APP MARKETING INSIGHTS

APP PROMOTION SUMMIT LONDON SUMMARY REPORT

SEPTEMBER 2013

SOLVING THE APP DISTRIBUTION PROBLEM

APP PROMOTION SUMMIT SUMMARY REPORT

1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 3 2 The App Promotion Summit Manifesto ........................................................................ 4 3 App Promotion Summit Top Five Themes:.................................................................. 5 4 App Promotion Summit in Quotes .................................................................................. 6 5 App Promotion Summit in Pictures ............................................................................... 8 6 app promotion summit interviews ............................................................................. 17 7 Conclusions and Next Steps ........................................................................................... 33

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1 Introduction
The inaugural App Promotion Summit, took place in London on July 11. The event was dedicated to covering all aspects of mobile app marketing from Appstore Optimization to Media Buying and App Discovery. Over 170 delegates attended in order to hear presentations from some of the worlds leading mobile app marketing experts. The event was organised by mobyaffiliates.com and All Amber This summary report provides an overview of some of the key headlines from the day, based on the presentations given and interviews with the speakers. You can keep up to date with App Promotion Summit on our website http://apppromotionsummit.com or by following us on twitter @apppromotion You can also contact the App Promotion Summit team at hello@appromotionsummit.com

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2 The App Promotion Summit Manifesto

There are now 780k active apps in the Apple Appstore and at least 620k in Google Play. So getting noticed is harder than ever and distribution is the biggest challenge facing the mobile app industry: Distribution is much harder on mobile than web You need to master the download app, use app, keep using app, put it on your home screen flow and that is a hard one to master Fred Wilson, Union Square Ventures Why were pivoting from mobile first to web first. At best, we retain 5% of users through the entire onboarding process I believe this is the primary reason that mobile is failing Vibhu Norby, Origami Labs For those that succeed the rewards are enormous as a growing mobile user base results in higher appstore placements and virtuous circle of user acquisition. However, breaking through requires mastering one or more of a range of channels including:

Mobile Advertising and Media Buying Appstore Optimization (ASO) Cross Promotion and Exchanges App Reviews, Press and PR App Discovery Services

Established online marketing strategies such as SEO are no longer relevant in the mobile app ecosystem and channels such as paid advertising also require working with completely new traffic sources and approaches. As a result, a new generation of mobile-native marketing platforms has emerged to deliver solutions for app distribution. The App Promotion Summit brings together developers, media companies, app studios and brands with the mobile ad networks, cross promotion exchanges, platforms and agencies that can help them succeed in mobile app marketing. Issues we address

Appstore SEO - How to do Appstore Optimization Beyond the Appstore - App Discovery Services and Cross Promotion Mobile Advertising - how to bring down your CPI and deliver high quality users Analytics - tracking and managing your metrics Engagement turning downloads into MAUs and DAUs

Together we aim to solve the mobile app distribution problem.

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3 App Promotion Summit Top Five Themes:

This first App Promotion Summit covered a wide range of techniques and tips to help developers and marketers get the most ROI from their app promotion strategy. But between the practical advice, experts also discussed a number of broader themes and issues facing app developers who are trying to grow their business in an increasingly crowded and rapidly evolving market. In this article well take a look at five of the key themes that ran t hrough talks at APS. Downloads vs Engaged Users: If there was one clear narrative coming out APS, into which all others seemed to flow, its this: Acquiring downloads is a false economy and developers must shift their mindset toward identifying and acquiring engaged users. More education: The natural follow-on from the above point is that developers need to be better educated about the difference between downloads and engaged users. Understanding this difference can also help developers broaden their horizons and leverage all the different channels that are fast becoming available, whether its cross promotional platforms, incentivised networks, or as Jampps Diego Muller pointed out tapping emerging markets. Test and Analyse: In order to get engaged users, speakers at APS were pretty unified in their message: test various traffic sources, get data and analyse that data. Developers need to understand how different solutions operate, what traffic sources generate the most return and - in the words of Fiksus Benjamin Hansz - spend money in order to get valuable data. Keeping users engaged: While acquiring engaged users was the key theme throughout APS, the problem of keeping users engaged also dominated many of the talks. Both InfoBip and Ads4Screen gave talks emphasising the power of messaging and the stats presented by both platforms were pretty compelling with Ad4Screens Patrick Mareuil saying Android push notification recipients were 1.7 times more active than non-recipients and iOS users were 2.2 times more active. Alternative solutions: Much of APS was focused on paid marketing platforms, but a few talks concerned alternative approaches. Judging from our conversations with attendees, the most popular presentation came from Stefan Bielau on App Store Optimisation (ASO). As Stefan said, ASO is still somewhat frontier-like. Theres not a great deal of valuable insight freely available and Apple and Google do not share much information on how their algorithms work, so its no wonder attendees listened attentively to what he had to say.

