Branch

Step-by-step guide to send your event data from RudderStack to Branch.io

Branch.io is an industry leader in cross-platform attribution, mobile app measurement, and deep linking. Many top-ranking apps use Branch to increase their performance and revenue through better performance and engagement.

RudderStack supports sending events from RudderStack SDKs to Branch through our data plane via the S2S (Server to Server) connection mode. You can also opt for the device mode as well for Android and iOS. Branch SDK is wrapped inside Rudder SDK in case of device mode.

Find the open-source transformer code for this destination in ourGitHub repo.

Getting Started

Before getting started, please determine whether the platform you are sending your event data from is supported. Refer to the following table for more the supported source types and connection modes:

Connection Mode	Web	Mobile	Server
Device mode	-	Supported	-
Cloud mode	-	Supported	-

To know more about the difference between Cloud mode and Device mode in RudderStack, read the RudderStack connection modes guide.

In order to start sending data to Branch, you will first need to add it as a destination to the source from which you are sending the event data.

• Once you have added the source, you will need to register on Branch and follow the required steps to complete the set up.

• You should then be able to access the Branch key from the settings page of your Branch dashboard.

• Enter your Branch key to complete the destination configuration as shown:

BranchIO Dashboard Settings

Please note that RudderStack does not support sending data to Branch on both device or cloud mode for the web.

Adding device mode integration

Depending on the platform of integration follow the steps below to integrate with Device-mode.

iOS Android

• Open the Podfile of your project and add the following line

  pod 'Rudder-Branch', '0.1.3'

  followed by

  $ pod install

• Finally change the SDK initialization with the following

  RudderConfigBuilder *builder = [[RudderConfigBuilder alloc] init];
  [builder withDataPlaneUrl:<DATA_PLANE_URL>];
  [builder withFactory:[RudderBranchFactory instance]];
  [builder withLoglevel:RudderLogLevelDebug];
  [RudderClient getInstance:<WRITE_KEY> config:[builder build]];

Your Android project must be on version 5.0 (API level 21) or higher for RudderStack to be able to send events to Branch.

Once confirmed, follow these steps to add Branch to your Android project:

• Open your app/build.gradle (Module: app) file, add the following

  repositories {
      mavenCentral()
  }

• Add the following under dependencies section

  implementation 'com.rudderstack.android.sdk:core:1.0.1'
  implementation 'com.rudderstack.android.integration:branch:0.1.3'
  
  // branch SDK requirements
  implementation 'io.branch.sdk.android:library:4.3.2'
  implementation'com.android.installreferrer:installreferrer:1.1.2'
  implementation 'com.google.firebase:firebase-appindexing:19.1.0'
  implementation 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads:16+'

• Finally change the initialization of the SDK with the following

  val rudderClient: RudderClient = RudderClient.getInstance(
      this,
      <WRITE_KEY>,
      RudderConfig.Builder()
          .withDataPlaneUrl(<DATA_PLANE_URL>)
          .withLogLevel(RudderLogger.RudderLogLevel.DEBUG)
          .withFactory(BranchIntegrationFactory.FACTORY)
          .build()
  )

Now follow the instructions below to send events to Branch.

Identify

The identify call associates a user to their actions and also captures the traits associated with that user. Some of captured information includes a unique user ID, as well as optional traits such as name, email, IP address, etc.

A sample identify call captured from the RudderStack iOS SDK would look like the following:

[[RudderClient sharedInstance] identify:@"developer_user_id"
                                 traits:@{@"foo": @"bar", @"foo1": @"bar1"}];

Ideally, this call is made when the user registers to the app for the first time, or after the user logs into the app or updates their information.

Track

The track call captures all the activities that the user performs, along with any other properties that are associated with those activities. Each of these activities or actions is considered by RudderStack as an event.

A sample track call looks like the following:

[[RudderClient sharedInstance] track:@"test_event"
                          properties:@{@"key":@"value", @"foo": @"bar"}]

For example, consider the following code snippet for a track event Product Added from your JavaScript SDK:

rudderanalytics.track('Product Added', {
  cart_id: '1234',
  products: [
    {
       product_id: 'mobi1',
       name: "mobile name",
       brand: "brand name",
       variant: "4gb/8gb",
       price: "750$",
       quantity: "1",
       description: "Mobile phone description goes here",
    },
    {
       product_id: 'mobi2',
       name: "mobile name",
       brand: "brand name",
       variant: "16gb/32gb",
       price: "1000$",
       quantity: "1",
       description: "Mobile phone description goes here",
    }
  ]
});

All the trackable events in RudderStack are divided into three major Branch event categories:

• Commerce Events

• Content Events

• Lifecycle Events

The following table lists the mapping between the accepted names of the E-commerce events:

RudderStack Event	Branch Event
Product Added	ADD_TO_CART
Product Added to Wishlist	ADD_TO_WISHLIST
Cart Viewed	VIEW_CART
Checkout Started	INITIATE_PURCHASE
Payment Info Entered	ADD_PAYMENT_INFO
Order Completed	ADD_PAYMENT_INFO
Spend Credits	SPEND_CREDITS
Promotion Viewed	VIEW_AD
Promotion Clicked	CLICK_AD
Checkout Started	PURCHASE
Order Completed	PURCHASE
Reserve	RESERVE

RudderStack also maps the Spend Credits event to Branch's SPEND_CREDITS, although it is not directly a part of the E-commerce Events.

The following table lists the mapping between the accepted names of the Content events:

RudderStack Event	Branch Event
Products Searched	SEARCH
Product Viewed	VIEW_ITEM
Product List Viewed	VIEW_ITEMS
Product Reviewed	RATE
Product Shared	SHARE
Initiate Stream	INITIATE_STREAM
Complete Stream	COMPLETE_STREAM

The above mentioned events are a part of the RudderStack Commerce events, but are mapped to Branch's Content Events.

RudderStack also supports mapping the following events even though they are not explicitly a part of the RudderStack Lifecycle Events:

RudderStack Event	Branch Event
Complete Registration	COMPLETE_REGISTRATION
Complete Tutorial	COMPLETE_TUTORIAL
Achieve Level	ACHIEVE_LEVEL
Unlock Achievement	UNLOCK_ACHIEVEMENT
Invite	INVITE
Login	LOGIN
Start Trial	START_TRIAL
Subscribe	SUBSCRIBE

The following table lists the mapping of the accepted property keys common to all events:

RudderStack Property Key	Branch Property Key
title	$og_title
description	$og_description
image_url	$og_image_url
canonical_identifier	$canonical_identifier
publicly_indexable	$publicly_indexable
price	$price
locally_indexable	$locally_indexable
quantity	$quantity
sku	$sku
name	$product_name
brand	$product_brand
category	$product_category
variant	$product_variant
rating_average	$rating_average
rating_count	$rating_count
rating_max	$rating_max
creating_timestamp	$creation_timestamp
exp_date	$exp_date
keywords	$keywords
address_street	$address_street
address_city	$address_city
address_region	$address_region
address_country	$address_country
address_postal_code	$address_postal_code
latitude	$latitude
longitude	$longitude
image_captions	$image_captions
condition	$condition

FAQs

Where can I get the Branch Key from?

You can retrieve the Branch key from the settings page of the Branch dashboard. For more information, please check the Getting Started section above.

Contact Us

For queries on any of the sections covered in this guide, you can contact us or start a conversation in our Slack community.