Apptivate: App Marketing Explained

Yury Bolotkin is the Marketing Director of StarBerry Games, a mobile games publisher and developer based in Berlin. Prior to StarBerry, Yury was a Growth Specialist at Popcore, a UA Manager at Wooga, and a Senior Account Manager at Fyber.Questions Yury Answered in this Episode:Why were you interested in making the shift from sales and account management to the media buying side of app marketing?As Marketing Director, what’s the first strategy you put in place for a new mobile game?How do you implement automation today versus in your past?Do you make decisions based on the results of new testing platforms that enter your automation, or is that something that happens once it reaches a certain threshold?Is there any kind of automation that would apply to a single network to help improve its performance?Where do you spend your time with creatives?Have you been able to run the campaigns you mentioned since the IDFA changes?Timestamp:2:53 Yury’s background7:57 What inspired Yury’s marketing career9:50 The atmosphere at StarBerry Games11:53 Burning questions for a Marketing Director13:54 How Yury uses automation now20:37 When the industry influences automation27:10 Understanding why certain creatives work28:52 How IDFA impacted their automated campaignsQuotes:(10:05-10:28) “I really love this feeling of having a small, passionate team of people who believe and trust each other. They have this goal of delivering something beautiful to the world. And they just live for this idea, going through challenges every day to deliver this vision, this product, to bigger audiences.”(14:58-15:02) “Reporting is actually the first block in your automation puzzle.”Mentioned in this Episode:Yury BolotkinStarBerryStarBerry is hiring!

Hannah Parvaz, Head of Marketing at Uptime, discusses what makes a great app marketer, Uptime's content development and curation efforts, bringing a new product to market, surprising learnings from customers, creative strategy for educating potential consumers, the role of content in acquiring new customers, and the optimal mix of keywords for web traffic.

Alexander Savelyev is the Vice President of Product at Verve Group. Verve is a privacy-first omnichannel ad platform. It offers  programmatic solutions that connect advertisers and publishers to people in real time. Alexander lives and works in Berlin.Questions Alexander Answered in this Episode:What is your team looking to achieve at Verve?As a VP of Product, is it difficult overseeing 5-6 teams focused on different goals? How do you direct where the teams focus their time?How do you see the perspective of advertisers and publishers as it relates to omnichannel marketing? How different are they?Is a publisher missing something by not having an omnichannel presence?How do we achieve omnichannel marketing in a privacy-first world? If you cannot identify a specific user on a mobile device, how do you deliver a relevant message to them on another platform or from a single advertiser?Is part of the safety net for user privacy the size of the cohort or audience? Is there a minimum threshold for how large or small it must be to preserve that privacy?What’s needed and crucial for the market?Timestamp:3:48 Alexander’s background8:00 Verve, for advertisers and publishers11:46 On managing a team of teams15:12 Omnichannel for advertisers vs publishers25:48 How to do privacy-first omnichannel30:11 Size minimums for proxies to protect user privacy32:24 Not possible but needed and crucialQuotes:(8:48-9:08) “By having the ecosystem, meaning by having an SSP, an ad exchange, an SDK, and a DSP, we think that we can make advertising cheaper through the economies of scale and through the efficiencies between the components that would normally be different companies with completely different sets of goals.”(32:43-33:00) “What advertisers need to be able to do is execute different campaigns on individuals within a minimized group and a/b test  different, sequential multi-device storytelling strategies in real time.”Mentioned in this Episode:Alexander Savelyev’s LinkedInVerveAlexander’s email: alex@verve.com