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4 App Promotion Summit in Quotes

Mick Rigby, Yodel Mobile - Just because a media agency is spending fifty million dollars on television, doesnt mean they know what theyre doing on mobile. Get a specialist. Benjamin Hansz, Fiksu - You need to commit. You need to commit to spending the money, gathering the data, and changing the acquisition plan accordingly. You have to spend money to get the data. Paul Muller, Adeven - You should run away from a developer who wants to put a compiled SDK in your app. A compiled SDK is a black box. Most of the time they are extremely poorly made. Run away. If theres something wrong within the box then theres nothing you can do about it. Cristina Constandanche, Mob Partner - You have to test several sources of traffic, you cant afford to get only one. You cant know how users will behave in the long term. Patrick Mareuil, Ads4Screen - Ninety percent of reactions [with push messaging] occur fifteen minutes after sending. Seventy five percent of reactions occur five minutes after sending. Messaging is the worlds most reactive medium. Stefen Bielau, Bielau Consulting - App Store Optimisation is not the only tool that helps you break into the top ten. You always have to combine it with certain media. It doesnt sell a shitty product at the end of the day. James Kaye, Dimoso - The odds are against you. Two percent of the top 250 developers on iOS are new. So that shows you the dominance of established developers. Meaghan Fitzgerald, 23 Snaps - Getting featured can be a double edged sword for a free app. If you are featured in the App Store youre going to acquire a lot of users who wont stick around. Diego Meller, Jampp - Theres a shitload of smartphones in Latin America. Thats a technical term.

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Ouriel Ohayon, AppsFire - Dont jump into the pool unless you know there is water in it. Dont just use your brain. Your users will tell you things your numbers wont tell you. Emmanuel Carraud, Magic Solver - There is a future for app discovery on iPhone and Android that is about quality and is editorially driven, with a local touch. The analytics are key. Meaghan Fitzgerald, 23 Snaps - Windows Phone has the entire Microsoft machine behind it. Its a much smaller and less competitive pool, but its generating downloads. This is why were putting resources behind Window Phone. Renate Nyborg, Edelman - The thing developers can do most wrong with apps is to think of them as just a piece of technology or software. Adrienne Gauldie, App Annie - App Gratis probably got pulled (from the App Store) because it was too big. App discovery platforms are never going to be alternatives to app stores. Theyre more of an alternative to display and search advertising . James Kaye, Dimoso - App marketing is unfortunately an afterthought for many people. Its something people dont take seriously enough. Chris Hanage, Papaya (Appflood) - Make sure if you have an advert that it doesnt scream advert. Try lots of networks there are lots out there. Use the ones that work. If they dont work, drop them. Kaya Taner, AppLift - The question is do I find the right users in a particular channel? Its not about getting discovered, but getting discovered by the right users. Ouriel Ohayon, AppsFire - An app is never perfect. If you are happy with the work youve done then theres something wrong. Imperfect products are a part of the game.

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5 App Promotion Summit in Pictures

Julys App Promotion Summit saw some amazing talks, great panel Q&As, and insightful round table discussions between attendees. So heres a few pictures from the day, especially since the conference hall was packed with a high number of unusually photogenic mobile developers, marketers and entrepreneurs.

Attendees get their morning caffeine fix before the days talks begin.

AppLifts Thomas Sommer (center) talks mobile game promotion with attendees.

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InfoBip regional manager Ivan Maksic (second from right) networks before his talk on mobile messaging.

Attendees sample the hospitality of the Jumeira Carlton Tower hotel in Kensington.

