Apptivate: App Marketing Explained

Farhan Haq is the head of performance marketing and mobile growth for SYBO Games where he works on the fully organic, most downloaded title on Android of all time, Subway Surfers. Questions Farhan Answered in this Episode:How challenging was it for you to work during the era of Candy Crush, Clash of Clans, and Game of War but not working at one those gaming studios?How did you stay creative in order to drive downloads in a saturated and competitive market? Have you had success using Snapchat or Tik Tok for acquisition? What was your strategy?At Subway Surfers, do you focus on getting more users or engaging current users to drive monetization? Is Subway Surfers a casual or hyper-casual game? Where do you see the future of the gaming industry going? Timestamp:8:50 Growing game titles in competition with big players12:47 Creativity in targeting14:04 Fake ads -- it’s about the feeling16:17 Testing Snapchat20:40 Monetizing the user base22:15 Casual, hyper-casual games, and the futureQuotes:“The cloning model and doing something a little different from a clone still hugely impactful then; actually can still be now but I guess you have to get a bit more lucky, you’ve got to get something right now because people have cloned things a million times over now.”“So, a lot of the older developers kind of struggle to be creative enough and adapt, and they just kept thinking, well look, we’re going to do things the old way. And then that’s why all these new players just keep coming out of nowhere because I guess they’re more hungry and more agile. And then that’s why there’s always been this opportunity to, across the last 5 years, to be like, hang on, we can make an impact in this space as long as we try something a bit newer and back ourselves on it.”“What worked for these narrative games was a combination of three elements that I found, particularly for these story-based games. My trifecta was: 1) pregnancy, 2) cheating, and 3) timelapse.” Mentioned In This Episode:Social Point, acquired by Take-Two InteractiveNanobitSYBO Games

Lorenzo Rossi is the co-founder of Mobile Marketing Italia, a digital magazine and forum with the mission of educating Italians about mobile marketing and growing its culture in Italy. Lorenzo has worked in mobile marketing for 6 years with companies spanning dating, shopping, and ridesharing.Questions Lorenzo Answered in this Episode:What are some of the experiences that have made you an effective marketer?Is it better to market less expensive or expensive products?As a mobile marketer, did you have the authority to offer discounts on products?Were you always testing no matter what the goals were?What is Mobile Marketing Italia?Timestamp:8:13 Building experience through a mix of industries8:48 Experience focusing on scaling10:17 Lorenzo’s best moment for learning performance marketing10:37 Experience focusing on ad ROI and targeting consumers13:30 Benefits of working closely with a product team17:13 Stepping into a management role21:00 OOH campaigns22:22 Mobile Marketing Italia’s missionQuotes:“I was very amazed by this performance marketing world because it’s a mix, I believe, of creativity but also data because you see the results immediately. You can measure your requests, actually. You can measure if the text that you propose is better than the other one.”“I believe that the testing shouldn’t depend on the goal because whatever is your goal you can find a better way of achieving it.”“I cross off all of them [channels] to see which were the common points to see which were the strong point of one point rather than the other one.”Mentioned In This Episode:LOVOOZalandoFree2MoveMobile Marketing ItaliaApperiMobile - Italian meetup for mobile marketing (contact Lorenzo)

Thiago is currently the Director of Growth team at Peak Labs, and is responsible for acquiring and retaining more than half a million subscribers every month whilst reaching ambitious financial goals.Questions Thiago Answered In This Episode:“Going from a booking appointment apps to brain training, did you find that shift kinda daunting and challenging? Was there a lot to learn?”“What are some of the biggest differences and challenges you found in bringing Quixel Logic and Rise to the market?”“You guys chose the strategy of high volume low cost, why choose that strategy as opposed to lower volume high cost?”“How do you go about educating your consumers or your perspective consumers in order to raise a probability that the download would be quality?”“Do you guys have any process in which you are kinda automating the development of the creatives or automating the deployment, how does that overall process look?”“When you launch a new title, how long does it take you and how do you go about determining what your KPI should look like?”Timestamp:01:10 Introduction of the different products at Peak02:30 Thiago’s background at a beauty market place (Booking appointment apps)03:53 Big difference of Thiago’s previous job and current job at Peak04:47 Basic marketing principles06:30 Differences and challenges in bringing Quixel Logic and Rise to the market.07:06 Reason for using the high volume low cost strategy as opposed to lower volume high cost strategy?07:55 Strategy structure for Peak08:30 Strategy structure for Rise09:41 Grabbing the attention of the consumers and then pass the necessary information12:19 Transformative contents14:00 Testing approach on the different Peak apps15:45 Thiago on trying different concepts for the Peak apps18:28 Peak’s creative cycle21:32 Two sources of ideas for Peak’s creative team26:15 Building a product concept and determining its main KPI28:14 Determining revenue for subscription products32:00 Thiago’s future expectations-----------------------------------------“I’m a big believer that, if you go to the core of marketing like the principles, the funnel of the users, etc. - it applies to any product in the world. In general if you follow the basic principles of marketing, you should be ok.”Mentioned:Peak - Brain TrainingRise - Sleep BetterQuixel - Logic PuzzlesFacebookGoogle UACVoodooAquapark.io