Tarik Amzil is the Marketing Growth Manager for EMEA at Binance, the cryptocurrency platform. Prior to joining Binance, Tarik was a growth marketing manager at ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, focusing on growing TikTok within the Arab community. Questions Tarik Answered in this Episode:Why did you decide to leave TikTok and shift from a social media platform to Binance, a fintech platform?How did you train yourself to be a growth marketing manager in the financial space when you didn’t necessarily have that background?What makes Binance special? What’s made it one of the largest bitcoin exchanges in the world, if not the largest?What’s your approach to acquiring more customers? And more specifically, how do you go about acquiring customers who are newer to the industry?Given that your consumers range from 18 to 55+, is there a core demographic where you focus your marketing efforts? Is there a primary media platform that you use to get in front of those consumers?What’s got you excited about the future of the bitcoin space?Timestamp:1:53 Tarik’s background7:24 Shifting verticals–from TikTok to Binance9:46 What makes Binance unique15:36 Getting listed on Binance18:45 Growing the bitcoin app consumer segment24:04 New age tools for media buying25:55 Metaverse trendsQuotes:(19:32-19:44) “Binance makes sure it’s localized in most spoken languages worldwide.”(24:55-25:03) “Part of being in a rapidly evolving industry is having to keep up with the trends. So anything that’s going to make us accessible and reachable to our users, you’re going to find us there.”Mentioned in this Episode:Tarik's Twitter - @tarik4gameTarik's Instagram - @tarikamzilBinance

Pablo Bereskyj is the Marketing Operations Manager for Etermax, an international gaming company headquartered in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Previously, Pablo worked in business intelligence and financial analysis at Acuris, The Mergermarket Group, and Debtwire.Questions Pablo Answered in this Episode:Did you have any fear or reservation about jumping into the gaming industry coming from a financial services company?What do you think held you back from moving to a third party retargeting vendor?When you look at retargeting in retrospect, what was one of the things you found most challenging in getting it off the ground or maybe one thing you would have done differently?Timestamp:4:26 Pablo’s professional background8:17 From finance to gaming12:40 Learnings from internal retargeting operations15:25 Moving to a third party vendor for retargeting18:27 Maximizing the value of your core customers23:35 Top pillar underestimated with retargeting integrationsQuotes:(17:30-17:45) “You have to derive an internal ecosystem of tools; you need to be looking at all these variables; and if you want to run this constantly, it means that you have to have a really hands-on exercise with that.”(17:59-18:09) “The discovery of payers as a potential target, that was the other thing that drove a lot of the decision behind us using a third party vendor essentially.”Mentioned in this Episode:Pablo Bereskyj’s LinkedInEtermax

Patrick Eichmann is responsible for all revenue operations, including sales, account management and ad operations, in North and South America for Remerge. He is based in New York City.Questions Patrick Answered in this Episode:What is Remerge? And what is app retargeting in general?How is app retargeting still possible with iOS 14 and iOS15?What’s the business case for advertisers to still run app retargeting campaigns?Can you give some examples of verticals and companies that are using app retargeting right now?Android or iOS?What features would you miss most?What’s missing from mobile app tech?Timestamp:2:27 Patrick’s background4:05 Remerge & app retargeting6:05 What the data is showing9:05 The case for app retargeting today11:24 Who’s using app retargeting right now?15:13 What’s ahead for Remerge17:25 Get to know PatrickQuotes:(6:29-6:48) “We’ve developed a dashboard that provided a view into what was happening from an operating system adoption rate perspective. And then also a view into what was happening with the inventory itself. Meaning, how many impressions were out there that had IDs—the IDFA appended to it, how many didn’t?”(8:40-8:54) “That’s roughly 30 billion requests a day that are coming through that have an ID associated with it. So, it may not be what it once was, but that’s still a pretty sizable chunk of inventory that you can still extract value from.” (9:14-9:22) “With Android, it’s still intact. There may be changes that happen in the future but that makes up the lion share of available inventories now.”Mentioned in this Episode:Patrick Eichmann’s LinkedInRemergeThe State of App Retargeting ReportBusiness of Apps Ep.90: The state of app retargeting with Partick Eichmann, General Manager, Americas at Remerge