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Stefen Bileau (second from left) before his very well-received talk on App Store Optimisation.

AppLift makes its presence felt in the lobby (must have been hot under that suit).

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The conference hall begins to fill up before the first round of talks.

Mobyaffiliates editor James Cooper kicks things off and introduces the first round of speakers.

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Distimos Richard Pidgeon does a fine job with his opening address, laying out the key challenges for the mobile app market.

AppsFires Ouriel Ohanyon heads-up a panel Q&A along with AppLifts Kaya Taner and Adrienne Gauldie from App Annie.

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Some of the best insights from the day came from attendees themselves, while dissecting talks during round-table discussions.

A panel Q&A featuring Surikates Noemi McKee, MobPartners Cristina Constandache, InfoBips Rube Huljev and Mojivas Nick Marsh.

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Attendees discuss how to get the most ROI on your marketing budget during roundtables.

Papayas Chris Hanage gives a very energetic talk on app cross promotion exchanges.

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Edelmans Renate Nyborg gives her thoughts on the future of app discovery.

WIPs Thibaut Rouffineau serves up the Pimms as attendees regale each other with humorous app marketing stories.

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The day winds down, as the alcohol content winds-up, and attendees move into schmoozing mode.

Attendees cram in some last minute networking before the day comes to a close.

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6 App Promotion Summit Interviews

6.1 APPSFIRE ON THE APP PROMOTION LANDSCAPE

AppsFire founder Ouriel Ohayon can always be counted on for providing strong opinions and a great deal of insight on the current state of the app industry. We caught up with Ouriel during this months App Promotion Summit to discuss where developers are going wrong when it comes to app marketing and what the future landscape may look like.

Ouriel Ohayon, CEO Appsfire What have been the main takeaways for you from APS 2013? The market is maturing, its becoming more sophisticated and extremely technical in the sense that you need to aggregate a large amount of knowledge to become good at marketing. Its as much a science as an art. You need to be very well educated before you jump into the pool. The other takeaway is that this self-education process is ongoing. There is always new people to meet, new things to learn, always new players in the industry. Its a reminder that you should always be up -todate with the information. Sites like mobyaffiliates can help do that and events like APS can help do that too. Are developers not educated enough? No, there is a huge gap between available solutions on the market and the amount of awareness that those solutions exist. For example the typical behaviour today is: I need to get as many downloads as possible. That is the wrong calculation. The real calculation is how can I get as many engaged users as possible. To solve that problem you need to have a set of modules and services built in and around your app so you can actually answer that question. The huge majority of the market is still thinking in pre-historical terms of downloads versus engaged users. Is that because its easier to think in those terms? Absolutely. Its absolutely easier. Today you go to Facebook, or Google, or whatever network and you buy users. But it doesnt mean you are doing it in a very relevant or very smart manner. The true manner is to think in an ROI orientated way. Am I bringing users that are returning my investment of money and time? In order to do that its a lot more complex. It requires a lot of

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analytical skills and analytical tools and a lot of negotiation abilities. Even using all those automated services and real time bidding platforms, its just not enough. You need to have deep knowledge of the eco-system and avoid all the mistakes. You need to make sure you are learning and iterating on what you are learning. So its clear that the market is far from being educated enough. So will there be some kind of self-balancing in the app market? Once people realise its harder to gain valuable users, will their be less apps being made? Yeah, in a way its not a bad thing. Who cares if there is a million or ten million apps? What people care about is that there are good apps. The competition of who has the biggest app store is not a war that is interesting to the user. It is a war that is interesting to the platforms. So I think what users care about is quality apps. If the app store can actually feature stronger curation toward apps that are high quality and remove all the apps that are never downloaded, then why not? I think it is a good thing. There is a sort of Darwinism that is taking place. As the market grows there is not room for everyone to grow at the same speed. The market is evolving, the players are adapting themselves. That sounds like a future that will be dominated by bigger companies with the resources to understand how to acquire engaged users? I dont think it is a question of small or big. I think it is a question of quality vs poor quality. There is evidence everyday that independent developers can make it in the app stores and they dont have the resources of the giants in the market. I think there will always be room for them, at least most of them. It will be a lot harder for smaller developers even big developers to be successful with apps that are not good quality, or useful, or interesting to users. I think that is going to be the shift of the next generation of apps. Theres going to be more good apps and less poor quality apps and the market forces are going to take care of that. What else needs to change in terms of app promotion? I think there is a lot of extremely shoddy behaviour going on in this industry in terms of app marketing and app promotion. For example, misleading ad units, accidental click throughs, incentivised deceptive marketing techniques. I think this can only go away if regulation comes into play. The app stores cannot take care of everything and I think that advertising organisations like IAB and IMA could do the same thing they did on the web they are not doing enough. There are lots of ad networks that are extremely aggressive on getting downloads, rather than creating healthy growth. This is damaging the market misleading the users and deceiving the advertisers.

