Apptivate: App Marketing Explained

Alexandra Kleemann is the Head of Marketing at Shpock, an online marketplace for second-hand goods. She is based in Vienna, Austria. Questions Alexandra Answered in this Episode:What was the single greatest challenge of learning performance marketing from the ground up?What sets Shpock apart from other online marketplaces?How do you keep the original sense of community now that you’re a nationwide app? How did adding a delivery feature affect your position as Head of Marketing? How did you adapt to the challenges that coronavirus presented to your app? Where did you deliver your messages around coronavirus and changes to the app? What was the tipping point in which Shpock decided it wasn’t safe for users to be using the app to meet up? Would you have done anything differently?Timestamp:3:30 Alexandra’s start at Shpock4:50 Single greatest challenge diving into mobile app performance marketing6:55 What sets Shpock apart8:27 Evolution of being a local marketplace to nationwide12:45 The risks and opportunities that came with coronavirus 18:58 Communicating big changes with users 23:30 Uplift here to stayQuotes:(16:49-17:16) “It was really successful. We saw a very good uplift in numbers. We even saw a journalist reaching out to us why we did it because they had seen our messages and they had realized that this was a big risk for us. And it actually turned out really well because I think users understand that at this point we weren’t looking out for business, we were actually looking out to make sure it was a safe experience. And I think that was really well received.”(17:39-17:52) “After all the theoretical discussions that we had around ‘we are becoming the U.K’s must trust marketplace, how do we convince our users of that?’--this was the perfect opportunity to prove it, I would say.”(19:18-19:32) “We even implemented new touchpoints within the product because one of the learnings that we had was that, even if you use lots of touchpoints already, there’s still people who are going to miss out on the message because users don’t always read what you send them.”Mentioned in this Episode:Alexandra Kleemann’s LinkedInShpock

Coming back to the Apptivate Podcast is Christian Eckhardt, the CEO and co-founder of Customlytics. Customlytics provides app marketing, analytics, and technology infrastructure consulting and hands-on help.Questions Christian Answered in this Episode:Any particular reason why you think Customlytics was able to be successful during the pandemic?What’s been top of mind for you as a mobile marketer in this space since the last time we talked?What’s the mobile marketer’s role to effectively leverage DPA to impact their growth initiatives?Have you found that most of your app partners are technically set up to execute DPA?When you think of groundbreaking creatives and ads, what does that process look like for you?What are your thoughts on how Apple’s IDFA announcement will change mobile marketing?Timestamp:2:15 Resilience during the Covid-19 pandemic5:43 Rise in the number of Dynamic Product Ads (DPA)8:15 The mobile marketer’s new role in the era of automation12:26 Barriers to building the technical infrastructure needed for DPAs14:47 The value of DPA and the alternative17:15 The gold rule to creative success22:40 Thoughts on Apple’s IDFA announcementQuotes:(8:43-9:01) “I think that other stuff will essentially be two main categories of tasks that are left, if you want to put it like this, for the human being. Number one is something that is essentially the oxygen for the machine to then really run with the data, and that is the technical infrastructure.”(18:00-18:26) “The golden rule is always that small iterations is what you want to do once you’ve found a new concept that works, then you want to iterate that to the point where they’re even better. Then at some point, you want to throw it away again to start with something new. But, it’s definitely not the road to creative success to never start over again and just make endless incremental changes on the tiny, tiny bits and pieces.” Mentioned in this Episode:Ep25 Setting Up Your Marketing Tech - Christian Eckhardt (Customlytics)Christian Eckhardt’s LinkedInCustomlytics

