/123",
  "referrer": "https://snowplow.io"
}

📃 Schema properties definition

Table

Property	Type	Description	Required?
url	"string"	URL in the received deep-link	✅
referrer	"string"	Referrer URL, source of this deep-link	❌

JSON schema

{
  "$schema": "http://iglucentral.com/schemas/com.snowplowanalytics.self-desc/schema/jsonschema/1-0-0#",
  "description": "Entity that indicates a deep-link has been received and processed.",
  "self": {
    "vendor": "com.snowplowanalytics.mobile",
    "name": "deep_link",
    "format": "jsonschema",
    "version": "1-0-0"
  },
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "url": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "URL in the received deep-link",
      "format": "uri",
      "maxLength": 4096
    },
    "referrer": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "Referrer URL, source of this deep-link",
      "format": "uri",
      "maxLength": 4096
    }
  },
  "required": [
    "url"
  ],
  "additionalProperties": false
}

How to track?

• See the documentation for the iOS and Android tracker.
• Documentation for the React Native tracker.

Link click tracking on Web

Link click tracking feature in the JavaScript tracker enables automatic capturing of link click events as the user clicks on links on the page.

Event: link_click

Schema for a link click event

Schema URI: iglu://com.snowplowanalytics.snowplow/link_click/jsonschema/1-0-1

Web	Mobile	Tracked automatically
✅	❌	✅

👀 Example

{}

📃 Schema properties definition

Table

Property	Type	Description	Required?
elementId	"string"		❌
elementClasses	"array"		❌
elementTarget	"string"		❌
targetUrl	"string"		✅
elementContent	"string"		❌

JSON schema

{
  "$schema": "http://iglucentral.com/schemas/com.snowplowanalytics.self-desc/schema/jsonschema/1-0-0#",
  "description": "Schema for a link click event",
  "self": {
    "vendor": "com.snowplowanalytics.snowplow",
    "name": "link_click",
    "format": "jsonschema",
    "version": "1-0-1"
  },
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "elementId": {
      "type": "string"
    },
    "elementClasses": {
      "type": "array",
      "items": {
        "type": "string"
      }
    },
    "elementTarget": {
      "type": "string"
    },
    "targetUrl": {
      "type": "string",
      "minLength": 1
    },
    "elementContent": {
      "type": "string"
    }
  },
  "required": [
    "targetUrl"
  ],
  "additionalProperties": false
}

❓ How to query the event in the warehouse?

Snowflake

select
  unstruct_event_com_snowplowanalytics_snowplow_link_click_1 link_click_1
from
  atomic.events
where
  events.collector_tstamp > getdate() - interval '1 hour'
  and events.event = 'unstruct'
  and events.event_name = 'link_click'
  and events.event_vendor = 'com.snowplowanalytics.snowplow'

BigQuery

select
  unstruct_event_com_snowplowanalytics_snowplow_link_click_1_0_1
from
  PIPELINE_NAME.events events
where
  events.collector_tstamp > timestamp_sub(current_timestamp(), interval 1 hour)
  and events.event = 'unstruct'
  and events.event_name = 'link_click'
  and events.event_vendor = 'com.snowplowanalytics.snowplow'

Databricks

select
  unstruct_event_com_snowplowanalytics_snowplow_link_click_1
from
  atomic.events events
where
  events.collector_tstamp > timestampadd(HOUR, -1, current_timestamp())
  and events.event = 'unstruct'
  and events.event_name = 'link_click'
  and events.event_vendor = 'com.snowplowanalytics.snowplow'
  and unstruct_event_com_snowplowanalytics_snowplow_link_click_1 is not null

Redshift & Postgres

select
  "link_click_1".*
from
  atomic.events events
  join atomic.com_snowplowanalytics_snowplow_link_click_1 "link_click_1"
    on "link_click_1".root_id = events.event_id and "link_click_1".root_tstamp = events.collector_tstamp
where
  events.collector_tstamp > getdate() - interval '1 hour'
  and "link_click_1".root_tstamp > getdate() - interval '1 hour'
  and events.event = 'unstruct'
  and events.event_name = 'link_click'
  and events.event_vendor = 'com.snowplowanalytics.snowplow'

How to track?

See the link click tracking documentation for the JavaScript tracker.

Cross-domain tracking on Web

The JavaScript Tracker can add an additional parameter named “_sp” to the querystring of outbound links. This process is called “link decoration”. The _sp value includes the domain user ID for the current page and the time at which the link was clicked (according to the device's clock).

When the _sp parameter is present in the page URL, enrichment uses it to assign two properties to events: refr_domain_userid with the user identifier and refr_tstamp with the timestamp of the click on the link.

How to track?

See the documentation for cross-domain tracking on the JavaScript tracker for instructions.