The Branch guide you linked to (full disclosure: I work with the Branch team) unfortunately doesn't cover a rather important step: what to do after your app opens. Which is exactly the issue you're encountering :). But the good news is you've already done the hard part with all the server and entitlement config.
What you need to complete the loop is a continueUserActivity
handler in your AppDelegate.m file. This will pass you a webpageURL
property containing the actual URL of the Universal Link that opened your app, which you can then parse and use for routing. It'll look something like this:
- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application continueUserActivity:(NSUserActivity *)userActivity restorationHandler:(void (^)(NSArray *))restorationHandler {
if ([userActivity.activityType isEqualToString:NSUserActivityTypeBrowsingWeb]) {
NSString *myUrl = [userActivity.webpageURL absoluteString];
// parse URL string or access query params
}
return YES;
}
Also, when testing keep in mind that Universal Links unfortunately don't work everywhere yet:

P.S., gotta ask...since you found the Branch blog already, had you considered using the service to handle the link routing for you? It can definitely help simplify things!