No one gets to the top alone. In fact, we rely on the knowledge and experience of our peers more often than we'd like to admit. So I reached out to some of my successful friends in the mobile marketing industry and asked them to share the advice that helped them the most and how they profited from it.
Trust yourself
Hannah Parvaz Head of Growth at Curio and App Marketer of the Year 2019
"There's been so much advice that people have thrown at me over the years, but there are two things which have stuck. The first, trust yourself. When you're so deep in your own work or product, it's so easy to get bogged down with all the small things, and imposter syndrome is very, very real -- but you are where you are for a reason, and you have to trust your instincts. And second? Never put out any copy that you wouldn't say out loud. If you wouldn't read what you've written (without cringing) to whoever sits opposite you, then you shouldn't let any of your customers read it."
Focus on 3 KPIs
Mirela Cialai Director of Mobile Marketing at ZINIO and App Growth Award Nominated
"The best piece of advice I got was from a former VP of marketing, and his advice was to always focus on the three most important KPIs when analyzing the performance of a channel. Find the top three key metrics that have the biggest impact on that specific channel and the results achieved through it, and KPIs that the marketing team can influence without requiring any intervention from other teams or departments, and focus on the growth of these three metrics. This advice was beneficial as there's always so much data available, and without having a clear idea of which metrics to look at and what moves the needle it would have taken us much longer to reach our goals."
Make sure numbers are reliable
Alper Taner App Marketing Specialist and Growth Consultant
"At the beginning of my career, our SVP Operations told me to double-check our tracking setup when numbers look suspicious to make sure it's not a tracking problem. I did it every time something looked suspicious and it was helpful to understand the real reasons when numbers fluctuate. Tracking was indeed an issue from time to time. Although the developer confirms everything works, we are the marketers who have to work with these numbers, thus we need to make sure numbers are reliable before taking action. I've seen many companies rely on insufficient data or wrong data when they optimize their campaigns. Being able to understand marketing tech setup and troubleshoot without tech resources was helpful to improve ROAS for my clients and me."
Be rude if need to be
Carmen Marin Senior Performance Marketing Manager at HomeToGo and App Growth Award Nominated
"I think the best piece of advice I got came from a senior manager, and it was not something she said but something she does. I have seen this woman boss, who is outstandingly prepared for every meeting, allow herself to be blunt, lose her patience, and be visibly irritated if someone makes her lose her time. Nothing new about that, most of the men managers behave like this often, unless in this case, we are talking about a rather young woman.
Why did I choose this example, you would say, it sounds like a rather unprofessional behavior, nothing we should imitate. You are probably right, but the truth is that sometimes I do get pissed, and I tend to suck it up and smile and later on even cry out of pure frustration. I would rather learn to frown unapologetically as she does because we deserve to have the right to get as angry and be as rude as men do. With that right in our hands, we can keep working on achieving an optimal emotional distance from work topics that allow us to be better professionals. Still, at least, in the meanwhile, we won't be losing energy on trying to be likable and sweet.
Your coworkers don't need to like you; they need to respect you as a professional.
Be rude if need to be, woman, that is my advice."
Do the opposite
Tomasz Pasko Head of Performance Marketing at Paintgun.io
"Try counterintuitive marketing and do the opposite for at least a few days. Everyone is trying video ads, try image ads. Everyone is doing automated bidding, try manual bidding. If something is done by everyone, it's getting much more expensive. Also, dig deep into the Facebook Analytics tool – it's one of the best sources of information about your users. I've heard this from Tim Burd, a well known Facebook marketer and the owner of Y agency in the US.
How did we use it?
We implemented counterintuitive marketing into our strategy and managed to drop the CPA by 44% in 2M ad spend. Our implementation was testing the original campaign (for example, with video ads) versus counterintuitive campaigns (image ad). We have noticed that this approach is giving us much better CPA, so we started doing it regularly, not only as a test. In terms of Facebook Analytics, when we started targeting brands with the most significant affinity with our client's brand, we found a lot of new audiences at a low CPA. Based on this, we grew our interest targeting base to more than 900 interests, and about 33% are already tested with some fantastic results."
Listen to users
Sebnem Alpayli Mobile Marketing at GameDuell
"I think one of the most valuable advice I received in my career was about being more skeptical about what could potentially work for my product. When you talk to fellow mobile marketers, you hear many success stories from various verticals. However, all these might not be applicable for your users, vertical and product at all.
I believe the most important thing is to understand your users, and their motivations - understand your funnel inside and out, listen to what your users have to tell you, and analyze their reviews carefully. Then you can leverage high potential channels and activities in order to reach your target audience using the correct marketing messages. I think that makes a big difference."