Five years ago Mobile Marketing looked very different than it does today...

Five years ago, mobile marketing looked a little different from today. There were lots of bespoke in-house solutions and everyone was using spreadsheets. But that’s been changing.  Mobile Marketing is all about data, your martech stack and how to utilize Apple’s data for marketing.

Today, we have more advanced tech and streamlined solutions – which has meant more data. And increasing the value of this data is the common thread between the three key things that are really standing out for me at the moment.

First of all, there’s the importance of getting your martech stack right, so you can use all of that incredibly valuable data to power your business.

Secondly, there’s the importance of bringing data in mobile marketing together, in particular looking at organic and paid user acquisition as a whole.

Finally – and ignore this one at your peril – there’s the importance of proper data. By which I mean real-time data that gives you the insight you need to stay agile and competitive.   

The importance of the right martech stack

Let me ask you a quick question. Have you implemented a data warehouse at your current place of business? And are you using it to drive your business strategy?

This is something that’s coming up time and again in conversations now. The purpose of a data warehouse is to bring in data from different sources all over the business and derive actionable insight from it.

When you think about your martech stack, even a simplified version is probably quite a beast. You’re likely to have lots of products and systems, generating rows and rows of data every single day. Ultimately, all this data will feed into a Customer Data Platform, which will then empower your data warehouse. And, of course, you’ll need a BI platform on top of it, so that you can visualize it all.

The key is understanding how this data can feed insight. Whether it’s to optimize acquisition campaigns, or improve your CRM strategy, you need to get that data into a meaningful form.

With the right martech stack, you can cut and change the data in mobile marketing from any number of different angles. You can look at it from an acquisition perspective and an enterprise perspective, across both app and web data. For example, if you acquire someone from a Facebook ad, is there a difference between them and someone coming to you from ASA? And how do you use that information to improve engagement from that moment onwards?

This is the sort of insight that, if you don’t have it now, you should be striving for this year.  

The importance of bringing your data in Mobile Marketing together

Organic and paid UA have typically been treated separately. But more and more often, we’re looking at bringing that data together and viewing it as a whole. 

There are a lot of different reasons to do that, from keyword suppression to avoiding cannibalisation. And it’s my view that ultimately we’ll see these merging into a single platform.

The importance of proper data

Apple’s search data is very well regarded by app marketers. But there are two key issues with it, which have come to light since we built our own model. 

One of the first big problems is that Apple’s data for marketing is daily, so you don’t get the granularity that you need. We know that search trends change throughout the day. Searches at 8 am are not the same as searches at 6pm. Understanding that is very important to effectively building an acquisition strategy on ASA.

The other challenge we have with data in mobile marketing is that Apple’s data for marketing is 48 hours old. So if you score a keyword on that day, it isn’t necessarily the value of the search popularity of that day, it’s the search popularity of that data two days before.

For example, just imagine you’re a social casino. You might be targeting lottery terms, such as ‘powerball’. If you look at Apple’s data, it peaks two days after the draw’s taken place. So you know there’s no interest in it, but Apple’s telling you it’s really popular.

Or here’s another one. You’re launching a clothing range that can initially only be bought from your app. This causes a series of spikes on day one, but Apple misses it because it’s just running weighted moving averages. So you lose a lot of that visibility.

Bad data gives you bad results. And using effective, accurate data is becoming more and more important – in particular, from an AI perspective.

An AI engine must be fed data in real time, unlike Apple’s data for marketing. Without that, you can’t make an effective AI bidding mechanism for ASA. You’re at a competitive disadvantage unless you’ve got something like this: if you’re spending anything on ASA you really should be using some proper data.

So there you have it. A whistle-stop tour of app marketing in 2022. Here at CMA, we believe that data is the only way to get the best value from your app. And getting your martech stack right, viewing your data more holistically, and getting that data in real-time are the keys to success.