Apptivate: App Marketing Explained

Wout Laban is the senior manager of customer success for Leanplum. Leanplum helps mobile teams orchestrate multi-channel campaigns, from messaging to the in-app experience, all from a single mobile marketing platform.Questions Wout Laban Answered in this Episode:What are some of the most fundamental things a mobile marketer should know about A/B testing, and how do I apply that?What is the difference between optimization and experimentation? What changes in optimization are worthwhile?How does an increase in advertising spend or world events affect A/B testing? What does perfect A/B testing look like for a brand?What’s a typical challenge you see brands face when starting out with A/B testing?Timestamp:8:22 The fundamentals of A/B testing9:08 Experimentation vs optimization 10:00 Optimization that works across industries12:20 Defining success metric criteria for testing16:17 Setting up to excel at A/B testing18:37 Onboarding and conversion Quotes:(8:22-8:42) “It starts and ends with having a very structured strategy or process towards testing. There are so many things that can influence a test that you really want to make sure that you’re setting up a controlled environment that allows you to look at the data correctly and make decisions based on that. Because that’s essentially what you’re doing, right? You’re running an ‘A’ versus a ‘B’ and at the end, you want to make a decision.”(9:13-9:44) “So experimentation or an experiment is really something that’s totally new out-of-the-box that’s like, ‘Hey, what if we did this in a totally different way?’ And that can be part of the user journey and how you engage with the user. It can be in the user acquisition and how do we reel users in. Optimization is really where we bring out the small, little tweaks, like flipping out a word or flipping out a small part of the image or making the gradient tone a little bit stronger. Is this going to help us further optimize a strategy that’s already working? So, experimentation is finding a strategy, optimization is optimizing the strategy.”Mentioned in this Episode:Wout Laban - LinkedInLeanplum

Peggy Anne Salz is the lead analyst and founder of MobileGroove, a resource for mobile marketing content, analysis, and research. She is also a senior contributor to Forbes Magazine, the chief content officer for the mobile marketing association in Germany, and a co-host of the Mobile Presence Podcast.Questions Peggy Anne Salz Answered in this Episode:How does a brand show that it cares today?How has retention changed over the years? Can you talk about the engagement pyramid framework and how marketers actualize it to improve retention?Where can people learn more about engagement marketing and retention?Timestamp:7:51 How brands can show that they care in these times9:53  How retention has changed in the mobile industry13:46 The “engagement pyramid” framework in mobile marketing17:34 Picking up the signals to actualize the framework21:43 Evolving with our audiences today23:54 Knowing when to let go28:20 Where to learn more about retention and engagement marketingQuotes:(7:27-7:43) “Now we talk about brand love. We talk openly about these concepts. You have to show you care, particularly in these times. A brand that doesn’t show it cares right now is not going to be relevant when this all passes. People will remember who cared, who showed it, and how much.”(12:49-13:`16) “We’ve evolved in marketing. And the next step, I think, is to master the mid-funnel and the deep-funnel. We’ve nailed top-of-funnel. That’s not a problem. That’s why marketers are amazingly data-driven and accomplished. But the next step will be figuring out that journey and, above all, making it specific to individuals--or individualization, not even personalization, but really getting deep into the metrics and really getting deep into the segmentation.” Mentioned in this Episode:Peggy Anne Salz - LinkedInMobileGrooveMobile Presence PodcastPhitureCleverTap 

Antoine Lamy is the co-founder of Raive, an online donation platform working with influencers and artisans to help charities raise money. Prior to launching Raive, Antoine was a senior performance marketing manager for Uber. He’s also worked for BlaBlaCar and Addict Mobile.Questions Antoine Answered in this Episode:What is the mobile marketing community like in France?How many channels were you managing in a given month at Uber?How did you measure incrementality on a channel like Facebook?Timestamp:1:40 France’s mobile marketing scene5:12 Testing 20+ channels at Uber11:11 Moving from paid ads agencies to programmatic in-house14:15 Measuring incrementality with Facebook23:00 The creation of RaiveQuotes:(20:17-20:33) “The first thing we did at Uber, we were the first to do it, was to look at incrementality for acquisition, specifically. That’s where it’s really difficult because how can you look at a control treatment method when you don’t know the users.”Mentioned in this Episode:Antoine Lamy - LinkedInRaiveUberAddict MobileBlaBlaCar

