3 Myths You Can't Afford to Believe About Start-Up Apps

entrepreneur.com
Investing time, energy and money in these common 'truths' could lead to failure long before customers decide your fate in the app store.

The app world's secrets are known by relatively few. Most people think success is due entirely to how "viral" your app becomes, as if it's some external factor beyond your control. As it turns out, you can control it. And I'm living proof it's possible. 
Since the app store's inception, I've been working with mobile apps and advising others as they develop their own apps. In that time, I've learned what makes an app wildly successful and seen surefire recipes for painful flops. If you're looking to launch your first title, don't buy into these three myths.

1. Every detail needs to be completely original.

The startup world seems to put a lot of emphasis on making products and apps that aren't like anything else on the market. While it's both noble and inspirational to innovate against the grain, you have to ask yourself, "What's my 'why?' " If your goal is to build a profitable company, it can be quite a risk to do something unlike the public's ever seen before.
While it's possible you could build the next Uber, you should know there are thousands upon thousands of failures for every billion-dollar app unicorn. Instead of making something entirely new, you can spin existing tactics, psychology and proven app concepts into something unique enough to gain attention and attract downloads.
Within the gaming industry, developers take a systematic approach to app monetization. After a relatively low -- or free -- initial price, users make in-app purchases to get character upgrades, unlock levels or lead to other gamification elements.
Sure, you could invent a new way of making money with your app. But you'd better bring some serious cash, time and dedication. If you choose unproven, untested methods, you also must make certain your employees, business partners and investors are comfortable with the risk.

2. You need to raise a ton of money.

Many indie app developers are self-funded or bootstrapped their companies and now are making millions in revenue. If you raise money from others on the front end, you'll have to split up the profit pie, too. Sometimes, accepting investors also entails giving up a degree of creative control.
The million-dollar myth is just that. You don't need piles of cash to get ahead in the app world. In fact, strings attached to that funding might not be worth it, even if you were guaranteed success.
Done right, an app can fund itself entirely. Once you're making a certain amount of revenue per user, you can redirect a portion of that money to new-user acquisition. As long as you can keep your cost per user lower than revenue generated from ongoing customers, you might have a scalable-to-infinity hit.

3. You need billboards, Super Bowl commercials and celebrity endorsements.

App marketing is grossly misunderstood. Ironically, the incredible initial success of apps like Candy Crush are the main reason behind such thinking. These apps dominated every possible online platform and needed to go to great lengths to attract new users.
You've also probably seen apps with their own Super Bowl commercials or large-scale billboards in major metro areas. Maybe you've heard celebrities endorse specific products. Generally speaking, only a select few app companies successfully carry off these marketing techniques. Everyone else is simply wasting their money.
Getting a big-name star to endorse your app works only if you have all your ducks in a row. You need to leverage a huge base of existing users, high revenue per user, strategic use of psychology, robust gamification elements and other factors.
Fortunately, there is a method to the madness. Performance marketing is one of the best ways to build a scalable app marketing campaign. But be warned: Lots of people are pitching user-acquisition services, and few can deliver. You must thoroughly vet any consultant or third-party company. Combine performance marketing with an effective public-relations campaign on relevant platforms, and you'll reach a significant portion of your target market.

Starbucks to move into content creation with in-house video and podcasts

cbc.ca
Coffee giant says it's aiming for quality level of 'Washington Post and New York Times'

Moving into original content gives Starbucks more control in burnishing its image on social issues, CEO Howard Schultz says.

Starbucks says it wants to tell stories about inspiring Americans, marking the coffee chain's latest push to deepen its relationship with customers and cast itself as a positive force on social issues.
The coffee chain says it is moving into the world of "content creation" with its series of text, video and podcasts on subjects including a former NFL player who helps disabled veterans. The company says it is aiming for the quality level of The Washington Post and The New York Times.

Starbucks says it will promote the Upstanders series in stores and on its mobile app over the next 10 weeks. CEO Howard Schultz said the app, which accounts for 25 per cent of Starbucks transactions, is a "treasure trove" that can give content considerable exposure.
Schultz said that retailers need to evolve to be more "experiential," and that he believes Starbucks will continue to pursue original content.

