Appi Camper is an interview series that shines a spotlight on today's mobile elite, showcasing their expertise and knowledge. Growth leaders share trends, strategies to navigate the current market, tips to overcome present challenges, and how they approach these impacts to successfully emerge as an Appi Camper.
Spotlight with Olga Noha
Olga Noha is Chief Marketing Officer at SplitMetrics, an Apple Search Ads partner, offering an ecosystem of products and services to help mobile-first companies grow faster and easier. Olga has over 17 years of experience in building and scaling B2B marketing functions for global tech companies.
What positive trends have evolved in the industry over the past 6-12 months?
One major trend that I've noticed over the past 6-12 months and that I’m particularly excited about is the focus on offering real value. The focus on value drives a number of other trends that we see on the market:
- Prioritizing User Retention by offering more value to the users
- Valuegraphics Instead of Demographics
- Focus on Personalization as a way to make interactions on each of the stages more valuable to the users
Let’s elaborate a bit more on each of these trends:
Trend 1. Prioritizing User Retention by driving more value to the users
The global economy is reeling from the consequences of the global pandemic and world conflicts, and user acquisition costs are getting higher across all channels. As user acquisition costs go up, app marketers are changing their approaches and priorities toward the focus on retention and LTV.
At SplitMetrics we serve as a growth engine for top mobile-first businesses worldwide through our ecosystem of products and services. An Apple Search Ads partner, we built a platform for Apple Search Ads optimization and, we believe, the biggest expertise in Apple Search Ads on the market - through the years we’ve seen more Apple Search Ads accounts than anybody else.
What does it have to do with the User Retention trend? In fact, we see that many of our customers - mobile developers and publishers - are investing more into Apple Search Ads not only thanks to the channel’s user acquisition potential but thanks to its efficiency for user retention, which has become a priority for the majority of businesses this year. A recent report by Tenjin called ‘From Hyper to Hybrid’ reveals that Apple Search Ads holds the #1 position among all the channels analyzed for key metrics such as Day 7 Retention, Day 7 Ad LTV, and Day 7 IAP LTV. That’s an illustration of how the focus on high-quality channels helps drive value for businesses.
Trend 2. Valuegraphics instead of demographics
Valuegraphics is a revolutionary approach to understanding what people really care about and how these values influence their decision-making. It is based on the idea that demographic data is no longer enough to understand people’s needs and desires. Instead, valuegraphics aims to identify the underlying values that drive individual and collective behavior, such as beliefs, attitudes, and motivations, eventually leading to stronger brand loyalty.
By understanding what people truly value, organizations can create more effective strategies and products that resonate with their target audience on a deeper level. That’s why valuegraphics is rightfully named one of the biggest trends to shape the mobile industry in the coming years - again a trend that is focused on value.
Trend 3. Focus on Personalization
Users nowadays expect a personalized experience that meets their specific needs and interests. It's no longer enough to just have a functional app. With so many options available to them, users are more likely to stick with an app that provides content and features that are relevant to them — and is set to establish a full-fledged user journey for them.
Personalization becomes vital for understanding your audience and creating more effective campaigns and experiences that truly provide value.
As a result, UA tools like custom product pages in App Store allow you to create ad variations in Apple Search Ads search results campaigns will keep growing in importance because they enable you to connect even with those users who have opted out of Personalized Ads. Just like our customer Piscart did. Picsart is a developer of a suite of online photo and video editing applications with 150M+ monthly active users. They were early adopters of custom product pages. Targeting specific audiences and segments with custom messaging and offering was a challenge. With the introduction of custom product pages Picsart has got its “silver bullet” to address this as well as achieve a number of other objectives.
Thanks to bringing their personalization to another level with custom product pages Picsart were able to achieve:
- Increase of CR by 52%
- Increase in the number of users entering the free trial by 153%
- Decrease of the cost per trial by 50% A wonderful success story of using personalization to drive extra value - LOVE it!
How important do you think events are for the success and growth of your business? Do you think there is a major difference between in-person and virtual events?
To stay competitive and succeed in today’s market, mobile marketers need to prioritize constant learning, collaboration, and information exchange between practitioners. And that’s where events come into place. Both in-person and virtual events provide great opportunities for networking, learning, and collaboration.
At SplitMetrics we host, sponsor, and attend a lot of offline events as we see how important such connection is for our customers and prospects. This is our way of driving additional value to the community. We also host a major annual virtual event, App Growth Week, as well as regular App Growth Point digital event series, where practitioners from the UA, ASO, and Growth teams share real-life stories and best practices with the mobile marketing community. Hundreds of mobile marketers joining these virtual events find them to be of great value for them.
What role does gender play in our industry? What challenges have you seen and how have people overcome those?
Diversity is a significant factor in the success of our industry. I'm lucky that I've never faced gender inequality or bias in my career. I understand that this is not the case for everyone and I'm grateful for it. I believe my experience is partly due to the conscious choices I've made throughout my career. I've always chosen to work with companies that value diversity and equality.
SplitMetrics is a perfect example. We don't just talk about diversity—we live it! We have equal numbers of men and women on our leadership teams. Our team represents a myriad of different origins and backgrounds, spanning 20+ countries around the globe. I believe that this diverse team makes us more innovative and productive. We all feel valued, which helps us work better together. I choose to work for and support businesses that promote diversity and equality - and I think if we all make this choice, we can catalyze change.
What are your recommendations for keeping yourself and your team members connected and motivated? Are there any tips you can share about how to make it work?
Keeping team members connected and motivated is extremely important in all organizations, especially those where the team is working in distributed geographies and time zones. However, when all the team members share the same values and goals, the heavy lifting of keeping them connected and motivated is simplified.
We at SplitMetrics share the core values that keep the team aligned and driven:
- Move Fast
- Get Sh*t Done
- Build Together
- Strive for Transparency
- Own What You Do
- Learn + Share = Excel
Furthermore, it’s important to create a shared context and maintain a unified vision. As one of the vehicles to achieve this we've instituted bi-weekly Team Update meetings. These meetings allow us to keep everyone abreast of the latest developments, celebrate achievements, address challenges, and align on our goals. Additionally, we offer comprehensive data transparency to our team. We believe that when team members have full access to the relevant information and data, they can make better decisions, feel more involved in the process, and see how their individual efforts contribute to the overall business goals. Such an approach further enhances the sense of connection, engagement, and motivation within the team.
