Adobe Journey Optimizer (AJO) Configuration

Overview

Branch Email and Adobe Journey Optimizer (AJO) work together to drive customers from email to your app. When a user selects a link in an email, Branch determines the best destination — opening the app and deep linking to the right content, or falling back to the mobile web if the app isn't installed. This integration uses your click tracking domain (CTD) to route and attribute email link clicks.

How it works

When a user selects a link in an email from their mobile mail client, Branch determines the destination:

App installed and matching screen exists: The app opens and deep links the user to the correct content, such as a product detail page or category page.
App not installed or web-only link: Branch routes the user to the website in their default mobile browser, such as an unsubscribe page or privacy policy.

Before you begin

To enable the AJO integration, you first need to:

Have admin access to Branch.
Have Branch's Engagement product enabled for your Branch account.
Implement the Branch SDK into your mobile app (iOS | Android).
- Set up deep link routing. How your mobile app routes to in-app content determines how you create and tag your Branch Links.
  - Build custom routing inside the routing callback
  - Let Branch use your existing deep link routing
- Track events.
Review the Email overview and Basic email integration guide to understand the feature and integrations.

Note
This integration requires involvement from your developers, CRM/email team, and Adobe Journey Optimizer account manager or support team.

Configure AJO

AJO supports multiple branding domains and tracking configurations. We recommend setting up an additional domain to verify the integration before enabling Branch Email for your main production configuration.

Follow the AJO documentation to add a branding domain.

Enable AJO in Branch

In Branch, go to Email > Manager.
Find Adobe Journey Optimizer and select Enable.

Enter your CTD

The AJO integration requires the following values:

Field	Description
Click Tracking Domain	The domain you use with AJO for links in emails.
Adobe Domain	The domain AJO uses to collect data.

Enter your CTD in the first field and the Adobe tracking domain in the second field.

Tip
Your Adobe rep can provide these values. The CTD is typically in the format data.marketing.email.brand.com or data.service.email.brand.com. The Adobe domain is usually in the format https://edge.marketing.email.brand.com or https://edge.service.email.brand.com.

Enter your domains and select Save.

Caution
Remove https:// when adding your CTD.
Don't add the same CTD to both your Live and Test Branch environments.
You can enable the integration with multiple CTDs, but you can't add the same CTD to multiple Branch accounts or ESP integrations.

Configure your app

To support deep linking from AJO emails, configure your iOS app to recognize your CTD.

Add your CTD to Associated Domains

For your iOS app, add the CTD to your Associated Domains. For more details, see Configure Associated Domains.

Return YES to continueUserActivity

Add the CTD to your iOS app's info.plist file. For more details, see iOS advanced features.

Point DNS CNAME to Branch

Update the DNS CNAME for your CTD and point it to thirdparty.bnc.lt. Follow your web hosting provider's instructions to configure the CNAME record. Once added, allow up to one hour for Branch to generate SSL and AASA files for your CTD.

Caution
Enable the integration in Branch and confirm the CTD is saved before adding the CNAME.
If your CTD already has SSL set up, confirm that your security credentials allow a third party to submit a CSR on behalf of the domain. If not, contact Branch Support to coordinate providing an SSL certificate manually.
Once added, Branch auto-generates an SSL certificate and AASA file for your CTD. It can take up to one hour to resolve SSL errors. During this time, link redirects on the CTD redirect to the Default URL set in the General Configuration section of your account.
If you're making this change to a live domain with active email traffic, schedule the CNAME change during off-hours with low traffic.

Add Branch Links to your emails

Before sending email campaigns, determine the flow you want users to experience and flag your email links accordingly.

Add the deep linking flag

For email links you want to deep link to in-app content, add the data-nl-type="DEEPLINK" attribute to your anchor tag:

<a data-nl-type="DEEPLINK" href="links.example.com">Link to your app</a>

This converts the link to a Branch Link that opens the app on iOS and Android with full tracking and attribution. If you're placing a Quick Link in an email, set the $3p value to e_adobe_journey_optimizer for proper attribution.

Tag links for analytics

To view email campaign performance in Branch, tag your email links with the ~campaign tag. If your team uses UTM tags, Branch also ingests the utm_campaign value. Tagging helps deduplicate attribution data and surface downstream events. You can use the campaign tag in comparisons and filters across all views in Branch.