Welcome Andrey Kuznetsov, the CEO of KamaGames, a social casino game app that claims to be number one in the world by revenue and downloads for roulette, blackjack, Omaha poker, and craps. Questions Andrey Kuznetsov Answered in this Episode:What kind of games do you develop and what releases should people know about?What influenced KamaGames in 2012 to create games outside of social casino?What are the benefits and challenges of using IP like Hard Rock?As a CEO, what is your perspective of what effective marketing is for a social casino? What creates effective retargeting?What kind of changes do you think we can expect to see in the social casino space in the next few years?Timestamp:6:22 Investing in Dublin as a headquarters11:39 The games KamaGames develop17:25 Lessons from growing a mobile gaming business19:30 Benefits and challenges of working with IPs24:48 Effective marketing for a social casino27:40 Retargeting by the numbers33:00 Changes to come for mobile gamesQuotes:Number one quality a CEO needs to have to run a social casino app?(10:40-11:03) “I would say that you need to be able to work with all sorts of people, all types of people. And, you need to mediate them, balance them, look for proper people to join the team, sometimes make hard decisions when you need to split ways with somebody. So I would say number one thing would be working with people. That’s how I see it.” What kind of changes do you think we can expect to see in the social casino space in the next few years? (33:00-33:48) “I would say, number one thing, and it sounds like a cliche but that’s inevitable, we will see more consolidation in the space, and this is actually in both social casino and casual games. Then I would say to be successful, down the line there should be more than one game offered to a player to keep this player and to monetize the business efficiently. So I would say companies will expand their offering, one or another way by developing, partnering with somebody, but just introducing more new products within this genre.”Mentioned in this Episode:Andrey Kuznetsov - LinkedInKamaGamesTexas Poker Pokerist3D Blackjack

Jim Calhoun is the CEO of Nectar 9, a company developing, selling and licensing SaaS software that combines advanced machine intelligence, automation, and human creativity to drive meaningful marketing outcomes in today’s social media environment. Nectar9 makes AI accessible and easy for marketing companies to leverage.Questions Jim Answered in this Episode:How does someone leverage AI and how does it improve their marketing stack?Why has AI been slow to adopt? What have you observed about AI’s adoption over the past 2-5 years?How do you make AI technologies that make marketers feel comfortable with the lack of control they have?How do marketers go about adopting this technology?How are data points, like clicks, lacking for AI? Or, how will the progression of data help AI in the next few years?Timestamp:6:35 Who and how Nectar9 works with customers9:15 The false fear of AI11:24 Less availability of targeting info will make AI more attractive13:29 The “Alexa” for marketers15:52 The flow of the paradigm shift for adopting AI16:50 Data outlook is choppy23:00 Marketing departments will be configured differently for tomorrowQuotes:(9:37-10:04) “I think there’s some resistance, really natural resistance, for people feeling like, ‘Well this will just take over my job.’ And we get around that, because really what it takes over is kind of the fiddly bits and the math and that stuff that really humans aren’t super well suited towards. Whereas it frees people up, who are taking advantage of it, to think more about strategy, about more creative, about different things to test.” (10:05-10:23) “You go from a situation where you’re maybe doing a dozen or a half dozen sort of experiments at any given time, where we’ve got customers who are running tens of thousands of experiments constantly learning, just feeding lots of creative, feeding the strategy, observing what’s coming out of the system.”Mentioned in this Episode:Nectar9Jim Calhoun - LinkedInLean AI by Lomit PatelApptivate Podcast: “Integrating AI & Machine Learning - Lomit Patel (IMVU)”

Questions Itay Answered in this Episode:Do you think the industry is doing a good job as far as partnerships or is there something we could be doing better?Do prevailing trends in the industry tend to influence the partnerships you focus on?How do you or AppsFlyer approach fraud?Does the index influence your perspective on partnerships?What response do you get from vendors when the index releases?Looking into the future, what kind of role with partnerships play in the mobile marketing ecosystem?Timestamp:5:00 The size and value of AppsFlyer8:13 Mobile industry partnerships11:58 Changes in industry trends14:00 The performance index: holy grail for partners17:20 AppsFlyer Partner Academy21:26 Influencing factors on the index for vendors25:48 The growing importance of partnershipsQuotes:(8:25-9:14) “Something that’s missing in our space specifically, maybe in the SaaS environment more specifically, to be honest, is collaboration between sales teams. I think when you look internally at a company, sales teams could connect to a partnership team or a product team or the CS team, whatever it is, but if you combine two sales teams from different partners or different ecosystems even, they rarely know how to talk to each other. They know how to maybe assist each other with different accounts, but actually co-pitching together or selling products together--that’s a big pain. That’s what I’ve seen personally as a big pain point. So I think we should probably do a better job of educating teams on how products can talk, products align, and how we can co-pitch together. That’s the ideal story from my perspective at least.”(27:06-27:18) “I think clients these days need, more than ever, really good, valuable advocates and strong partnerships that actually meet the shared customer needs during this time.”Mentioned in this Episode:Itay Vilenchuk - LinkedIn AppsFlyerAppsFlyer performance index

Meet David Llewellyn, the marketing director of EMEA at AppsFlyer. AppsFlyer is a leader in mobile advertising attribution and marketing analytics offering people-based attribution solutions. Questions David Answered in this Episode:What is AppsFlyer doing in regards to cross-screen attribution and why is it important to marketers? Is the comprehensive user journey one of the principal challenges with cross-device attribution? What can advertisers do to get closer to people-based attribution? Where do you suggest people go to learn more about people-based attribution?Timestamp:10:05 Today’s people-based attribution landscape12:25 The user journey perspective on cross-device16:54 Lose the retargeting spam19:00 Avoiding brand fatigue20:00 Paying attention to assist channels21:40 Cross-device: the new “teenage sex” 27:28 Tip: Get the user to log-inQuotes:(13:47-14:05) “I think everyone is kind of waking up, and hopefully is waking up to the fact that users want to interact however they want to interact with it. They probably want to get all the different services you’ve got on all the different devices, which isn’t always possible, technically, and that’s a challenge. But ultimately, they don’t really care about your conversion rates and stuff like that. They want to be able to use it just however they use it.”(22:27-22:40) “Pick one or two things that are genuine pain points for you and for your customers and see how the technologies consult those. And then build your confidence from there. Don’t try and build utopia straightaway, particularly not with technology that is evolving and iterating all the time.”Mentioned in this Episode:David Llewellyn - LinkedInAppsFlyer

