• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

'The golden years are not golden': Boomers are hoarding most of America's wealth and power because they're terrified of outliving their money

2

Gen Zers are arriving at college unable to even read a sentence—professors warn it could lead to a generation of anxious and lonely graduates

3

Trump stunned as stocks fall on great jobs report. Barclays explains why ‘we are entering the warning zone'

1

'The golden years are not golden': Boomers are hoarding most of America's wealth and power because they're terrified of outliving their money

2

Gen Zers are arriving at college unable to even read a sentence—professors warn it could lead to a generation of anxious and lonely graduates

3

Trump stunned as stocks fall on great jobs report. Barclays explains why ‘we are entering the warning zone'
TechThe Mobile Executive

This tool is helping Airbnb, Pinterest, and Etsy get more people to download their apps

By
Kia Kokalitcheva
Kia Kokalitcheva
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
Kia Kokalitcheva
Kia Kokalitcheva
Down Arrow Button Icon
July 28, 2015, 1:48 PM ET
Getty Images

What good is a user referral program or a marketing campaign if its effectiveness can’t be measured?

Like any other business, companies built on mobile apps—such as Airbnb, Pinterest, Etsy, Washio, Wanelo, and Snapdeal—want to know where their customers come from. Often it’s on the recommendation of a friend, who shared with you the link to download the app in Apple’s App Store or Google’s Play Store. The problem? That process tells the app-maker very little about how you got to that link. The app stores don’t transfer that information to the vendor—obscuring your arrival from, say, Facebook over Google Search. (Ditto sharing a link to specific information within an app, such as a home listing on Airbnb or a pinned Pinterest item.)

Several companies build tools to circumvent this loss of data: Branch Metrics, Tapstream, and a three-year-old company named Yozio, which on Tuesday said it raised $7 million in new funding.

Yozio builds software development kits, or “SDKs,” that are easy to incorporate into mobile applications and makes it so that when a user taps on a link to view an item in an app, Yozio’s servers will remember the action and, using a variety of information to identify the user’s device, will tell the app to show the user that item as soon as the download completes.

Yozio has more than 600 customers, it says, 20 times the number it had when it launched in January.

Yozio lets developers track individual links across Apple iOS, Google Android, and the Web for efforts such as customer referral programs and email marketing campaigns. On Tuesday, the startup added the ability to track links when existing users click or tap on them—a feature that many customers requested, Yozio co-founder and CEO Lei Sun tells Fortune.

“A lot of the people who were clicking were already users. So it looked like they weren’t getting more installs,” Sun says. Yozio’s corporate customers were missing the fact that their existing users were clicking on links—an equally important user behavior they wanted to be able to track.

Though tracking tools from Yozio and its peers aren’t a cure-all, they are growing in importance for developers. The rise of the app economy and in-app commerce has put a premium on such information; the ability to test how various kinds of marketing work can make a world of difference for a startup’s survival. From a transactional standpoint, reducing friction during a purchase process is the ultimate goal of every merchant that fears losing business from potential shoppers who just give up because they couldn’t find the item after downloading and signing into an expensive new shopping app.

Yozio says a big challenge ahead is working in international markets where there are a number of app stores beyond that of Apple and Google. These stores use different technologies, Sun says, and Yozio needs to make sure it can support them, too.

Foundation Capital led Yozio’s latest funding round alongside Illuminate Ventures, Webb Investment Network, and AME Cloud Ventures, among others. Founded in 2012 by Sun and Li Hong, Yozio previously raised $1.6 million in funding.

Sign up for Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily morning newsletter about the business of technology.

About the Author
By Kia Kokalitcheva
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in Tech

Inside Trump’s Oval Office deal machine
MagazineDonald Trump
Inside Trump’s Oval Office deal machine
By Alyson ShontellJune 8, 2026
39 minutes ago
Spotify’s secret to winning the hiring war? Keep your talent moving and growing
EuropeSpotify
Spotify’s secret to winning the hiring war? Keep your talent moving and growing
By Francesca CassidyJune 8, 2026
2 hours ago
solomon
C-SuiteGoldman Sachs Group
Exclusive: Goldman Sachs intern acceptance rate falls below 1% for third straight year
By Nick LichtenbergJune 8, 2026
4 hours ago
Bending Spoons, the Italian app acquirer behind AOL, Evernote, Vimeo, and WeTransfer, files for a U.S. IPO
Startups & VentureIPOs
Bending Spoons, the Italian app acquirer behind AOL, Evernote, Vimeo, and WeTransfer, files for a U.S. IPO
By Catherina GioinoJune 8, 2026
4 hours ago
Sarah Franklin, Chief Executive Officer of Lattice, and Francine Katsoudas, EVP and Chief People, Policy and Purpose Officer at Cisco, speak at Fortune's COO Summit with Kristin Stoller, Editorial Director at Fortune.
NewslettersFortune Workplace Innovation
AI disruption arrived 6 years early—now executives are drawing the line
By Kristin StollerJune 8, 2026
4 hours ago
from left to right: Omer Gull, Yuval Itzchakov, and Yossi Torati
CybersecurityTerm Sheet
Why Lightspeed and Wiz’s Assaf Rappaport bet $37 million on an AI-powered cyberattacker
By Lily Mae LazarusJune 8, 2026
5 hours ago

Most Popular

'The golden years are not golden': Boomers are hoarding most of America's wealth and power because they're terrified of outliving their money
Economy
'The golden years are not golden': Boomers are hoarding most of America's wealth and power because they're terrified of outliving their money
By Nick LichtenbergJune 7, 2026
1 day ago
Gen Zers are arriving at college unable to even read a sentence—professors warn it could lead to a generation of anxious and lonely graduates
Success
Gen Zers are arriving at college unable to even read a sentence—professors warn it could lead to a generation of anxious and lonely graduates
By Preston ForeJune 7, 2026
1 day ago
Trump stunned as stocks fall on great jobs report. Barclays explains why ‘we are entering the warning zone'
Big Tech
Trump stunned as stocks fall on great jobs report. Barclays explains why ‘we are entering the warning zone'
By Eva RoytburgJune 7, 2026
24 hours ago
I've sold property on California's Central Coast for decades. The buyers chasing ranch and winery estates are after more than a lifestyle
Commentary
I've sold property on California's Central Coast for decades. The buyers chasing ranch and winery estates are after more than a lifestyle
By Lindsey HarnJune 6, 2026
2 days ago
AI CEOs from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Microsoft set aside their rivalry to warn Congress AI is making it too easy to design and create bioweapons
AI
AI CEOs from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Microsoft set aside their rivalry to warn Congress AI is making it too easy to design and create bioweapons
By Marco Quiroz-GutierrezJune 5, 2026
3 days ago
The Strait of Hormuz is more open than previously thought as the U.S. shoots down Iranian drones threatening ships and provides 'naval overwatch'
Energy
The Strait of Hormuz is more open than previously thought as the U.S. shoots down Iranian drones threatening ships and provides 'naval overwatch'
By Jason MaJune 6, 2026
2 days ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.