Ludie Veloso is the VP of operations for the AirBrush app at Pixocial, a subsidiary of Meitu. Before her current role at AirBrush, Ludie was their Global Growth Lead, managing teams around the world. Prior to AirBrush, she was the content director for Naranya Market Brazil. She is based out of Spain and has a background in economics.Questions Ludie Answered in this Episode:What are some keys to your success merging people from different cultures around the world into a unified team? What’s the rationale and advantage of having a team of 35 people spread out across the world? What had the most impactful effect on your app’s growth besides the people who make up your team?How do you categorize a micro-influencer? Are influencers at this stage getting paid like an affiliate would? What’s your strategy for managing so many micro-influencers? How do you safeguard against influencers not being a good fit for your brand?What are you excited about for the future of influencer marketing?Timestamp:1:55 Ludie’s background5:02 What brings a team together9:57 Localization 12:30 Growth with micro-influencer marketing16:39 The campaign that proved a point20:31 Paying micro-influencers22:47 The different uses of micro- vs enterprise-level influencers25:00 Influencer managers28:56 Quality control with influencers 31:21 The future of social influencersQuotes:(5:17-5:29) “The first challenge was you’re going to die unless you do this, this, and this. So we kind of had to come together as a team in the very beginning with a shared sense of, ‘We need to make this [app] happen.’”(26:08-26:15) “It made a lot of sense to us to actually bring influencers to help influencers succeed because they share the same problems.”(31:46-32:08) “For a long time we would have influencers who this was just their side, their job hustle. Now it’s actually their lives. They grew so much. So I think what’s exciting to see is how much more professional this is and how much more we can actually achieve because now we’re getting into campaigns and partnerships with our eyes open.”Mentioned in this Episode:Ludie Veloso’s LinkedIn profileAirBrushMeituPixocial

Eva Juretić is the Growth Marketing Manager for Pocket Worlds, a metaverse mobile game developer company pioneering social-first gaming. Eva is also the Senior UA and Growth Manager of her consulting company, ClickBite Consulting. Previously, she was the lead of the Growth Team at Misplay and a user acquisition specialist at Social Point. Questions Eva Juretić Answered in this Episode:Have you always identified this game as a metaverse platform? Have you seen a rise in user growth that you can correlate to the explosion of “meta” and “metaverse” as a concept?What does it mean to integrate blockchain into High Rise? What’s changing from a consumer perspective?How do you educate your users on NFT, if at all?Will it cost cryptocurrency to acquire an NFT?How do these advancements and changes related to blockchain technologies affect your role and how do you think about driving growth?Timestamp:4:30 Eva’s professional background14:04 About Pocketworlds and social-first gaming16:10 The explosion of “metaverse” in branding17:22 Play and earn: Introducing blockchain technology18:48 Cashing game currency - the first NFT drop21:33 Educating users on NFTs23:00 Buying NFTs with cryptocurrencies24:15 Giving users ownership with blockchain25:22 How will blockchain tech affect how marketers drive growthQuotes:(14:15-14:49) “Pocket Worlds is pioneering in social-first gaming, which means the social part of the game is the core part and the game is built around it. Unlike, for example, if you have an RPG game, they test the idea, the concept, the product; they see it’s working, and then eventually they add some social components like chat or whatever it is. In Pocket Worlds, in High Rise, the main app we’re talking about, this is the core of the game. The game wouldn’t exist without that social component.”(17:59-18:15) “Us entering that space and introducing blockchain technology into everything, it’s not only making the now popular ‘play to earn’ but a ‘play and earn’ concept, and this is what we’re most excited about.”(24:16-24:40) “So we have the economy, but we don’t want to be the owner of that. We want our users to have ownership of whatever property they have. So if you have any items, outfits, rooms, whatever you have in High Rise, like we know that because we have it written in our database. But we really want our users to own it, and a way to do it is translating that on blockchain.”Mentioned in this Episode:Eva Juretić’s LinkedInPocket WorldsHigh RiseHigh Rise Creature Club)