Matthew Sadofsky is the chief growth officer and chief marketing officer at Studio, a fitness app providing instructor-led video classes. His experience in the mobile app marketing industry runs the gambit, from dating and gaming to music and fitness.Questions Matthew Sadofsky Answered In This Episode:What are some things that mobile marketers are doing wrong or overlooking?What does your ideal team look like?Where does over-bloating occur the most in regard to job function?Is paid media becoming more or less effective for marketers?How are you measuring incrementality in new user acquisition?Timestamp:6:30 Don’t over bloat the size of your marketing team7:30 The ideal size and makeup for marketing teams9:28 UA is overstaffed, retention marketing is underserved.10:38 Usability tests and surveys at Studio for retention13:00 Today’s value of paid media16:33 Indicators within incrementality analysis in new user acquisition17:18 The similarity method21:51 The importance and barriers to iterating on creativeQuotes:“Don’t over bloat. You can create a lean marketing machine using technology nowadays.”“There are ways that you can build these really robust pipelines and even tools that’ll do automation management for you where you don’t need the size of teams that some companies still have in their marketing departments.”“I think we all strive to balance creativity and analytics, but I think we all skew more slightly toward the analytic side. And very few companies, unless you’re a very large company, have an in-house creative director for their user acquisition program.”Mentioned In This Episode:StudioPaltalkPeerStream (formerly Snap Interactive)Tilting PointTIDALHerClearBrainUberTryMyUI

Berlin-based marketing tech expert, Christian Eckhardt, is the co-founder and CEO of Customlytics. Customlytics provides app marketing, analytics, and technology infrastructure consulting and hands-on help. Questions Christian Answered in this Episode:Why do you think Berlin has seen the growth it has in the tech ecosystem compared to other European cities?What are some lessons you’ve learned about tech infrastructure?What’s the first piece of technology marketers should plan for?How do you go about vetting tech decks? Do you have to educate your customers? What changes are you excited about or expecting to come to mobile marketing?Timestamp:2:53 Berlin’s exceptional tech growth10:29 Start thinking about it - marketing infrastructure is a must12:25 Marketing tech recommendations12:53 Tech deck: start thinking about it early15:04 Methodology for matching tech with client needs18:30 Education and centralized documentation for knowledge transfer24:08 How campaign bid automation will change the job of the marketerQuotes:“The entire topic of marketing technology or even the realization of, ‘I need something in place to enable proper marketing,’ is something that is not a nice-to-have feature or a nice-to-have situation. It’s rather that if you don’t have it then you’re basically completely lost for all things marketing.”“The earlier you start thinking about your marketing tech deck the better. So ideally, as I said before, definitely before you start any paid advertising, but ideally even before the ad launches.”“As it stands right now, with the kind of huge standing in the market with that those bigger advertising platforms have, it feels a bit like they can pretty much do whatever they want. And it’s hard to kind of get away from it if you don’t want to lose their inventory.”Mentioned In This Episode:CustomlyticsMobile Developer Guide to the Galaxy (Free copy)

Today’s guest, Ariel Cohen, is the head of mobile UA for the cybersecurity startup Kape, a one-stop-shop for services like data encryption, anonymity, VPNs, and anti-virus products. Previously, Ariel was a marketing manager in the mobile casino game space for Playtika and Aditor.Questions Ariel Answered in this Episode:How important is it to understand your audience of users and how do you go about learning the composition of your audience within an app? What do you mean by profiling users? What are some techniques you use to find and convert users? How you’ve found that sponsored content works? Or how do you bring nuanced messages to your users in order to get them to engage with your product? Do you have to educate consumers about your services after they begin to engage with your product? Timestamp:4:33 Profiling users for new startups6:39 Defining profiling and its application to content strategy7:30 Browsing where your competitors are marketing8:56 Using your network to source insights11:20 Using segmentation for messaging12:43 Surprising insight on continuing to educate usersQuotes:“We don’t market with simple messaging as you would to an open audience. We try and come up with much more specific to the points that are crucial in the decision making.”“What we saw is that when we bring that information or different capabilities that we have up to their awareness from time to time, we see that it substantially increases traction.”“We figured if the users went through all that process and compared and eventually chose us, they know everything that we bring to the table. But, it turns out, it was just not the case.”Mentioned In This Episode:KapeAditorPlaytika

