Apptivate: App Marketing Explained

Lexi Sydow is the Head of Insights for App Annie, a leading platform for app analytics and app market data. She is based in Melbourne, Australia.Questions Lexi Answered in this Episode:What’s the tech scene like in Australia?In your opinion, what do you think makes App Annie stand apart from other data analytics companies?How did the pandemic affect mobile habits?What was surprising or interesting to you about mobile habits during Covid, something you didn’t expect?What does gaming usage look like now that parts of the world are re-emerging after Covid?Have you seen any changes in mobile user behavior that might be correlated to the current news on the Delta variant?Timestamp:4:47 Australia’s tech scene9:42 Lexi’s background12:10 What sets App Annie apart (psst… they’re hiring!)17:32 How the pandemic affected mobile habits20:31 Dating app user behavior during Covid23:37 Mobile gaming user behavior during Covid25:32 The rise of in-app subscriptions25:52 What apps counter-balanced the dip in travel apps28:25 A deeper dive on mobile gaming users and behavior now33:50 Is the Delta variant affecting mobile user behavior?Quotes:(10:50-11:00) “I think with mobile what’s cool is that basically you start to see how the macroeconomy is shifting. Your early indicators are in mobile, so you can see a lot of trends coming up.”(18:57-19:12) “One of the biggest takeaways for me was Covid, at the macro app level, didn’t change anything in terms of how much we rely on mobile and use it. If anything it was sort of the catalyst that pushed our habits further.”(25:36-25:44) “We saw $34 billion dollars in Q2 spent on in-app purchases and in-app subscriptions globally across iOS and GooglePlay.”Mentioned in this Episode:Lexi Sydow’s LinkedInApp AnnieApp Annie CareersNote (min. 8:30) - Warby Parker and Bailey Nelson are two different brands that both sell eyeglasses.

Alicia Horsch, Data Scientist at Social Point, discusses the use of Causal Impact in measuring offline campaigns. She explains how the package works, the importance of control groups, and evaluating prediction accuracy. The podcast also covers the challenges in selecting models and the importance of considering additional information for decision-making.

Janos Perei is the User Acquisition Lead for Casual Gaming at Voodoo, a hyper-casual gaming developer and publisher based in Paris, France. Previous to Voodoo, Janos worked as a mobile marketer at Mercury Black. (P.S. Voodoo is hiring!)Questions Janos Answered in this Episode:What is the general sentiment at Voodoo about Apple’s privacy changes?Tell us about what Voodoo does and its newer casual gaming division.How do you envision Voodoo evolving the types of games it develops and publishes?Why is Voodoo the largest hyper-casual games developer in the world?Talk to me about the role of UA manager within a hyper-casual game studio. What are some of the challenges here that you might not see in other studios?What do you look for when hiring a UA manager or marketer?How have you seen the role of a UA manager change in the time you’ve been in mobile marketing?Timestamp:1:48 Janos’s background5:38 Adapting to Apple’s privacy changes7:42 Voodoo and casual games9:46 Voodoo’s vision for entertaining the world13:25 Managing UA for hyper-casual games15:34 What Voodoo looks for when hiring UA managers and marketers24:45 How the role of UA managers has changed over the yearsQuotes:(6:15-6:31) “Every single big change that destroys the equilibrium only inspires innovation. I think this is something that we’re really interested in seeing, how the industry will evolve [to Apple’s privacy changes] in the next six to 12 months and what will be essential--the new technologies, the new systems that will be able to go forward.”(27:35-27:48) “I think user acquisition five years ago and ten years from now will massively be about experimental testing because this is the one and only way; since the market evolves so fast--you wouldn’t be able to make it otherwise.”Mentioned in this Episode:Janos Perei’s LinkedInVoodoo

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 gaming 12:40 Learnings from internal retargeting operations15:25 Moving to a third party vendor for retargeting18:27 Maximizing the value of your core customers 23:35 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

Grégoire Mercier is the CEO and founder of Addict Mobile, a leading marketing company for mobile apps based in Paris, France with offices in over 20 countries. Grégoire has been in the mobile app industry for 10 years, getting his start at Gameloft and eventually starting his own mobile games studio. Questions Grégoire Answered in this Episode:What enabled you to be able to do marketing for games to broaden your scope to service any vertical?How do you approach creatives across verticals to increase efficiency?Has your team discovered any best practices when it comes to what works with creatives?Do you feel confident in your ability to always drive profitability for your clients?What are you looking forward to this year as it relates to Addict Mobile?Timestamp:1:43 Grégoire’s background7:37 From gaming to all verticals13:24 Unlimited creatives for UA clients19:23 Addict’s “rules” for creative25:30 How Addict guarantees profitability29:45 Expansion in the USQuotes:(10:11-10:45) “Many gaming studios can be good clients for us for one game, but at some point, this game becomes less profitable and then budgets decrease a lot. And, sometimes mobile games studios just die because it’s a very tough market and you can’t only rely on one game. So, they have a very volatile kind of client. Whereas other verticals, like e-commerce companies for example, which is very basic but same for VTC companies, companies like Uber or others, they spend forever until their ad business works.”(13:35-14:18) “Very early in our development we decided to really focus on [creatives], managing all the production of creatives internally, giving them for free to our clients so they don’t pay for it when we do user acquisition for them. And we are open to do an unlimited number of creatives for them all along the projects for free. We decided to do it very early at the very beginning of the company because for me it was of use--without it can’t do good UA. So if we don’t do good UA for clients, if the apps are not profitable because our clients don’t have the capacity to make enough creatives, the campaigns will just not work, and then we won’t be profitable, and then we just won’t scale, and at the end of the day, the clients just leave.”Mentioned in this Episode:Grégoire Mercier’s LinkedInAddict Mobile

