Ronen, welcome to Marketing In Asia. Let’s talk about you first. You started off as an Assistant GM to the Chairman of Wah Tak Group. Fast forward a few years later, you are the President & Managing Director, APAC for Appsflyer. Tell our readers about Ronen Mense.
Looking back, the journey I took then was somewhat random, but it all makes sense now as I connect the trajectory of my career milestones and pitstops. The role at Wah Tak Group gave me an insider’s view of how business is done in China. The Chairman of the Group took me under his wing, and I had to follow his relentless schedule from managing his motorcycle factories to setting up food-additive plants, to following him on his meetings with business partners. I also spent several years in the manufacturing sector, but what was eventually most impactful to my role at AppsFlyer was running operations for a quality control agency called QCS. You see, doing QC, you are asked to represent the buyers’ interest to make sure they are getting what they paid suppliers for and rejecting what is below specification.
It is uncanny how similar a role we are asked to perform on behalf of advertisers today, ensuring they are getting what they pay their partners to deliver and reject what does not meet standards (ad fraud!). For the past 15 years, I was in mobile content, mobile advertising, now mobile attribution and marketing tech. This is my journey thus far, and the great news is, it’s just 1% done!
In a nutshell, AppsFlyer is a software as a service (SaaS) mobile analytics and attribution platform. Perhaps you can expand and tell our readers what Appsflyer does, Ronen.
AppsFlyer is a global authority in Marketing Technology. Data-driven marketers rely on us for independent measurement solutions and innovative tools to grow and protect their mobile business. In Asia alone, our highly secure platform processes billions of mobile actions every day and because we are a truly independent player – free from the influence of massive social, search and ad networks – we are trusted by the region’s leading brands in practically every tech-enabled sector from e-commerce, gaming, travel to banking & finance.
As it’s the holiday season, let’s talk about shopping. Tell us, in this current climate, how successful are brands when converting their users into paying users?
First and foremost, the traditional ways of brand marketing just aren’t working as effectively as they used to. Data-driven marketers will always have the advantage, but brands also need to put the money where their mouth is, so to speak.
We’ve all experienced the massive impact of Singles’ Day and other related holiday campaigns. These promos are fantastic money making opportunities, but they’re tedious and demanding, meaning marketers face higher acquisition costs than in other seasons. The trade-off for the larger investment, however, is that users during this time are highly valuable and are much more likely to make consistently paid conversions (for example, we saw that nearly double the amount of Southeast Asia users in Singles’ Day 2019 converted through retargeting vs same day last year).
Simply put, data-driven marketers (+$mart investments) are winning and will continue to win through the next decade.
I was intrigued to read about in-app data report; the gem of information that comes with each report. For the sake of our readers, what is in-app data report?
App marketing performance measurement has turned sharply to post-install focus in the last few years. As a result, measuring specific user actions, or in-app events, has taken center stage, allowing marketers to run far more effective user acquisition and re-engagement campaigns. The competitive edge nowadays is driven by the right use of data, granular in-app event measurement becomes the backbone of data-driven growth.
We’ve decided to put together an in-app data report to enable more and more marketers to be data-driven. We thought it would be helpful for the industry to have a thorough guide and reference on this.
Why is in-app event data a must-have piece of information for app marketers?
In a space dominated by free-to-install apps, it is critical for marketers to understand that the actual value is tied to post-install in-app activity and share of paying users. If you’re not doing this yet, you need to get with the programme stat! Measuring granular in-app events provide insights on how to improve campaign effectiveness and eventually increases the percentage of app installs that lead to a purchase.
So Ronen, how can marketers accurately identify and measure in-app events to optimise performance uplift for shopping apps?
In general, the right number of events to measure differs noticeably between app categories, as the data-savvy marketers appear more equipped to translate the higher volume of event data into actionable insights and ultimately improved performance.
“Measuring what matters” doesn’t mean “measuring everything.” Measuring too many events can be more challenging, with an overwhelming amount of data to handle and an influx of “noise,” which leads to a drop in performance. Handling such a scale requires both robust BI systems and experienced data analysts and scientists that are able to pinpoint meaningful insights within the data.
At the end of the day, the trend is clear: successful apps measure a significant number of in-app events, although every app should ultimately find, and continuously iterate on, its event measurement sweet spot.
What can apps expect by working closely on rich in-app events; also for users who use their apps across different countries, what is the best way to optimise their apps in this increasingly saturated app ecosystem?
Although app marketers have shifted their efforts from focusing on driving installs to post-install measurement, most are still measuring only a fraction of in-app activity.
Converting more users to paying users and maximising their revenue potential requires measuring events that span the full conversion cycle, especially significant milestones in the consumer journey. The insights that can be drawn from this data are vast and can help maximise user lifetime value by informing smarter acquisition and re-engagement decisions.
With all of the information marketers have at their fingertips, it is critical they invest in an infrastructure that allows for more granular measurement, as well as in advanced tools, tech and people that are equipped to draw the most actionable insights from the data without compromising productivity.
For more information on this, where can Marketing In Asia readers go to, Ronen?
You can read more about AppsFlyer on our website, and marketers who want to read about mobile attribution can get insights from our blog.
