Apptivate: App Marketing Explained

Meet Mirela Cialai, the director of mobile marketing at ZINIO. Mirela focuses on engaging mobile magazine readers from around the world in discovering the stories that matter most to them. She has been working as a global digital marketing specialist for ZINIO for 10 years and joins us today from New York City. Questions Mirela Answered In This Episode:“What has kept you at Zinio for so long?”“Is it hard to keep people’s attention?”“Is shopping cart abandonment something you guys come across in a big way in mobile space?”“Does Zinio have any strategies in place that help you fight cart abandonment?”“Outside of Zinio, is there anything that made you excited for the future of mobile space?” Timestamp:00:15 Mirela’s introduction00:45 Mirela Cialai’s background, where she came from, and her career at Zinio02:16 Factors that led Mirela to stay at Zinio for 10 years04:14 Audience’s attention span06:13 Zinio’s business model and cart abandonment07:34 Different strategies to fight cart abandonment10:05 Retargeting10:24 Other ways to engage consumers11:25 Technology partners that helped Zinio to execute push campaigns13:43 Growth in marketing messaging15:21 Best way to reach out to Mirela “I am a marketer. I’m always excited about all the possibilities, and the creativity of the human mind is fascinating to me. ”Mirela Cialai“Test as many channels as possible. Test as many frequencies as possible until you find the right mix because each company has a different target audience, which might react differently to different channels.”Mirela Cialai       

Questions Andy Answered In This Episode: “How’s your transition been? Going from the vendor side to now being the client, do you enjoy one more than the other?” “In working at Jam City, how would you describe the level of insights that you gain? Do you think that you have more knowledge at your disposal or there’s more resources or you’ve gained insights by just broadening up the team in general? ” “Would you be willing to share your insights at a conference or was there a limit based on whos asking you for insights?” “Is there a limit to what insight you might end up sharing with an advertiser?” “What is your determinant of success?” “At Jam City, do you focus on the programmatic space? Is that part of your specialty?” Timestamp: 00:18 Andy’s introduction 00:40 Andy Wong’s general background, where he is now, and what is his goal 01:33 Andy’s transition from being the vendor to now being the client 03:16 Sharing of insights, resources and tools 05:46 Creative learning as a conversation starter at conferences 08:13 Andy’s limitations when sharing an insight 10:03 An example of associating things outside the game to the actual creatives itself 11:00 Jam City’s testing process 12:09 Growth performance using ROI metrics 13:25 Importance of quality data visualization 15:11 Making data easy to understand 18:47 How personalization might impact user acquisition 20:45 Andy’s perspective on the possible change of programmatic landscape in the future “I usually think that the easiest way to start a conversation is to ask people about their creatives. And I think that people are much more willing to share their creative learnings than their bidding strategy.” Andy Wong Mentioned: Periscope Data Jam City

Questions Rockford Answered In This Episode: “How much expertise from your UI team at Tilting Point goes into identifying new app opportunities?” “Is there a common theme that runs through all these years of work where you’ve seen quite a development in one particular area in this industry?” “What kind of strategies have you learned and applied to identify click fraud?” “Has the change of KPIs in mobile development made it harder for publishers, network, or whoever to actually get away with fraud?” “How important is it to market outside Google and Facebook?” “How do you go about electing where you’re going to invest next?” Timestamp: 01:01 Rockford’s background 07:33 How Tilting Point functions and how the business runs 10:35 Partnership evaluation process at Tilting Point 12:54 Things that changed dramatically in the mobile development industry 14:39 Strategies to identify a click fraud or a click bot 23:38 How Tilting Point decides where to invest next 26:54 Tools to protect your company against fraud 28:20 Rockford’s perspective on future trends in the industry “We’re taking on the risk because we’re confident that we are going to be able to run ROI-positive campaigns and help you improve the monetization and metrics of your games while scaling you in a profitable way.” Rockford Yapp Mentioned: Grubhub AdAction Interactive Chart Bursting Facebook Google

Questions Gideon Answered In This Episode: “Did you always have an affinity for math or data that allowed you to work successfully in the digital marketing space?” “Getting a comprehensive view of how your digital marketing might impact your retail stores - is that a challenge that you guys face regularly and do you feel like you have built out a marketing stack that allows you to overcome challenges like that?” “In mobile app marketing, a lot of campaigns are predicated on what is reported by a third-party attribution source. When it comes to mobile apps, is that how you determine success as well?” “Could you lay out what a delightful experience looks like in your eyes for your customers?” “Has the mobile app become a more important part of the JO-ANN business over the last 3 years; has this become a focus for you?” Timestamp: 01:07 Gideon’s background 03:55 JO-ANN’s presence all of the country 04:37 Tying online to offline experiences 08:38 Defining their mobile app success 09:39 Importance of time when running a incrementality test 10:54 Gideon’s perspective on what is a delightful experience for customers 15:04 Gideon’s perspective of the JO-ANN’s app 18:53 Gideon on customer feedback 20:18 Gideon’s future plan as a Digital Marketing Manager at JO-ANN Store “That’s what we’re shooting for. That’s the last checkmark on any list of whether we should do something or not - Is this going to be an inspiring great experience for the customer?” Gideon Toman