Michael Jessen is the Senior User Acquisition Specialist at Socialpoint, a world-renowned mobile gaming developer and publisher. Michael is currently based in Barcelona, Spain. Questions Michael Answered in this Episode:What would you attribute the success of Socialpoint to?What was your approach to acquisition during coronavirus? How were you able to continue with success despite everything happening in the world?Did particular sources in your UA programs provide more incremental scale than others during this time?What are some of the things you look for when you’re exploring programmatic traffic as a source?How did you change your creative strategy during coronavirus?When selecting the content for your playables, are you generally using content that’s earlier stage funnel in the game or later stage funnel?Timestamp:5:56 Socialpoint’s success8:43 Uplift during coronavirus14:40 Testing new playables during coronavirus17:32 Choosing content for playables23:19 Reasons for building playables in-houseQuotes:(8:58-9:11) “Before the official lockdown in the U.S., we already had some uplift in terms of performance, working very closely with product, like more than ever before. But the thing was basically the whole performance kept on rising. So we’re like, ‘Okay, let’s ride this wave and keep on pushing.’”(16:46-16:56) “If you create a concept video and a concept playable, and especially if it’s aligned with the landing page and the app store, the conversion is the best.”Mentioned in this Episode:Michael Jessen’s LinkedInSocialpoint

Meet Daniel Lopez, Director of Mobile Growth at Electronic Arts (EA), the second-largest gaming company in the Americas and Europe by revenue. Daniel got his start in mobile marketing at Machine Zone and has since worked at DraftKings and GSN Games. Questions Daniel Answered in this Episode:During your time at Machine Zone, what do you think made you effective?What are mobile marketers overlooking? Oversaturation of consumers: Are you more concerned about it from a cost perspective or user experience? Is there value in saturating a market to develop the brand and be top-of-mind to consumers? Have we overvalued Facebook and Google as sources to drive growth? Why do you think MMPs haven’t built a way for marketers to track impressions and clicks across multiple vendors? What are you looking forward to or unsure of in regards to the future of mobile marketing?Timestamp:3:10 What made Machine Zone team very effective.4:15 From customer support role to marketing.10:18 What mobile marketers are overlooking.12:09 Why managing towards a unique, incremental device universe matters.16:02 When mass marketing and saturating the market is useful.19:11 Open exchanges.20:00 What is Facebook good for? 21:35 Incrementality measurement.24:30 IDFA as an opportunity to develop more robust measurements.27:05 EA Future and open Positions.Quotes:(10:18-11:07) “I honestly think there’s not enough attention being paid to drivers of unique traffic and managing towards a unique, incremental device universe as opposed to just managing sources, channels, AT apps, and things of that nature. Because the nature of our business is that we need to identify an audience and then we need to figure out how to get to that audience. And then once we actually figure that out, then we try to scale. And then once we start scaling, we start dealing with this thing called saturation. And we start dealing with losses of incrementality, losses of effectiveness, and whatnot. And I think there’s not enough being done within the industry to challenge the lack of transparency on, let’s just single out, impressions counts.”(25:32-15:58) “The thing that I am most concerned about is--it also goes back to the death of the idea phase--is that that just pushes power more and more into the hands of the big companies, to where it’s going to be like, “Hey, they have all the data. Let’s allow them to do everything.” And then that just kills the spirit of the problem-solving attitude because then everyone can just blame the algo[rithm]. And that’s something that maddens me to no end.”Mentioned in this Episode:Daniel Lopez’s LinkedInElectronic Arts

Luis de la Cámara is the Chief Marketing Officer for Genera Games, a leading developer in mobile games for iOS and Android. Luis previously worked for other gaming companies, such as Outplay Entertainment, King, Gameloft, and 2K.Questions Luis Answered in this Episode:Are your soft launches strong determinants of how successful your games are going to be worldwide?What do you focus on as CMO?Can you tell us your thoughts on alignment between product and marketing teams?What’s your opinion on broader marketing where KPIs can’t be as easily tracked?Timestamp:13:10 Genera Games’ focus & Tuscany Villa15:24 Soft launches for testing retention19:56 What Luis focuses on most as CMO25:37 Value in the long-game of brand marketing30:20 Working at Candy Crush: maintaining a serviceQuotes:(21:35-22:14) “That’s one of my focuses from the very beginning is to tear down those walls. Make sure that everyone’s fully aligned. That we all have the same overall objective. Now, we can then break those down into smaller pieces and then things that are more manageable for a specific team. That’s really important. And then also understand that coordination doesn’t only come from a senior level. I think that at every level in the company there needs to be that bridge between the different teams: product, marketing, analytics, finance, art, HR. I think everyone needs to be continuously always working together as much as possible. Everyone’s got their areas of influence but everyone needs to understand everyone else’s area as well.”(30:58-31:01) “I think that’s the main mentality that people need to have, is that you’re not building a product, you’re building a service”Mentioned in this Episode:Luis de la Cámara - LinkedInGenera GamesTuscany Villa