New strategy

Moving into original content could give Starbucks more control in burnishing its image on social issues. The company has long touted its health and education benefits for employees, for instance. And last year, it had employees write "Race Together" on cups in the wake of protests over police killings of black men. The move was criticized as opportunistic and inappropriate coming from a company better known for pricey lattes, but such efforts have nevertheless fostered Starbucks' liberal image.
Schultz said the changing "rules of engagement" means businesses now have to show customers they're giving back to the community. He also gave a strong endorsement to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on Wednesday, citing on CNN the "vitriolic display of bigotry and hate" on the "other side." He didn't rule out running for office himself at some point.

Many companies have been trying to bypass news outlets and become a direct source of information, sometimes hiring "brand journalists" to create stories about themselves. Coca-Cola runs a "Coca-Cola Journey" website, for instance, and Chipotle gained praise for its animated videos depicting itself as a more wholesome alternative to traditional fast food.
Schultz said the Upstanders series is not branded content or marketing because it's not about Starbucks. But the push is nevertheless a way for the company to try and connect directly with customers with a feel-good message.
The challenge is that there's so much content available online that it's difficult for anyone to get noticed, said Allen Adamson, founder of the Brand Simple consulting firm. He also noted that marketers have to walk a fine line when commenting on social issues, so that they don't risk losing customers.

"If you take a stand on almost any issue today, half the room will be applauding you and half the room will be booing you," Adamson said.

Still, Adamson said creating content is a way for companies to try to reach fragmenting audiences. And the Upstanders series is meant to be uplifting, without making political statements.

Schultz said Starbucks had been "offered lots of money from other media companies" to feature their content on the company's app, citing movie trailers as an example. The company said a previously announced deal to feature select New York Times stories on its app is still in the works.
Rajiv Chandrasekaran, a Starbucks public affairs executive and a former Washington Post correspondent, said he applied the same standards to the Upstanders series that he would have while he was a reporter.
"We're really trying to create the sort of stories that would stand on their own on the Washington Post and New York Times website," he said.

What Ad Buyers Really Think About Google, Facebook, Twitter and Everything in Between

adweek.com

Ad buyers shared what they like and dislike about the platforms they use. Photo Illustration: Yuliya Kim; Sources: Getty Images, Facebook, Google, Snapchat

The major digital media platforms—full of big gains, big hype and often a lack of transparency—have made the advertising universe a complicated, fragmented place. And with eMarketer predicting digital ad spending to swell to $77.4 billion in 2017, up 16 percent versus this year, it's a domain that's poised to evolve even more rapidly. We asked seven ad buyers—from three consumer brands and three agencies, plus one independent—to talk about what's right and what's wrong with a dozen platforms with which they do business.

"The definitions are different for YouTube, for Facebook, for Twitter, and that is really not user-friendly for any agency or for any brand to work across all of them for proper reporting," says Liya Sharif, Qualcomm's senior director, marketing. Adds Bruce Kiernan, practice lead for performance marketing at MEC North America: "I would say from an agency perspective, we are frustrated. Facebook and Google are not going to give up their data and open up the gates to their walled gardens anytime soon."

Meanwhile, others are more positive about the process. "[Facebook] allows you to basically upload any type of custom audience and not just create a look-alike audience, but you can scale that according to your needs and play with different sizes of audiences," notes Tim Villanueva, head of media partnerships at Fetch.

Here, these and more buyers weigh in on topics ranging from measurement and pricing to which platforms still need improvement.

Adweek: Which ad platforms or features struggle to meet your needs?
Tim Villanueva, Fetch: Twitter's dashboard in general, [in terms of] just being able to manage the operations as well as setting up, executing and optimizing a campaign, is just a little more cumbersome than other platforms. Managing tweets at that level, finding results and quickly making decisions. You're having to extract [those things] and do a lot of data manipulation to really make the decisions you need to make.

Kevin Scholl, director, digital marketing, Red Roof Inn: I'll also pile on the Twitter cloud. Honestly, Twitter is one of these tools that we're talking about actually spending less money with. We started strong on Twitter, but as we've gotten with using other tools and really finding who we are with our campaigns, Twitter for us has become less of an investment.

Lizzy Moore, independent digital media buyer: Spotify has some limitations on how well you can target and how many creative versions or rotations you can have compared to some other options.

Villanueva: I'd say Spotify is kind of focused on brand advertisers today, and, as a result, they kind of priced out more performance-oriented advertisers. [At the same time], I understand they want to preserve a part of their environment for more premium brands.

Jon Guljord, senior director, mobile marketing, Expedia: I think a fair push for Facebook would be to provide more ... let's call it impression-level data. And who you're actually reaching from an impression basis and even audiences without having to necessarily pay for that click from the audience. I think it would really help all performance marketers if they could just be a bit more transparent with some of the impression-level data.