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6.2

JAMPP ON GOING GLOBAL

Jampp is a data-driven mobile app promotion platform focused on Brazil and Latin America. Headed by co-founder Diego Meller, the company helps developers take advantage of the booming Latin American smartphone market, driving users acquisition with pay per install campaigns across Android and iPhone.

Diego Meller, CEO Jampp

During the App Promotion Summit Jampps Diego Meller took to the stage and gave a very lively talk, discussing the benefits of expanding your horizons and taking your app into Latin America. in the process he dispelled some of the rather unfair stereotypes about Latin American mobile users (and reinforced some too), painting a compelling picture of why app developers should seriously consider looking beyond Europe and the US. Heres are the key takeaways from Diegos talk: Latin Americans are using smartphones Diego says the Latin American market is very misunderstood and theres lots of smartphone usage going on across the continent. To back up his point he walked us through some Map Box maps showing usage patterns across urban areas. Balance of growth and penetration Diego pointed out that mobile broadband penetration is high enough across Latin America to drive smartphone usage, but low enough to so theres a lot of from for growth, creating some fertile conditions for app developers looking to grow a user base. Valuable users When it comes to user the value of users, Latin Americans generally have a higher disposable income than in other emerging economies such as China and India. Diego said the amount of money Latin American users spend on apps is the roughly the same as in Western countries, but the number of users spending is lower. However, this is mitigated by the lower cost of user acquisiton when it comes to Latin Americans.

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Deeper understanding of users The cost of iPhones is Brazil, Mexico and other Latin American countries is very high reaching over $1,000. Android therefore predominates. This, Diego says, will tell you much more about your userbase in terms of OS fragmentation. Localisation? No problem Latin American smartphone users are culturally much more similar to European and US users relative to users in other emerging markets. Diego says the similarities in taste means developers dont need to think about localisation too much beyond the basics.

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6.3

SOUNDCLOUD ON APP STORE SUCCESS

We managed to grab ten minutes with SoundClouds mobile product marketing manager Andy Carvell, to find out how a rapidly growing brand such as SoundCloud approaches app promotion and mobile marketing. Read on for the full Q&A.

Andy Carvell, Mobile product marketing manager Soundcloud Have there been any ideas at APS that really struck you so far? I thought the quality of the talks today in general has been very high. But for me what was most informative and insightful was the first talk, which was all about App Store Optimisation optimising for inbound traffic as opposed to paid marketing. I think quite often people conflate mobile marketing with spending money on advertising, like buying installs. But I think marketing for mobile is a lot broader than that. It encompasses a lot of other stuff. ASO sounds a bit like a wild west right now. Are you working on ASO at SoundCloud and are you worried about investing in ASO, when it may get overhauled in such a short period? ASO is definitely something I am currently working on. We can do a better job with our app store presence and a better job boosting conversions using ASO. Our app store presence is our key window to the world. Its where we display our product. If you have a shop on the high street, things will change thats just part of merchandising. Of course, ASO is a much more immature science and theres a lot of experimentation required just to see what works. Google and Apple could change their algorithms at any time, but you just have to try again, thats the na ture of the space youre working in. Its all part of the fun of continuously learning. Is SoundCloud doing anything with performance ads? Were not doing any performance advertising right now and were pretty happy with the level of organic growth that were seeing. Of course it could always be higher and probably in the future we will be layering performance channels on top of that. I think there is still work we can do both in terms of organic and referral traffic. We do cross promotion from our website to our mobile apps. For instance, we have app store badges on track pages, profile pages and the main page. So were doing a lot to cross promote. And theres a difference in terms of user -engagement from cross promotion?