Meet Erik Hegely, Head of Growth Marketing at Pixel Federation, a mobile gaming developer from Slovakia. Pixel Federation does simulation, puzzle, and RPG mobile app games. Questions Erik Answered in this Episode:How do you go about developing a creative strategy for each of these titles? How do you understand what will motivate a user or what creative will resonate the most for a particular game? What do you do with the information you get from the third-party userbase survey?What makes optimizing the onboarding or game start challenging?How long have you been doing the in-app survey technique and why did you start doing it?Timestamp:6:13 Developing a creative strategy for each game9:37 Learning what motivates a user in a game13:34 The catalyst for utilizing in-app surveys15:10 The importance of consistency in user flowQuotes:(7:25-7:33) “We certainly took it to the next level after running a psychological survey with our user base and understanding really, truly what motivates them to play.”(18:41-18:47) “It makes you work at your game as a service. You don’t just play the game for a while. You play the game for years.”Mentioned in this Episode:Erik Hegely’s LinkedInPixel Federation

Adam Lovallo is co-founder of Grow.co, the MAU Vegas Conference, and Thesis, a conversion rate optimization company. He got his start at growth marketing at Living Social. Questions Adam Lovallo Answered in this Episode:What was the greatest experience you took away in growth marketing and acquisition from Living Social?How much are you curating the topics and speakers at MAU? And, how do you go about balancing the topics?What do you think might change in the next few years as it relates to creatives?Can you tell us about what you do at Thesis? What does conversion rate optimization look like as a business?Do you see the subject of incrementality becoming a bigger focus for us?Timestamp:4:42 Understanding payback periods10:48 On curating MAU’s topics13:48 Why the mobile app industry is hot on creative15:50 Performance creative agencies19:24 What is Thesis20:16 Conversion rate optimization as a business21:52 Pulse on incrementality in the industryQuotes:(13:48) “You see more discussion around creative. That’s a big variable. It’s a big driver. Probably the most important point of leverage these days.”(15:50-16:03) “I think the big trend has started to touch the mobile app ecosystem, but really hasn’t yet, but is full bore in the direct-to-consumer e-commerce ecosystem, is performance creative agencies.”Mentioned in this Episode:Adam Lovallo’s LinkedInGrow.coMAU ConferenceThesis

Andy Carvell is the partner and co-founder of Phiture and editor of Mobile Growth Stack, Phiture’s blog. Phiture is a mobile growth consultancy based in Berlin, helping B2C app publishers tackle their key growth challenges. Previous to Phiture, Andy joined Sound Cloud as a mobile marketer, helping the company transition from being a web-first product to a mobile-first product.Questions Andy Carvell Answered in this Episode:Is there a specific component of mobile app growth that you feel Phiture nails?What are app marketers overlooking the most when it comes to retention and re-engagement?What is a framework for marketers to do in-app messaging better and measure the results?How do you prevent overloading a user with in-app messaging?Do you have baselines for incremental conversation rates?Timestamp:4:47 Phiture’s specialization8:07 In-app messaging is overlooked9:54 Measuring impact of in-app messaging17:05 Untapped potential of in-app messaging for surveying users20:58 How not to overdo it with in-app messaging26:00 “Scale, iterate, or kill”Quotes:(12:56-13:14) “I think some product teams are a bit scared of tapping into the potential of in-app messaging because they are so kind of intrusive, basically. You need to deploy them with care and make sure you’re not overusing them because you’re overriding the user’s normal interaction with the app. Now, that can be very powerful as well. You can direct them to features they’ve never seen before.”(26:01-26:18) “This is the decision which I’ve written about that I call ‘scale, iterate, or kill.’ It’s like this is the one decision in which a growth marketer and a growth marketing team need to make very regularly; and they’ll only get better at it by making that decision many times, sometimes getting it wrong.”Mentioned in this Episode:Andy Carvell’s LinkedInPhitureMobilegrowthstack.comMobile Growth Nightmares Podcast with Andy Carvell and Gessica BicegoASO ConferenceAdvanced Guide to App Store OptimizationApptivate Episode #35 - Gessica Bicego (Blinkist)Apptivate Episode #46 - Peggy Anne Salz (Mobile Groove)Apptivate Episode #38 - Warren Woodward (Upptic)