Bryce Boothby is the Director of Global Tech at McDonald’s. He’s responsible for aligning the 150+ markets McDonald’s serves. Previously, Bryce oversaw the growth of McDonald’s digital marketing in the U.S., including its rewards app and mcdonalds.com. Before McDonald’s, he was the Sr. Operational Cost Analyst at Ford. Questions Bryce Answered in this Episode:What piqued your interest in digital marketing when you were at Ford?How challenging was it to evolve McDonald’s digital ecosystem when you first joined the company?Can you tell us about the evolution of the MyMcDonald’s Reward program? What components of your strategy do you think really made a big difference?When you’re doing customer research for a brand of your size, do you have to meet a pretty high minimum threshold of consumers that you’ve engaged with before you can make any sort of determinations, and do you have to do that across multiple geographies?When you ran the test pilots in Phoenix and New England, did you have any unexpected results that drove changes within the loyalty program?What’s next for the mobile loyalty program?Timestamp:2:38 Bryce’s background7:25 Selling McDonald’s on the need for digital10:20 Massive growth of their loyalty rewards app13:10 3 key strategies to growing the app15:35 Innovative integration with Twitter16:35 Audience research at McDonald’s17:37 Surprising results from test pilots19:26 Why the McDonald’s workforce was key21:21 What’s nextQuotes:(11:47-12:04) “Just as a point of reference, granted McDonald’s scale is pretty significant compared to some of our competitors, but we essentially have 21 million members over the course of four months. Starbucks I believe had about 25 million members over the course of seven or eight years.”(16:40-17:03) “I think one of the statistics that really astounded me when I joined McDonald’s is, I think it’s something like 80 or 90 percent of the entire U.S. population visits McDonald’s at least once a year. So if you take that scale, that’s massive. So how do you understand what drives all our different types of customers? What’s compelling to them? Because they all have different need-states, different demographics. So, it is challenging.”(19:59-20:04) “In the world we live in, it’s really about connecting both the digital to the in-person experience.” Mentioned in this Episode:Bryce Boothby’s LinkedInMyMcDonald’s Rewards App

Sarah Polli is the Senior Director of Marketing Technology at Hearts & Science, a global marketing agency. Sarah began her career in digital media 10 years ago at the Washington Post.Questions Sarah Answered in this Episode:What’s it been like to experience the growth at Heart & Science over the last 5-6 years firsthand and what would you attribute it to?What got you into marketing technology and what do you still find interesting about it?Tell us what’s going on with Chrome.When these changes happened with Safari and Mozilla around 2018, did marketers shift their spend to Chrome or have you seen marketers actively working towards solutions since 2018 to present?Was it possible to measure the impact of those campaigns? Or were you using proxies to measure the effectiveness of your campaigns?How do you guide your partners through what’s going to happen? What are smart marketers doing today?What does it mean to be open and agile to you?Timestamp:7:08 Sarah’s background9:36 The growth of Hearts & Science11:30 What keeps MarTech interesting13:09 Changes with Google Chrome15:30 The loss of third-party cookies since 201818:55 First-party data: the new gold19:58 How Hearts & Science is preparing its partners28:11 On being open and agileQuotes:(14:30-14:53) “[Google] Chrome is actively building these APIs and we should start to see them being released toward the end of next year. So really 2023 for advertisers will be the big year of understanding these APIs--what do they look like, what are the ones for targeting, what is for retargeting, what is for measurement, and testing to see what they look like against what it is we have today, and determining how we want to proceed in the future.”(16:46-17:14) “The CPMs for Safari drastically went down. So smart advertisers, and we did this with our clients, you could take what was happening in Chrome, understand your audiences and use that to then go and target Safari by similar audiences, take advantage of that CPM decrease and still reach these users instead of just completely ignoring those people. Similar to what’s happening today with iOS apps and Android.”(19:16-19:24) “It’s really important for brands to focus on the data they collect on their site and on their apps because that is the new gold.”Mentioned in this Episode:Sarah Polli’s LinkedInHearts & ScienceAgents of Change Blog