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Yeah we see our cross platform users are the most engaged. If they already know SoundCloud and if they already use SoundCloud on the web then they already understand exactly what SoundCloud is all about and how to use the app inherently. I think we still have some work to do in onboarding users who discover us organically via an app store feature but dont know quite what to expect. We have more of a challenge there in terms of explaining what SoundCloud is all about and helping them have a great new user experience. So a lot of our efforts in development right now are to enhance that new user experience. Do you guys have a big relationship with Apple and Google? Yeah and I would say probably the most important part of my role is to work closely with Google and Apple. We work to build that relationship and keep them excited about what we have coming up. We also keep in regular communication with those guys about roadmaps, release plans and marketing plans and really to treat them as partners. Because they are partners they are our key distribution platform. Any barriers to that relationship, or any difficulties working with them? Its been great actually. When I came into the job, SoundCloud was already fairly established. So its easier to get talking to Apple or Google when you are a bigger brand thats popular. They also like us and people at Apple and Google use our app too. So its been generally a positive experience. Theyve given us time and energy and advised us on best practice, and let us know when occasional co-marketing opportunities come up. Any examples? So, for example, for the five year anniversary of the App Store Apple tweeted a marketing message about SoundCloud. They were looking for interesting stories or statistics about iOS apps. So we had a chat and told them theres been 150 million users who have accessed SoundCloud through their iOS devices including apps and the mobile site. So that was a nice big number. I dont think they do that just for us. Theyre very open to talking to all developers who are interest ed in having that conversation. Whats SoundCloud got coming up in terms of mobile? In the shorter term were definitely focused on making that new user experience as exciting as possible and focusing on retaining users for the first one, three and seven days while theyre new to the app. Broadly speaking, theres going to be some exciting stuff coming up. Were always looking at new platforms. But nothing to announce right now.

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6.4

AD4SCREEN ON APP ENGAGEMENT

Paris-based AD4Screen runs a specialist platform for performance-based mobile marketing campaigns. The companys AdPerf technology lets users track in-app conversions per source and allows them to optimise budget allocation, while the Ad4Push tool delivers push notifications for multiple OS and in-app messages. Ad4Screens clients include Orange, Disney and videogame developer Capcom.

Patrick Mareuil, Co-founder AD4Screen AD4Screens co-founder Patrick Mareuils talk on app engagement was full of practical advice on using push notifications and alerts to keep your users active. Here are the key points from Mareuils presentation at App Promotion Summit 2013: Firstly Patrick points out that engagement and loyalty criteria has a very real impact on your Google Play rankings (and perhaps on the App Store too). Google Play is influenced by how many installs and uninstalls your app gets and on the frequency of usage over a 30 day period. Patrick therefore says if youre not trying to engage your users immediately after acquiring then its suicidal. Ad4Screen specialises in push notifications, so its no surprise Patrick sees them as a crucial tool to increase app loyalty. Theres some good numbers backing this up. Ad4Screen looke d at data from Price Ministers app and found Android push notification recipients were 1.7 times more active than non-recipients, while iOS users were 2.2 times more active. This, Patrick says, has a huge impact on frequency of use and ultimately on revenues. According to Ad4Screens research, even if a user has only seen a push notification and has not clicked it theres still a 33% increase with in-app purchase rates. If you click the notification then youre four times more likely to purchase. Patrick also highlights the different types of push notifications. Multicoloured messages are a bit more flashy and get noticed more. Developers can also use deeplinks to drive users to a more relevant section of the app (rather than just bringing them to the home page). Theres also rich push notifications, which can take users to a unique HTML5 overlay within the app once they click. In app messages are also an important tool to drive engagement. Patrick says in-app messages, which can take the appearance of banners or interstitials, are heavily under-used by iOS developers and can be deployed to help users discover new features inside apps. He says theyre great for building relationships and give you the same targeting capacities you have with push messages, so you can talk to specific segments of your userbase. Testing and analysing data was a big theme at the App Promotion Summit and this is no different when it comes to push notifications. Patrick underscored the importance of a/b testing, saying push

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messages are very reactive, so you can deploy tests and change messages quickly. Patrick says you need to get as much data as possible on users and give them the option to choose what kind of messages they receive. For instance, he gave the example of a French retail app, where users could choose the type of sales they receive, making sure any offers were relevant to their tastes. This campaign had response rates of over 10% double the rate of regular sales pushes.