Today’s guest is Georgiana Ciobotaru, the Associate Director of Product at the meal-kit company HelloFresh. She started as an operations analyst and moved into product management before joining the digital product team at HelloFresh. Questions Georgiana Answered in this Episode:Can you speak a little bit about the lateral moves in your career and how that’s helped you to progress?What recommendations would you give to our listeners who are trying in advance in their careers but don’t necessarily have an available opportunity?How do you decipher what you can take on and what you can’t at work? How do you find that balance and how do you know when it’s okay to say “no”?Can you walk us through your day and share what habits help you be successful?As a manager, how do you help others develop their careers? How do you manage delegating tasks?What’s the best piece of career advice you’ve received?What advice would you give to coworkers who feel less represented at a company to feel more confident in speaking up?Timestamp:1:40 Georgie’s background5:04 Making lateral progress11:41 When considering a new opportunity15:35 Georgie’s success-forming habits20:43 Managing junior teammates25:24 Different types of decisions30:35 Speaking upQuotes:(12:23-12:41) “What I’ve realized across the years that excites me the most is definitely to have a great challenge, something that’s hard to solve. But also, something that I’m going to be able to learn from and to do it together with a team that I know cares about it as well.”(21:35-21:45) “For the person reporting to me, I think it was very important for us to make sure we had a plan. So I tend to say, ‘Love the planning, not the plan.’”Mentioned in this Episode:Georgiana Ciobotaru’s LinkedInHelloFreshEducated: A Memoir by Tara Westover (Book)How I Built This (Podcast): https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this?t=1624260883464

Fiona Lauredi is the Lead User Acquisition Manager at Gameloft, an established and leading mobile video games developer worldwide. She is based in Paris.Questions Fiona Answered in this Episode:What’s the biggest takeaway that you’ve gained in your experience working across gaming genres?What have you learned to put less emphasis on in your role as a performance marketer and what are the things you place the most emphasis on to strive towards the Pareto Rule?Was it a big learning curve for your team to adopt the Pareto Rule?What’s the process of how you determine a concept for a particular creative?What have the results been from executing this kind of a strategy? Have you found that you drive better performance for your titles?Timestamp:3:08 Fiona’s background8:29 Biggest learning for marketing across gaming genres10:06 Applying and adopting the Pareto Rule in performance marketing16:09 Benchmark! Benchmark! Benchmark!18:30 The results Fiona’s seen from her teamQuotes:(8:58-9:25) “One of the big things I’ve learned and taken away with me is Pareto Rule. So for everyone that is not familiar with that rule, it’s essentially saying that 20% of your actions will make 80% of the value. It’s cutting down on a lot of things that aren’t value based, you stop doing these things. It doesn’t matter that you’re 100% perfect. It matters that you can do 5 times as many things as what you could do before.”(10:20-10:43) “My belief is that the human race is not intelligent enough that you can make decisions on more than two metrics, three at most. If you look at more things than this, you’re probably not going to be making any decision at all. So I would say that one thing that can be used anywhere is looking at a lot less metrics but the ones that count.”(19:03-19:27) “In my opinion, creatives are 50-60% of our performance, and I’m talking hardcore data, ROAS, scale, all that--it’s all for me on creatives. So obviously, being able to produce more, to produce better, to produce smarter, and to have more people involved in this process has definitely shown results on the bottom line.” Mentioned in this Episode:Fiona Lauredi - LinkedInGameloft