Bruce Kiernan, MEC: I completely agree. And that also applies to Google. With Facebook having access to as many users and as much rich data as they do, I think a huge gap is allowing marketers to actually see what goes on within their paid media activity and to then add those insights into a more holistic kind of strategic view—how this campaign is performing and what part Facebook plays in my bigger picture.

Amy Manus, senior director of media, Razorfish: Facebook is newer, shinier and getting better [video] results for many clients in regards to efficiency and engagement. However, from a platform standpoint, they are very different in terms of how video fits into the overall user experience. It is not apples to apples; and for brands it should not be either.

Moore: A lot of clients see AOL as what the internet used to be and not where they want to be now. I think they do have a lot of capabilities as far as their targeting and what you can do with creative and things like that. But I think the perception isn't as positive for clients because they think of it as the "You've Got Mail" platform.

Guljord: Google's universal app campaign [UAC] product, to get fairly specific, rolls up several products into one, and it is a black box. Getting more transparency would be super helpful. I'd speculate that Google feels like UAC fills a very particular role across their ad products and this one for a particular audience—probably app developers—and it makes it very easy to get things going. But for a sophisticated advertiser, or as Expedia, or even folks who aren't as sophisticated as Expedia, I would imagine advertisers would really benefit from more transparency and more levers with the UAC product.

Villanueva: I would say just releasing Google Play ads [for app-install campaigns] was a huge deal for them, [especially since] Apple's App [Store search] ads are coming out in September. Though right now, you can only run Google Play ads if you're running a Google search program, and it's just an extension of that. That's something I would like to see from Google, just to be able to have more tools to plan for the App Store, breaking that out and managing a separate strategy.

What about YouTube?
Moore: Not all of YouTube's ad positions drive to a website, which is a weakness and I think eliminates some of the business that they could be [getting]. You also aren't as social on YouTube as you are with other social networks where you watch a video and can like, share, comment to all of your friends who are not likely on YouTube but are on the social platform you are watching the video on. They also have custom content with big names behind it, but I don't feel the marketing of the content has been great. People know what is on Netflix. People don't know what is on YouTube that is worth watching like prime-time programming. In my mind, YouTube is still where you go to find a video on plumbing or applying makeup rather than where you go to watch TV.

Manus: YouTube has strength within the Google platform in terms of AdWords and [DoubleClick] integration, SEO value and third-party tracking. It is a good, cost-efficient option for clients to better understand customer insights and implications with the brand, creative and messaging before spending a large investment on TV or as dollars are shifting from TV to online.

Which platforms have recently improved the most?
Guljord: A year ago I couldn't say this, but now I can say that Google has done a great job at really embracing mobile. So I think 2016 has been a great leap forward for them. For a while, I think there was a question as to when they were going to get in gear. They're not all the way there yet, but I think they're certainly heading in the right direction.

Villanueva: I would agree Google has really stepped up their mobile game, developed quite a few new tools to Google Play Ads, device modifiers and universal app campaigns to show that they're truly invested. And they have built out a specialist team for mobile that is willing to support our agencies, which speeds up mobile adoption on Google. I think Facebook and Instagram, of course, continue to have that unique combination through targeting, really powerful API and user interface tools. And then now extending that onto Instagram and their Facebook Audience Network really provides them with scale and reach that it's hard to compare in the market.

Kiernan: From my standpoint, focusing on mostly performance marketing clients, we've really been impressed with some of the leaps Amazon has taken—not just with their own tools and services or being able to make those [features] available in a self-service kind of model, but just being really open to the sharing of data, insight into conversion data that may happen within their closed walls.

Moore: I like Spotify compared to their competitors like Pandora or iHeartRadio because of the way that they are growing. Pandora's huge, but they don't have as much room for growth because everyone's used them before, and you're either loyal to them or you're not. Yet Spotify still has a lot of room to grow, and they have a great international presence as well.

Kiernan: There's a lot going on in the news about these moves that AOL—or really Verizon—is making with all these assets they're collecting. As a media buyer and someone in this position at the agency, I'm very anxious to find out what the product enhancements or what their new products are going to look like. And it takes time to kind of infuse some of these big titans of data and innovation into a product offering for buyers and agencies. I'm very eager to find out what's going to happen with AOL next year as they get more of their ducks in a row and start to put out competitive products to some of these huge growth properties that we've seen this year with others like Snapchat, Facebook and Google.

