By Craig Weinberg, VP of Mobile Strategy
Most mobile agency folks I know have a pretty healthy sense of self (raising hand). And you know why we’ll gladly wear the title of ninjas, sherpas, wizards, etc.?
Because, more than perhaps any other digital marketers, we can transform a PILE of data from a confusing swirl of possible KPIs into revenue and insights that could transform your business.
You’re skeptical, right? I’m a mobile agency marketer, so a big part of my job is to make that argument. And let me tell you, the majority of brand marketers I come into contact with don’t know where to start with mobile, let alone optimize it.
Still don’t believe me? Well, fair enough. Let me lay out 21 reasons I’m telling the truth:
- 2 reasons mobile data is worth more
- 11 questions that good mobile agencies can help our clients answer
- 8 common mistakes we’re great at helping our clients avoid
Here goes...
2 Reasons Mobile Data Is Worth More
Data is data, right? Well, not exactly. Let me explain:
- We carry our phones with us 24/7. Even if you don’t have yours on you at all times, it’s safe to say it’s more accessible to you throughout the day than your computer. Almost everything we do, every piece of media we consume, and everywhere we go is being tracked by our smartphone, and that’s hyper-valuable data.
- Your PC data is trackable for about 30 days. Not bad, right? Well, your mobile usage is being tracked for as long as you have that particular model (average: 18 months). Mobile doesn’t rely on cookies for data, and because of that, mobile advertisers have access to much, much more data per user.
11 Questions Mobile Agencies Can Help You Answer
Demographic, geo, device, media, banner type...all of these insights are available to marketers in mobile data. Here are some of the questions this data helps you answer (believe me, this list is far from exhaustive):
- Who are the groups and kind of users enjoying my services?
- Who are my whales (heavy users / spenders), my dolphins (casual users), and my minnows (light users)?
- Which audience segment is responding best (and worst) to my messages?
- Which media source sent the best users to my app?
- Which of my banners generated the best ROI?
- What tools should I use to track users performance?
- What are the main actions we should track?
- When should I focus on new user acquisition vs. retaining my existing users?
- How can I measure the effectiveness of my messages?
- How can I find new pockets of ROI-positive users?
- How can I choose between the hundreds of vendors knocking on my door on a daily basis?
8 Common Mistakes Mobile Agencies Help Their Clients Avoid
We’ve seen that, left to their own devices, even the smartest brand marketers tangle themselves up by making (at least) a few of these mistakes:
- Tracking TMI – Too many brand marketers track too many events and get lost in a sea of unnecessary data.
- Focusing on the wrong KPIs – Most brand marketers don’t know the KPIs that most accurately measure the ROI of paid media.
- Taking the siloed approach – Most brand marketers forget (or don’t understand) that from the first time the user is exposed to an ad, every action taken is important and should be tracked in one holistic view.
- Data mis-managing – Very few brand marketers have the capacity to store and execute user data, which leaves most of the knowledge in the hands of their vendors and networks.
- Trusting a 3rd party with their goals – Instead of leading the way and asking 3rd-party partners simply to execute, many brand marketers trust their partners to set goals for them.
- Broken communication between product and marketing – All too often, we’ve seen messaging between the product and marketing teams misalign, leading to confusion and huge drop-outs in the sign-up process.
- Creative mis-management – No brands should use the same creative across all segments and for a very long time, but we see it all too often.
- Forgetting that mobile is perfect trial-and-error territory – Every marketing theory can be proven or disproven with a $50 experiment, but many brand marketers are afraid to experiment.
So, if you’re being honest, how many of those scenarios applied to you? If it’s below three, you’ve got my congratulations. If you’re in the majority, though, you’re leaving some serious insights and revenue on the table. Luckily, we’re not here to simply identify problems; we exist to help clients build solutions that unlock keys to their mobile growth.
In our next post, we’ll tackle one of the very problems we just identified: focusing on the wrong KPIs. We’ll show you how to streamline to the most critical metrics, how to analyze those metrics, and how to build your campaigns accordingly. Stay tuned!
