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I'm currently working on an app which will be used for marketing purpose. This app has a feature to share a link to device contacts or social media, to let other people download this app from Google Play Store. But my company has made a rule for this app:

If this app is downloaded from Google Play Store without clicking any shared link, it cannot be run (or simply, display an Alert Dialog then close the app). The only way to have this app running is to FIRSTLY click the link, then download.

So my question is, how can I make this possible? Do I have to find a way to detect clicked link? Or is there any alternatives?

Harry
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  • Seems like a lot of extra work to accomplish a small task. Why doesn't the company just host the apk on it's server, thus preventing downloads from anybody who didn't get a shared link? – jb15613 Nov 24 '14 at 06:08
  • @jb15613: Actually I need to know who sent the link (the referrer). Also, I need to do this with as small efforts as possible. So I thought using Google Play Campaign Measurement might be the best, isn't it? – Harry Nov 24 '14 at 06:26
  • Only if it can tell you whether or not they were taken to the playstore via a shared link. And then give you the credentials of the user who shared it. I'm not sure if CM provides this functionality or not. – jb15613 Nov 24 '14 at 06:41

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The purpose of putting in the Google Play Store is for people to find and use your app. Once they have the link to it, anyone can reach it and try to install it. However if all you want is a way to tie back to what was the driver of that install/launch then you may want to look at:

Google Play Campaign Attribution

If you want to limit your requirements on Google APIs or using a store other than Google Play, there are other vendors in this space as well which perform similar functions.

Morrison Chang
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  • I believe this is the guide I need! I spent some time researching Google Play Campaign Measurement, but could not find any documentation for it. Thanks! However, there is still a problem. How do I make my company server knows a tracker ID belongs to which person? I'm trying to form a **tree of users and referrer**, so I need to know exactly who receives the link and from who. – Harry Nov 24 '14 at 06:42
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    Since the fields in the referral url are strings you can encode additional information within (probably up to some size limit). How you get additional information embedded within the url would require an understanding of how the marketing campaign will work and who needs to collect or act upon the data in the referrer url. – Morrison Chang Nov 24 '14 at 07:41
  • After doing some research, I think you are correct. But I still have to prove it by testing Google Play Campaign Measurement. I've implemented it on my code, but I don't have any idea how to collect data from the referrer url. Can you teach me? I posted a technical question [here](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/27243146/android-using-google-analytics-v4-campaign-measurement) – Harry Dec 02 '14 at 06:27