Today’s guest, Vincenzo Serricchio, is the Global Team Lead of Mobile Marketing at Delivery Hero. In this episode, he shares how he and his team are measuring incremental uplift to grow their user base. Questions Vincenzo Answered In This Episode: “Is there a particular area where your team has really focused, or has there been any particular experiment that you think will help you guys out-market your competitors?” “As far as incrementality goes within programmatic in-app advertising, are you applying incrementality measurement to both acquisition campaigns and retargeting campaigns?” “Do you use a certain methodology to achieve incrementality measurement within UI or maybe using the PSA methodology? Could you shed some light on that? ” “Is it your team that manages user acquisition that’s doing a lot of data analysis? How do you go about organizing and compiling such large amounts of data?” “What is your relationship between your third party attribution providers and what you are doing from an incrementality perspective?'' “How often are you testing your creative? Is this a big part of your business and your iterative process?” “Do you think other mobile marketers are heavily relying on incrementality as a KPI? Do you see that they are using it to the same extent as your team at DeliveryHero?” **Timestamp: ** 01:04 Vincenzo’s background 03:11 Vincenzo’s career journey with DeliveryHero 04:01 The one topic that Vincenzo and his team really focused on 05:06 Vincenzo on incrementality measurement and its application to both acquisition campaigns and retargeting campaigns 06:34 How to reconcile different methodologies across different vendors 08:45 What methodology to use for incrementality measurement within UI 09:00 The GeoSplit test 10:22 Vincenzo on running GeoSplit and PSA simultaneously 11:20 Vincenzo on working closely with the customer insight team to organize and compile the large amount of data that they use in their app 12:34 Efficiency and decision making in which boundaries to work with, and which not to work with 14:14 Determining the short-term and long-term effects of campaigns 15:14 Conceptualizing incrementality 17:01 To effectively measure incrementality, you cannot rely on the third party attributors 19:43 Using incrementality test as a first step in identifying whether or not to pursue with a particular vendor 20:04 Testing creative 25:38 Vincenzo’s perspective on incrementality as a metric or a measurement that most mobile marketers are relying on 27:01 Future of Mobile Marketing and incrementality “Coordination is essential. If you start to do something without this being in place you can’t really action data in the end. You may have some findings, but those are not really actionable in the end. ” Vincenzo Serricchio Mentioned: Facebook Delivery Hero Vincenzo’s LinkedIn profile

Today’s guest is Dora Trostanetsky. Dora is a holistic marketing strategist with 8+ years of experience in performance marketing, ranging from mobile growth (B2C) to digital acquisition (B2B). Her background includes a variety of industries, such as gaming, tech start-ups and urban mobility as part of the smart city vision. Connecting the dots between the creative and empirical part of marketing is her daily life. Dora is constantly exploring new challenges that can bring the business forward. Questions Dora Answered In This Episode: “In changing roles, how do you go about learning about the consumer journey and how might that impact your marketing?” “Because B2B marketing takes long to get someone to make a decision based on your marketing and advertising, do you think that change the way you looked at B2C marketing?” “Is it required that you take a broader approach in the sense that you enlist the efforts of multiple teams in order to align the strategy to drive users down the funnel?” “Do you find that each team has their own agenda that arrives them directly at the idea of making more money for the company, thoes agendas are really challenging to get in the same place, is that one of the challenges you might face?” “Does consumer feedback play into your strategy as a mobile marketer?” “Is it important that in your retention that you have a unified yet personalized message across different platforms or do you speak to your consumers differently on email?” “How challenging it is to get someone rate your app? ” Timestamp 01:04 Dora’s mobile marketing journey 02:29 Introduction to Dora’s current career 04:01 Dora shares her experiences in dealing with three different vertical throughout her career 05:14 Dora’s perspective on B2B and B2C marketing 06:43 Difference of B2B and B2C when it comes to educating its consumers 08:20 Necessary steps after a consumer downloaded the app 08:58 Challenges as a Growth Marketer 10:49 Revenue should not be the only goal 12:34 How customer feedback can be used as a strategy for mobile marketers 13:55 Challenges of anecdotal experiences vs data 14:30 What is a cluster user 15:40 Personalize content for user retention 16:51 Why Dora is more interested in long term strategy when it comes to growth 17:51 Performance based advertising 19:58 How to protect your product against consumers going to different platforms 24:02 App optimization 28:36 Ways on how you can get people to rate your app “What I noticed is that users are like products that are very easy to use because they have such fast paced life and so everything should be very well thought. So I think that the UI/UX experience is very important. Keeping users I think is the hardest part.” Dora Trotsanetsky Mentioned: Soundcloud HERE Technologies