What in particular intrigues you about those moves?
Kiernan: I'm interested in AOL's content, Yahoo's data and Verizon's everything.

Is there a platform that needs to improve data targeting versus its competitors?
Manus: Pinterest. You are held to their targeting, which can be limiting. It's also a tricky platform to move users down the funnel for payoff.

Villanueva: I think the biggest weakness for Pinterest is that they haven't really gotten aboard the app marketing train, which now Facebook is driving quite a significant portion of its revenue through. Now it's just getting on board. I think that's a huge pie they're missing out on.

Guljord: [Facebook] advertisers can't have a single campaign that is set to either show an ad for web or mobile app install. Moreover, [mobile app install] ads don't give the user an option to visit the advertiser's website. Instead, advertisers have to manage the complexity and trade-offs of multiple campaigns for different objectives. To contrast, with Google, if AdWords knows a user doesn't have the app, the default action is to the web, and app extensions on that ad will direct a user to the install.

How about measurement?
Villanueva: Twitter has work to do in terms of their reporting, and I think that's the area where they're really struggling and are behind. Twitter is one of our primary platforms that we use to target audiences, and it's very important to us. We'd love to see sort of a workable reporting dashboard in the platform where each report takes metrics for a given side.

Sharif: From our standpoint at Qualcomm, I'd like to see more universally defined language of success in certain categories. There's the word "like" or "engagement" or the word "view." It means different things for different platforms. So I'd like to see unification, just like in wireless standards we have a single standard [data] we use and people understand what it means.

Scholl: There is a point when we deliver campaign information to executive leadership teams, and [data terms] do not match. They ask, "What does that mean? What does this mean?"

Sharif: I wish we had like a standard body [for performance metrics]. I'm serious.

What ad features work well but aren't as publicized as, say, Facebook video?
Kiernan: Amazon self-service tools have been great in terms of being able to tap into external, plug-and-play sources, data feeds and things like that. So we can do some really unique and meaningful targeting within the Amazon environment or audience extension. We also love the way in which we're able to pull kinds of reporting and gain insights from within the Amazon environment about what some of our consumers are doing throughout the purchase [funnel]. Such as, if they have a tendency to purchase products from Amazon or get it direct from a retailer.

Manus: Tumblr and Reddit have good options that are not always top of mind for marketers. While Tumblr has received some bad press over the last year in the industry with [parent Yahoo's] revenue losses and a missed attempt at combining sales teams with Yahoo, the acquisition has had some positive impacts in regards to advertising opportunities. Ad formats and options are [now] more closely aligned with other social platforms where you can now test audience receptivity within many niche targets without having a dedicated strategy specifically for the platform through sponsored posts, video, etc.

Reddit, likewise, is attempting to take some of the bewilderment out of advertising on the platform with more standard social ad units including Promoted User Posts. From a paid-social perspective, Reddit is a great platform for the right target audience where it has reach, rich targeting capabilities, an active and engaged audience, and is cost-effective. However, users are adverse to advertising, and it is not a direct-response advertising option, but it can be a useful platform for content or aligning with specific subreddits where it makes sense for your brand.

Sharif: We've had good success rates with Twitter [video]. Because, as a b-to-b brand, we have to be a lot more focused on the audience, and Twitter allows us to reach the influencers very directly that we care about and very quickly.

What about pricing?
Manus: [YouTube's] cost is more expensive compared to many video options. Engagement is down as the competition is rising from players like Facebook and Amazon.

Scholl: The conversation with Spotify, especially comparing it to kind of what we're getting out of spend on other platforms, was surprising.

Manus: Facebook, along with Instagram, is cheap now, but prices are going up.

Guljord: This is kind of a general statement, but the way I think about it is, you're expensive if you don't give me the capabilities to optimize what I need to optimize against.

Lastly, as Snapchat's advertising API gains steam, where does it fit into all of this?
Kiernan: If you look at some of the volume that Snapchat is projected to get over the next year—double digits—it's definitely going to be a major player in this market. Maybe not today, but as they start to aggregate data from multiple mobile users and figure out ways to kind of connect those dots with other platforms on other channels, I can definitely see them making some headway in the category.

Moore: Snapchat's capabilities are currently limited. So unless I'm a brand who wants to put a sticker on someone's Snapchat photo and really not get anything else out of it besides branding, I don't think it's a viable option for most advertisers right now. Until they have other products that can compete with other ad options, it's not going to be as big as it could be.