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6.5

INFOBIP ON LEVERAGING SMS

InfoBip specialises in global mobile messaging marketing, encompassing SMS messaging, push notifications, number context and m-payment solutions, allowing app developers to reach and engage millions of users. InfoBip also boasts its own in-house development team, cloud-based solutions, and partnerships with global mobile operators. The company has over 25 offices throughout Asia, Africa, Europe and the US.

Ivan Maksic, UK regional manager InfoBip During the App Promotion Summit, InfoBips UK regional manager Ivan Maksic informed attendees on the, often overlooked, benefits of messaging solutions for app developers. Heres Maksics key points. Knowing your audience should be a major concern when it comes to using messaging to drive engagement, according to Maksic. He says relevancy is incredibly important if you want to avoid spamming and if you dont know your audience then you dont know your message. SMS is an incredibly overlooked, says Maksic, especially since it can deliver such high conversion rates. According to InfoBip, an SMS with an app download link has an average conversion rate of between 9% and 13%, which is pretty impressive. Using a trusted source to deliver messages also generates very high conversion rates, says Maksic. Text invites from friends can see conversions as high as 40%. Friends can be incentivised to send personalised texts with rewards. Maksic says these friend recommendations usually work better than anything else.

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We also caught-up with InfoBips head of global partnerships Rube Hul jev to talk more on the benefits of using mobile messaging.

Is it hard to sell the value of SMS to developers? It seems like such an old tech. Rube Huljev: Developers understand the value and they understand the ROI and the understand the measurability and the figures that come out of it. Those kind of engagement figures are not contested by any other channel they are way higher with SMS. But we need to evangelise SMS is when we deal with brands and with agencies. They might be looking for some sexy new technology, which converts in tens of thousands instead of millions. That is the big job we have evangelisation of old school tech toward agencies and brands. Do you have to do similar evangelisation with push notifications? Push notifications are a completely different topic. We do need to evangelise push notifications to the developers, because they can get a lot more out of push if they partner with an expert. Of course, anybody can do push notifications by themselves but the point is that you might be better off by investing your development power into your own app and niche, rather than into an additional feature like push. So its better to leave this to third party companies that do push notifications well and who can put a lot of resources into it. Plus, in the end, its really cheap. Any marketing person can do a very effective campaign, instead of focusing on the tech. How big a problem is spam and how to you avoid it? Too much spam is an issue. But the final choice should be left to the user. In the ideal case every user should be able to set the frequency of the message and the type of events that trigger it. If the message is informative and very personal, its not spam. If you let the user make their own choices then they feel OK. Do you see a lot of devs getting this wrong? When we start working with developers we try to educate them on doing it right. But weve seen a lot of external companies who get it very wrong and there are certain networks, who do not target at all. Mainly networks are the ones getting messaging wrong. What about new messaging platforms like WhatsApp? How will they fit in? Are they a threat? Definitely not. That is a a threat to the mobile operators, because they are losing the so called person-to-person traffic. These new messaging platform will, in the end, eventually become a partner of ours and another channel to place those messages. Those particular apps, like WhatsApp, they know a lot about users, which means you can target those messages very finely. But at this moment they are not a threat and I dont think they will become one.

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6.6

MOBPARTNER ON DEVELOPER/PUBLISHER RELATIONS

MobPartner is one of the leading mobile affiliate platforms out there focusing on performance campaigns and user acquisition. The network runs its own in-house platform and unique tracking tools. We were lucky enough to get some time at the App Promotion Summit, with SVP of sales & marketing Cristina Constandache, for a highly informative chat on how developers can get the most out of their relationships with publishers.