Shay Yosifon is the vice president of marketing at Beach Bum Games, which focuses on bringing evergreen card and board games to mobile.Questions Shay Answered in this Episode:How does working with games people are already familiar with affect your need for interactive game-play creative?How do you measure performance? Is D7 your “true north”?When you’re doing your retroactive analysis, do vendors that weren’t hitting your D7 goals actually become really valuable for you?What are some other benchmarks that you’ve found valuable?How are you adapting your performance marketing strategy on platforms, like Google and Facebook, that are integrating more automation?What is your iterative process for developing creative?Timestamp:4:04 Creative strategy for nostalgic games6:45 ROAS curves for different channels11:57 Determining ROAS with a retroactive perspective15:23 Benchmarks outside D7 that matter20:17 How automation opens doors for the creative marketer22:51 Investing in the creative processQuotes:(7:59-8:34) “Not all channels are created equally. And we do see, especially today, that we’ve seen on one hand a lot of consolidation of traffic sources, but on the other hand, you can’t say that your audio campaign should be measured the same way as your influencer campaign, the same way as your rewarded video campaign, the same way as your facebook campaign.”(28:45-29:00) “Even within creative, it’s always making sure you’re taking a long view approach on things, but also to make sure that you’re not only looking at your early set KPIs but think about other KPIs that might have an effect on it.”Mentioned in this Episode:Shay Yosifon LinkedInBeach Bum Games

Tommaso Scazzocchio is a team leader for user acquisition at Freeletics. Freeltics is a subscription training app that creates custom workout plans based on user feedback on the exercises.  Questions Tommaso Answered in this Episode:Do you find it challenging to market a fitness product in such a highly competitive space? How do you break through that noise and make Freeletics stand out?What is the importance of working with your product team? And how do you go about working together?How have you improved collaboration between your performance marketing and product teams? How do you better understand your product team and why they make the decisions they do? How do you foster trust between teams?How does customer feedback inform marketing and product teams? What’s happening this year at Freeletics that you’re excited about?Timestamp:8:25 Finding the sweet spot in your competitive market to stand out 11:16 When performance marketing and product team goals are not aligned16:28 4 tips on building a multi-department taskforce 19:58 Educating each other during taskforce meetings23:42 Peer research, survey, data, and working out together26:45 What’s launching this year at FreeleticsQuotes:(18:32-19:01) “You want to challenge the status quo, right? And it’s really important that you want to change and improve the experience, but it’s also very important that you trust the other teams. So if they say something, I don’t know, if they say that they need to do a full sprint to release a new change, then you need to trust their work; and they should trust your work when you set up the campaign. So, everybody should be trusted in their own specialization, I would say.” (24:23-24:32) “Sometimes we do the training all together just following the app, so it’s really a good way for us to learn about the usage of the app.”Mentioned in this Episode:Tommaso Scazzocchio’s LinkedInFreeletics

Warren Woodward is the co-founder and chief growth officer at Upptic, a platform for automated app store optimization. Upptic also provides full stack growth services. Warren is a musician, an indie filmmaker, a self-taught mobile marketer, and an ASO expert.Questions Warren Answered in this Episode:What makes an app a good one for you to partner with?What made you want to build an automated ASO platform as one of your core pieces of technology?How do you measure your results?If you could automate something tomorrow, what would it be?Why did you decide to make the leap of starting your own company rather than moving up in the corporate world?Timestamp:8:30 What Upptic does13:04 Selecting app partners that have growth potential16:08 Evolution of the industry’s first automated ASO platform19:41 The value to be gained from optimizing your store page20:50 Measuring conversions from ASO23:23 Upptic’s philosophy that informs what to build next25:54 Facing the fear of starting a startupQuotes:(6:27-6:49) “A lot of what I’ve learned about building teams and matching personalities and getting the right group in complement of people with skill sets together, all lot of that I learned from the world of bands and being stuck together in a van. Getting people that have something different to bring to the table that add up to a sum greater than the parts. It’s weird the lessons you can learn just from grinding it out on the road doing the music thing.”(19:43-20:11) “If you’re a developer, you know how hard it is to juice an extra 10% of revenue by changing the economy of your app or something. It can be a lot of work, but, it’s so much easier to just make an ad that converts 10% easier or make your store page convert 10% better. That can be done with a few hours of creative development time and minutes of setting up a test. You run that test, you’ve got that win. Congratulations, you’re now getting 10% more users every time someone comes to the page, making 10% more revenue.”Mentioned in this Episode:Warren Woodward - LinkedInUppticLow Praise