Mariano Sáenz is the co-founder and CEO of Winclap, a marketing platform providing media services and building mobile marketing tech solutions. Winclap helps its clients grow their businesses by running user acquisition, retargeting, and re-engagement campaigns across multiple channels, with a focus on visualization, AI engines, and capacity building.Questions Mariano Sáenz Answered in this Episode:Tell us the story of Winclap. What are your core competencies?Is there anything you would have done differently when you started your company?What are some of the advantages of being a business based in Argentina?In your opinion, what are some of the strengths and challenges of Latin American mobile marketers?What does the future hold for Winclap?Timestamp:6:57 What is Winclap?8:57 Why Winclap added media services on top of building tech12:26 What Mariano would have done differently starting his company16:05 Argentina: Access to amazing, passionate talent & business opportunities18:35 Strengths: Adaptability to crisis; sophisticated ability to localize21:25 Weaknesses: Lack of access to international industry conversations in real-time24:40 What’s on the horizon for WinclapQuotes:(12:59-13:17) “Focusing on what’s important is the main lesson we learned. Focusing on what our clients really, really, really need and having that obsession to solve real problems. I think we’re working nowadays with that way of thinking but it was not always this way in the past.”(20:09-20:58) “Adapting to the information. Adapting in general. We are super dynamic. We are super used to crisis, like we have a crisis here every 5-10 years. So we are always adapting. Actually, for example, I always hear from U.S. advisors, not only U.S. but advisors in general, is ‘failing fast.’ Here in Argentina, we’re very used to failing. And actually, we never fail 100%; we’re always putting another effort to stay alive. I think that ability to always try to stay alive--it’s amazing. And that happens because, since we were born, we’re always living in economic crisis and fighting against the ecosystem, and I think that builds a really tough personality. We’re really able to survive for the long run.”Mentioned in this Episode:WinclapMariano Sáenz’s LinkedInBlitzscaling - book

Amanda Lulewicz is the director of product marketing for Crowdstar at Glu Mobile, a leader in 3D freemium mobile gaming. Amanda works with the game Covet Fashion. She came to mobile marketing from a background in fashion public relations. Questions Amanda Lulewicz Answered in this Episode:How do you interact with your consumer base to empower the decisions you make in your marketing initiatives?How do you communicate with the users who are not a part of the ambassador program?What’s been the empirical result on your growth and retention from proactively communicating with your users?How do you leverage the feedback you get from your ambassador program in your marketing?What’s your process for sharing feedback with the product team?How do you focus your time?What’s the main reason people churn from your app?Timestamp:5:40 Crowdstar’s history and relationship to Glu9:15 The feature flop that got Glu talking directly to its consumers12:45 Glu’s channels for communicating with users14:56 Impact on retention17:13 Getting called out on ads by game ambassadors23:27 Releasing 6-7 new pieces of content every day25:36 Celebrating Covet Fashion’s 7th anniversaryQuotes:(7:00-7:20) “Women often don’t like to take time for themselves. They feel guilty if they’re just kind of off, maybe just playing a game, just doing something purely to relax and enjoy themselves. And they wanted something that actually tied back into their real life. They wanted to feel like they were learning something, like they were accomplishing something. So Covet Fashion was kind of born to meet that need.”(13:03-13:20) “We realized we needed to be a lot more transparent with our community about the updates we were making, why we made the decisions we made; if something was going wrong in the game, explaining what was going on. And from there, we kind of lifted the veil of this cold, hard tech company and actually showed them who we were as people.” Mentioned in this Episode:Amanda Lulewicz’s LinkedInGlu mobileCovet Fashion