Today’s guest is Thiago Monteiro from Peak Labs. He has been working in Digital and Mobile Marketing for more than eight years now. Thiago is also experienced in multi-disciplines of paid media ranging from Display, Paid Search to Social Paid advertising. Questions That Thiago Answers 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 Peak 02:30 Thiago’s background at a beauty market place (Booking appointment apps) 03:53 Big difference of Thiago’s previous job and current job at Peak 04:47 Basic marketing principles 06:30 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 Peak 08:30 Strategy structure for Rise 09:41 Grabbing the attention of the consumers and then pass the necessary information 12:19 Transformative contents 14:00 Testing approach on the different Peak apps 15:45 Thiago on trying different concepts for the Peak apps 18:28 Peak’s creative cycle 21:32 Two sources of ideas for Peak’s creative team 26:15 Building a product concept and determining its main KPI 28:14 Determining revenue for subscription products 32:00 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.” Thiago Monteiro Mentioned: Peak - Brain Training Rise - Sleep Better Quixel - Logic Puzzles Facebook Google UAC Voodoo Aquapark.io

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” Bill Gates words were profound but straightforward. Being able to attract and convert new customers systematically keeps companies healthy and growing - and investors happy - but the unhappy ones can push your product forward. Today’s guest is Sam McLellan, head of growth at Yousician. Sam is a seasoned mobile gaming expert who has led product and marketing teams responsible for multiple top-grossing free-to-play games. Sam is currently utilizing his expertise to help his company build its growth team and take their products to the next level. He couples their organic and performance marketing efforts with an optimized monetization strategy to maximize growth. Questions Sam Answers In This Episode “Are there any other methodologies you can implement to find interests within a consumer group?” “After a user installs an app, it can be difficult to get them through the funnel. What can you learn about them to influence their journey?” “How often do you test out the free trial period? Is that something you are constantly iterating?” “How does an app like yours fight redundancy?” "Do the licensing fees factor into your acquisition strategy?" “Does using licensed content make it easier for you to get people down the funnel initially even? Does that play a role into your actual advertising campaign and getting people through the front door?” “If there was a single core topic that you would hang your head on in your experience, what would that be?” Timestamps 00:42 Sam’s background 02:58 How Yousician developed its product 05:48 Facebook targeting groups 07:19 Methodologies for finding interested consumer groups 08:57 Big changes in Google UAC campaigns 10:17 Differences between gaming (app purchasing) and app subscriptions 12:05 How to keep users engaged with the app 13:24 Incurring costs to license a content 14:40 Role of licensed content in Yousician’s advertising campaigns 16:20 Exciting news for Yousician this coming year 22:00 Availability of Yousician in other countries 23:02 Parting thoughts “You’ll always want to give them enough time to be able to experience the app and you obviously don’t want to give away your product for free at some point.” Sam McLellan

Mobile marketing is a mix of creativity and algorithms. You cook with recipes, but those recipes need craftsmanship and constant updating. And there are two major contributors to your creativity and algorithms: software and people. Thomas is currently working as a consultant and adviser for a number of startup apps and organizations. Thomas has worked during the last 10 years as a specialist in digital marketing, with more than 6 years of experience in different European startups. Questions Thomas Answers In This Episode: “What were you initially looking for? Where would you start if you were building out a team from a user acquisition perspective?” “Looking back on 8fit, what do you think is your biggest take-away or the biggest piece of knowledge that you’ve gained in the work environment?” “What were you looking to achieve and learn about your consumers by building out your data stack?” “Are you guys consistently testing out different pricing models to test against your audience in order to determine what is the right free-trial length and what is the right price point for us to maximize the rate at which people going through the free-trial subscription?” “With any of the companies you worked at that are on competitive landscape, how do you go about differentiating yourselves in the context of performance advertising?” “Based on your experience at 8fit, is calling out the free trial the best mechanism to get people through the door or was it calling out the ability to help shape their lives and help them lose weight, or was it a mixture of both?” “Have you found that some of these same strategies that you used at 8fit have worked for you at other companies that you advised or consulted with at all to this point? ” Timestamp: 00:54 Background info on Thomas 01:42 Thomas’s first role in the mobile space 03:43 Thomas’s perspective on building a team 04:56 Biggest take-away from working at 8fit 06:49 What were Thomas’s goals in building a stack for handling data 08:45 Perspective on subscription based app 11:12 Constant testing different pricing models 13:12 How can you make a company look different than its competition? 15:05 Pointers on building brand messages 17:51 Best mechanism to get people through the door 20:13 How to educate and engage your audience 23:20 Difference between mobile and web app 25:14 Thomas’s insight on using Taboola and Outbrain 27:40 Bringing your learning elsewhere 28:52 Different technologies that Thomas is excited to test 32:00 How quickly a machine can determine which of creative in advertising is better or worse Key Quote “I just hired based on mindset more than experience.” Thomas Petit Mentioned: 8fit Amplitude Analytics Apple Google UAC Tinder Taboola.com: Content Discovery & Native Advertising Outbrain @Thomasbcn

This episode of Apptivate focuses on Customer Experience, touching on how it contributes to engagement and retention, the integral role of Deep Links, and what we can expect to see in the future.