Cristina Constancache, SVP of sales & marketing MobPartner Mobyaffiliates: What are your key takeaways from the APS conference? Cristina: There seems to be a common understanding that in order to run successful mobile marketing campaigns you have to test, analyse, scale it up and build long term partnerships. There are no miracle formulas and no magic numbers. Advertisers needs are different and the strategy they employ as well as the partners they use should reflect just that. It seems everyone is coming back to the issue of app quality also? Yes, but you cant control the quality unless you have tested and analysed the results. So focus on the quality but quality can mean different things to different people. First of all understand what quality means for you. Hire a good analyst before you do anything else and choose your partners accordingly. You talked a bit about loyalty between developers and publishers during the panel can you expand on this? Everyone is talking about building the next steps after the burst campaign, but nobody is talking about placing the advertiser not the app at the centre of app promotion and app marketing. Because, if you are a game developer and you are doing your job correctly, then you are probably going to have other games. So you want to build a loyal publisher database who are going to be promoting your next games or apps not only whatever makes more money now. Consumers are very fickle and they switch as soon as there is a new hot game on the market. The same thing goes for publishers. If you dont build loyalty with your publishers in the early days, then how can you expect them to push your new game, or apps as opposed to whatever has the highest ecpm?

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Best way to build loyalty? You need to work with partners that will build a bespoke longterm strategy at advertiser level. A partner that will listen to the publisher feedback, understand your needs and make sure all parties get the best out of the collaboration. Flexible payout structure at publisher level, dedicated creatives, special promotions for the top publishers, incentive schemes for the mid tier partners dedicated attention at publisher level will earn you the loyalty of the traffic partners. This is how you are going to build up loyalty. Publishers care about three aspects in priority: Ecpms, exclusive offers and their user database. You cant give them the game or app exclusively. We know that. But if youre able to provide assets just for them, theyre going to promote you as opposed to your competitors because they know they can count on you in the long term. Because this gives them loyal users and they can offer something to their users that does not exist anywhere else. What should devs be looking for in a partner? They should be looking for a performance based partner with a step by step approach, analytics and feedback & recommendations for a long term collaboration. It might sound like a recipe for a cake but networks know their traffic and they have immense knowledge of the market from the sheer volume of advertisers and publishers they work with. Push your network to work hard for you: start small, have them understand what works and then push them to scale it up by engaging more with the publishers on your behalf. A partner that can offer quality control, multi country / sector and vertical approach will be in the best position to make mobile marketing for you in the long term. Theres a lot of talk about OS fragmentation from developers, but this seems not as important as developers think? Yes definitely. There is no formula. It makes no sense to have 40% iOS, 30% Android and 30% everything else. You just have to see what works and according to what works you have to go out there and get more of it and test. Test and fail and then after that you are able to go to the next level. But be careful that there is no magic number with regards to how much you have to pay. You can pay 50 cents or you can pay ten euros it doesnt mean anything. You have to adapt your investment according to the ROI. What are the common mistakes you see devs make when they come to you? They come with pre-conceived ideas, such as I dont want incentives or I dont want media buyers, etc, etc. As mentioned earlier, networks know their traffic. Explain to them what you want to achieve and let them come back to you with a strategy that fits their publisher database. So keep an open mind and dont say that oh my competitor is paying 0.50 cents so I should pay that as well. Youre competitor might be paying that, but its because they can afford to p ay it and it makes sense for them. Our job as your partner is to make sure you get the best ROI from our network with the assets you put at our disposal so our recommendations will be to that end, rather than apply a one size fits all solution. After that you have to let us know per traffic source what works, so we can adjust the rate for you and can monitor the quality going forward.

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6.7

ADEVEN ON TRACKING YOUR CONVERSIONS

adven is a mobile ad analytics and tracking platform that focuses on transparency and accountability. The companys adjust.io solution provides download tracking solutions and post install KPI analytics, while its free-to-use apptrace tool gives users access to data that helps agencies and publishers understand and optimise their mobile campaigns more effectively. adeven is based in Berlin, with offices in London.