Stephen Siegel is a User Acquisition Manager at Scopely, an interactive entertainment company and a leading mobile games publisher. He cut his teeth in the mobile gaming sphere at Machine Zone and hails from a background in math and economics. Questions Stephen Answered in this Episode:You’ve been in the mobile gaming space for 4 years, how many different platforms and networks do you think you’ve tested in your career? And how often does someone reach out to you to pitch a new product?Where do you spend the majority of your time as a UA manager?Is there anything that really interests you about retargeting or that you find fascinating about these campaigns? What are some of the most successful ways that you’ve found to message users when it comes to retargeting?Most people that come to us in the mobile gaming industry want to retarget churned users. Would you say that’s the most predominant form of retargeting in the industry or do you see other game studios or yourself testing additional audiences outside of the lapsed players?  How do you see game studios effectively retargeting churned users from a messaging perspective?Do you have any experience or have you heard of studios leveraging promos to drive engagement?Why do you think having a retargeting strategy is not yet ubiquitous among performance marketers or gaming studios? Do you think that the industry is doing a good enough job of leveraging incrementality for acquisition campaigns as well? How is retargeting being affected by what’s happening with iOS14.5 and the ATT prompt? Have you heard of any solutions that will allow you to keep retargeting or are you exploring them?Timestamp:4:06 Stephen’s background & current professional focus7:58 Retargeting messaging - knowing your audience10:18 Figuring out why users lapse12:00 Using promos in retargeting14:40 Industry barriers to owning retargeting strategies17:16 Leveraging incrementality in acquisition campaigns19:30 Solutions to retargeting on iOSQuotes:(7:33-7:50) “With new UA, you don’t have quite the same ability to meet users where they’re at. And then with retargeting, you know so much about these users and about their past behavior, so we have more opportunity to message them in ways that we think will be more successful.”(19:34-20:10) “I think it’s going to get harder to retarget on iOS; that you’re going to lose IDFA access to some percentage of users, which will be some percentage of the audience that you want to retarget. You also need the opt-in on the publisher side, which you have no control over. So, it’s an uphill battle but it’s not going to eliminate retargeting on iOS entirely. It’s a run-what-you-can and then try to find creative ways to continue to reach users you can’t retarget through the traditional IDFA method.” Mentioned in this Episode:Stephen Siegel - LinkedinScopely

Jean-François is the co-founder of Purchasely, a company based in Paris that helps apps grow their revenues by streamlining In-App Purchase integration. He is also the CEO and founder of 2 App à Z, a consulting firm specialized on mobile technologies. Jean-François was one of the first 500 developers of the iPhone developer beta program. He’s helped many companies build their first apps, and in 2020 was awarded the worldwide App of the Year.Questions Jean-François Answered in this Episode:Is there a product that you’re most proud of having played a role in developing?What does Purchasely do and why did you start the company?As a developer, when you’re trying to build out the in-app purchases that are involved with an app, how much time does that process take up?Is this a problem that most startups see or does this solve problems for apps of any size?Are you seeing more apps shift to subscriptions? And if so, what kind of apps are you seeing make this move?How does that impact the overall app economy if everything shifts to subscriptions? What might be the limit to how many apps consumers would be willing to subscribe to?Timestamp:2:57 Jean-François’s background6:07 What is Purchasely and why was it created8:12 Why in-app purchases are a pain in the apps10:42 The movement from advertising to subscriptions15:44 Who is shifting to subscriptions and why19:42 Is there a consumer threshold for subscriptions vs adsQuotes:(10:42-10:57) “The world is moving very fast on subscription. Two years ago, the advertising was so high, very few people were considering subscriptions. But, as you’ve seen, there is a drop in the volume and value of advertising. There is also the ATT that is coming in. So, the world of advertising is in trouble right now.”(17:25-17:38) “We had a lot of apps that were ads-oriented and that were playing on the frustration of the users to get money. But the game of subscription is very different. The game of subscription is more a seduction than a frustration.”Mentioned in this Episode:PurchaselyJean-François Grang - LinkedInTwitter - @purchaselycom

Taylor Gobar is the Head of Growth at Bloom. Bloom is an app that provides you with tools to help you experience better sleep, reduced stress levels and a more relaxed lifestyle with our guided meditations, relaxing music, activities and mindful experiences.Questions Taylor Answered in this Episode:Was there something inside of you that made you want to move more in the direction of healthcare and wellness?Do you find that because Bloom is a company focused on mental health that wellness permeates the environment or there is greater awareness of it in general?What is the central goal and mission of Bloom?How does cognitive behavioral therapy manifest in the app?How has the app world changed our awareness of mental health in your opinion?What are some measures organizations can take to elevate the diversity of their brands?How do you create repetition of behavior and engagement with a product like yours when the cost is low?What is the evolution here and how do we improve?Timestamp:2:13 Taylor’s background5:35 Mission-driven, wellness work culture9:48 Bloom’s central goal14:07 Cognitive behavioral therapy17:30 Accessing healthcare and wellness via apps20:05 Injustices in accessing healthcare in the U.S. today23:33 Steps to greater equity in the workforce28:02 Engaging users33:00 The evolution of mental health contentQuotes:(9:22-9:27) “The cultural piece is not just who do I want to grab a beer with, it’s who do I want to save the world with.”(20:03-20:25) “Access in this country is first and foremost dictated by your financial situation, and in that sense I think the apps create more access. The price point is lower and it is not tied to things like your insured status or your employment status. In the United States, your chance of accessing any healthcare when you’re not employed is really rough. Mentioned in this Episode:Taylor GobarBloomBook: Utopia for Realist by Rutger BregmanInstagram @enjoybloom