How Fizz achieves ZERO performance loss with Airbridge API deeplinks

Introduction

Fizz is a fast-growing, campus-based social app designed exclusively for college communities. Built around verified student networks, it gives users a private space to share posts, memes, and discussions that stay hyperlocal to their university.

Since launch, Fizz has rapidly expanded across dozens of U.S. campuses, driving millions of weekly engagements and becoming one of the most viral student apps in North America, a prime example of how authentic, community-driven content can fuel massive organic growth in mobile marketing.

Overview

When Google announced the deprecation of Firebase Dynamic Links (FDL), Fizz faced a critical migration challenge. Their entire sharing and referral ecosystem was powered by FDL APIs with thousands of dynamically generated links every day. A single mismatch in routing or attribution could disrupt the user experience and break the growth loop.

By turning to Airbridge API deeplinks, Fizz had an API-based deep linking platform that could mirror FDL behavior while maintaining attribution accuracy and performance across millions of user interactions.

Challenges

As Firebase Dynamic Links approached its shutdown, Fizz faced several critical challenges that could directly impact user experience and attribution accuracy:

• Migration pressure under FDL deprecation: The team needed to migrate all existing deep link structures before FDL’s end-of-life. Any delay or mismatch could lead to broken user journeys, inaccurate routing, and lost installs.

• High-volume, post-level content sharing: Fizz’s in-app sharing feature required each deep link to open the exact post within the app, maintaining perfect attribution from share to install, all without latency or tracking errors. ‍‍

• Fast-moving campaigns across campuses: With hundreds of campus activations happening simultaneously, Fizz needed a flexible, no-code link generation solution to quickly create and track referral, QR, and campaign links without relying on developer resources.

Solutions

Seamless migration with perfect parity

Fizz used Airbridge API deeplinksto rebuild their deep link infrastructure. Through a simple API call, their system could generate custom links identical to those previously created via FDL, with the same parameters, behavior, and routing logic.

Before rollout, both routing and deferred deep linking were tested for parity. The results showed zero performance loss and maintained attribution accuracy, confirming Airbridge as a seamless FDL alternative.

Built Once, Used Everywhere: The API Behind Every Share, Referral, and Marketing Campaign.

Fizz used Airbridge API deeplinks as the backbone for all its sharing and growth operations, from user-generated content sharing links to referral and campaign activities.

Whenever a student shared a post, the Fizz app called the Airbridge API to instantly create a deep link tied to that content. Recipients who clicked were taken directly to the post, whether they already had the app installed or were new users. Behind the scenes, Airbridge measured every step of that journey, clicks, installs, and re-engagements, helping Fizz enable native social sharing inside the app, identify viral content, and refine its campus playbooks.

For User Referral Links, Fizz’s growth engine heavily relied on user-driven referrals, powered by Airbridge’s API deeplinks. Each time a user tapped “Invite Friends,” the app automatically generated a personalized deep link embedded with that user’s unique ID. This setup allowed Fizz to precisely attribute new installs and sign-ups back to the original referrer, enabling transparent tracking for referral incentives and gamified reward systems. With this automation, every share became a measurable acquisition opportunity, boosting engagement while minimizing manual setup.

At the same time, the marketing team used the same API to independently create campaigns - specific and QR install links, no engineering required. These links included detailed attribution parameters such as channel, campaign, and creative identifiers, ensuring every click from ads, partnerships, social media posts, and even offline QR activations could be tracked with accuracy. This allowed the team to spin up new campaigns or collaborations within minutes, guaranteeing both execution speed and full-funnel visibility across all external acquisition channels.

“For a solution that solves our specific need for API deeplinks, Airbridge has been great. It’s a great solution from a cost perspective if the features suit your needs.” — Ashton Cofer, Co-Founder & CTO of Fizz

Results

Fizz’s experience with Airbridge demonstrates how a smooth migration can do more than just maintain performance: it can streamline operations, centralize data, and future-proof an app’s growth stack.

By choosing Airbridge, Fizz ensured stability and scalability during a major transition, proving that the right MMP partnership can turn a potential disruption into an opportunity for smarter growth.