Lomit Patel, the author of Lean AI, is the vice president of growth at IMVU, the world’s largest avatar-based social network. He is responsible for user acquisition, retention, and monetization. Prior to IMVU, Lomit managed growth at early-stage startups including Roku (IPO), TrustedID (acquired by Equifax), Texture (acquired by Apple), and Earthlink. Lomit is also a public speaker, advisor, and recognized as a “Mobile Hero” by Liftoff.Questions Lomit Answered In This Episode:How did you build out and leverage AI at IMVU?Do you still have a lot of web users? And if so, do you have a way of varying your app data with the data that is non-app focused?Did you build out technologies that could iterate through creatives quickly?What makes it challenging for companies to build out this type of infrastructure?Timestamp:3:34 Lomit’s new book, Lean AI, and becoming an author6:55 Why IMVU decided to introduce AI, machine learning, and automation8:12 Getting started with AI10:05 Using unique customer IDs for data integration12:25 Golden moments of opportunity with AI15:01 The effect of AI on IMVU’s strategy for creative18:31 The challenges and considerations of using AIQuotes:“The easiest way to think of AI is how to get a machine to think like a human but to really do it at scale.”“We had to figure out a better and more creative way to tackle the problem of how we were going to scale growth and grow the business.”“At the end of the day, the difference between a great growth team and a good growth team isn’t about the great team really knowing all the answers. It all comes down to who’s able to increase their velocity of experiments.”Mentioned In This Episode:IMVULean AILomit’s LinkedInLomit’s blog

Meet Kevan O’Brien, the Marketing Director at LBC Studios. This Canadian mobile gaming developer is responsible for “Hempire,” the world’s largest mobile cannabis game.Questions Kevan Answered In This Episode:How has the legalization of marijuana affected your business?What are 3 lessons you’ve learned from making mistakes?What are some dos and don’ts of influencer marketing?Timestamp:2:37 How marijuana legalization is affecting LBS Studios5:48 Kevan’s $17,000 overnight mistake and what he learned11:02 “20% for Testing” rule12:18 Google Drive hack for looking smart at events15:05 The real value of working with influencersQuotes:“What we’re really looking for now as we work with influencers is the content that they create for us.”“If they leave us a review, we want it to be honest and we want it to come from their mouth. And also, we want to be able to use that asset in our own marketing.”“When you work with an influencer and you’re looking at reaching their network and providing them with some money to plug a product, the cost actually becomes really, really viable because you can use both the distribution as a KPI but also the asset itself as something that adds value.”Mentioned In This Episode:LBC StudiosHempireTommy Chong Plays Hempire YouTube video

Rebecca Nackson is the founder of Notable, an agency focused on engagement retention in the user journey. Rebecca brings over a decade of experience managing acquisition, engagement, and product development for Prolific Interactive, iHeartMedia, Bandsintown Group, Audible, and IBM.Questions Rebecca Answered In This Episode:What are 3 things people should know who want to start their own agency?Timestamp:3:00 Recipe for engagement retention and reducing customer loss4:47 Taking notes on being an end-user to build empathy7:22 Learning which parts to outsource11:35 The people part of the puzzle14:17 Identify the one thing you do bestQuotes:“There has to be this ruthless prioritization about what any of us can bite off in a day.”“Better to be top-of-mind when someone thinks of one thing, rather than middle-of-mind for a bunch of things.”“What really hit me is how it’s not about having the best solution or the best deck or the best pitch -- It’s about the human nature and the human side of the relationships, and that’s how you get them to change.”Mentioned In This Episode:NotableJustworks

Matthew Sadofsky is the chief growth officer and chief marketing officer at Studio, a fitness app providing instructor-led video classes. His experience in the mobile app marketing industry runs the gambit, from dating and gaming to music and fitness.Questions Matthew Sadofsky Answered In This Episode:What are some things that mobile marketers are doing wrong or overlooking?What does your ideal team look like?Where does over-bloating occur the most in regard to job function?Is paid media becoming more or less effective for marketers?How are you measuring incrementality in new user acquisition?Timestamp:6:30 Don’t over bloat the size of your marketing team7:30 The ideal size and makeup for marketing teams9:28 UA is overstaffed, retention marketing is underserved.10:38 Usability tests and surveys at Studio for retention13:00 Today’s value of paid media16:33 Indicators within incrementality analysis in new user acquisition17:18 The similarity method21:51 The importance and barriers to iterating on creativeQuotes:“Don’t over bloat. You can create a lean marketing machine using technology nowadays.”“There are ways that you can build these really robust pipelines and even tools that’ll do automation management for you where you don’t need the size of teams that some companies still have in their marketing departments.”“I think we all strive to balance creativity and analytics, but I think we all skew more slightly toward the analytic side. And very few companies, unless you’re a very large company, have an in-house creative director for their user acquisition program.” Mentioned In This Episode:StudioPaltalkPeerStream (formerly Snap Interactive)Tilting PointTIDALHerClearBrainUberTryMyUI