Paul H. Muller, CEO adeven adevens Paul H. Muller took to the stage at this years App Promotion Summit and had some pretty strong things to say about tracking, putting forth a solid argument for open source SDKs. Muller also gave a few tips on the differences between SDKs and what to look out for in the ideal analytics dashboard. Heres Muller key points for those of you who missed the event. Muller says transparancy is paramount when it comes to tracking data. Developers must ensure they get to own and keep the data that is being generated, so they know exactly what is happening throughout a campaign. Transparancy also means developers should know how the tracking technology actually works. Muller uses the example of user privacy to illustrate his point. If an SDK is compromising your users privacy and you have no way of finding this out for yourself then it could be a PR disaster just waiting to happen. Muller therefore advises developers to run away from any company that wants to put a compiled SDK into your app. Compiled SDKs are basically black boxes, he says, which are usually poorly made. If something goes wrong within the SDK, you cant fix it, and it cant be audited. Developers should therefore look toward open source SDKs. This gives you more control over what is going on inside your app and lets you see exactly where any errors may crop-up. Muller also advises developers to use a third party independent tracking company to measure downloads, and not to rely on a partner who is also selling you downloads. This firstly presents a conflict of interests, says Muller, and could also lead to your data being stuck with one company, so you cant compare it if you decide to switch to another source. Mullers final point concerns analytics dashboards. He believes most dashboards out th ere do not display much relevant and useful information to developers and says comparable data is what really

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matters. In order to achieve this dashboards must be able to normalize timeframes, breaking down how much say a user spends over say 30 days, or five day.

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6.8

FIKSU ON KPIS AND CAMPAIGN OPTIMIZATION

Fiksu is one of the most well-known mobile app acquisition platforms in the industry, helping app developers and marketers overcome the challenge of promoting iOS and Android apps. Fiksu also runs FreeMyApps, an incentivised app discovery platform that rewards users with gift vouchers for engaging with app promotion campaigns. The company is based out of Boston, USA, with global offices across Europe and Asia.

Benjamin Hansz, EMEA regional manager Fiksu Fiksu was out in full force at this years App Promotion Summit, with EMEA regional manager Benjamin Hansz giving a thoroughly englightening talk on how to optimise an app campaign around your key performance indicators. Here are some of Hanszs key takeaways for developers looking to find traffic sources that bring in the most valuable users. Quality is key One of Hanszs main points was that surprise surprise quality is the key when it comes to traffic sources and the closer you can get to the source of the traffic the better. There are 200 plus different networks out there, which is a bit daunting, but only about fifty networks providing the core of traffic. This eco-system is constantly in flux, with the size and effectiveness of sources changing all the time. Understand the sources Hansz says developers therefore must understand the different types of sources and how they operate. For instance, incentivised networks will provide high scale traffic that helps for burst campaigns, propelling apps up the charts quickly, but they might not be the best for acquiring loyal users. Real Time Bidding platforms are becoming increasingly popular, letting you bid on an impression basis in real time. Hansz says RTB is becoming especially popular for game developers. Then of course theres regular premium and blind networks, social platforms and different publishers. Compare, contrast With all these traffic sources Hansz says developers must also experiment and compare results, finding out which sources can deliver them the most value. Optimising is all about rarefying your traffic sources, says Hansz looking past the download and seeing who is becoming a user, and the number of those users who are paying.

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Cast a wide net Developers shouldnt put all their eggs into one basket when it comes to traffic sources, says Hansz. Diversity is key. Each traffic source will always bring its own limitations. Hansz advises developers to therefore cast a wide net, over a number of different traffic sources, while consistantly refreshing the message. If you can do this, you can avoid saturation and zoom in on where the best performing users are coming from. Attribute, dont guess Of course, it comes as no surprise that Hansz sees attribution as vital to campaign optimisation. Its no good for a network such as iAd simply saying its delivering premium traffic if you dont know the exact value of the users, then youre flying blind.

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7 Conclusions and Next Steps

The App Promotion Summit showed that whilst app distribution remains a huge challenge, there is increasingly a body of good practice available to help developers and publishers. In addition, the range of new mobile app marketing services, platforms and agencies emerging provides a large number of potential routes to market. We look forward to working with this exciting new industry to bring together the key players for future events. For more check out http://apppromotionsummit.com or follow us on twitter @apppromotion You can also contact the App Promotion Summit team at hello@appromotionsummit.com

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