Why Jessica Alba And Apple’s “Planet Of The Apps” Do Not Deserve Your Scorn

arc.applause.com/
Filming for the inaugural season of Apple’s “Planet Of The Apps” is not due to start until late 2016, but the “unscripted” reality show has already generated some heated debate.
Apple announced last week that Jessica Alba would be joining its forthcoming “Planet of the Apps” series as an executive producer and mentor. According to Variety, the actress-entrepreneur will be using her experience as a co-founder of non-toxic consumer goods company The Honest Company to provide advice and guidance to app developers at the startup level.
Concrete details of the show’s format have been hard to come by to date, but the general consensus is that it will be a mix of “Shark Tank” crossed with “The X Factor.” Apple has called it a “launch pad and accelerator for exceptional developers” that will include marketing and promotion, mentorship and funding.
“As a mentor on ‘Planet of the Apps,’ I’m looking forward to meeting entrepreneurs looking to address a problem with an innovative solution, and to help them realize their vision” said Alba, reported Variety. “I can’t wait to see the ideas the app developers bring to the table.”
Although Alba certainly has business experience, the decision to make her a mentor to app developers has not been greeted with universal enthusiasm by some members of the tech sphere.

Gizmodo’s Sophie Kleeman said in an opinion piece that the choice of Alba was nothing less than an outrage.
TechCrunch’s Romain Dillet was more diplomatic, calling it a weird addition to an already eclectic cast. The show has the potential to be worth watching, but none of the mentors—Alba, singer Will.i.am, actress Gwyneth Paltrow and tech investor Gary Vaynerchuk—had the necessary experience in design, engineering or App Store growth strategy, Dillet said.
Kleeman said:

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against women in technology, and let me throw out some alternative casting choices to prove it: Whitney Wolfe, Evan Spiegel, Anne Wojcicki, Kevin Systrom, Julia Hartz, Dennis Crowley, Emily Weissor, or Pavel Durov.

“Apps are a serious business, and there’s no better way to pay homage to them than to make a scripted reality show about how they’re made,” wrote Kleeman. “Next time, leave Jessica out of it. She’s got enough to worry about, anyway—having kids and being hot at the same time seems hard enough.”
And people wonder why women often feel discouraged to enter the tech industry.

Why Outrage Is Not The Right Word

Even if Kleeman is right about Alba’s programing skills, there is still no justification for calling it a casting outrage. Irrespective of her celebrity status, Alba’s addition to the program roster as a female entrepreneur indicates that Apple want to promote awareness about gender equality in the app economy through the show.
I have read the Gizmodo article several times and I still don’t know whether Kleeman is being satirical or not. I showed it to a male game designer friend and he was appalled. Yes, the addition of Alba is out-of-left-field, but outrage is not the appropriate response.
Men dominate the tech industry. A recent global survey of 1,000 developers by mobile advertising platform InMobi found that a mere 6% of app developers were female. The numbers were better in the United States—around 11% of developers are women—but the fact is that it is still a man’s world.

The lack of gender diversity does not mean that there are not female programmers … far from it.
Non-profit organization Women Who Code has a global membership of 80,000 members and recently held the first all-female hackathon, according to a blog post. In 2015, the hashtag #ILookLikeAn Engineer brought hundreds of female software engineers into the spotlight after an recruitment campaign featuring a female full stack developer generated negative (and sexist) comments.
See also: Only 6% Of App Developers Are Women
Let’s look at Alba’s inclusion on the show this way.
Apple wants to not only produce a show that highlights app development talent but also get people to tune in on a regular basis. App developers are not famous people in the eyes of the general public so, it makes sense to have “celebrities” attached to the project. And if those celebrities have business acumen or tech experience—Will.i.am was a director of creative innovation at Intel, for example—then Planet of the Apps could be a hit.
“Apple’s move to hire recognizable names rather than startup founders that only a handful of non-tech people have ever heard of makes the show a viable option for those outside the Silicon Valley bubble,” wrote The Next Web’s Bryan Clark. “Alba’s appeal adds to this, and if you want to go really next level, could lead to young admirers watching the show that are tomorrow’s great female entrepreneurs.”

Planet Of The Apps Is A Showcase For Creativity

Apple has said that Planet of the Apps will be solely focused on apps and their creators, while the mentors will be able to call upon additional experts as needed. The Next Web reported that the show will take a “rather simple and unimaginative premise,” with cameras following app developers as they navigate the “shark-filled waters of Silicon Valley.
Successful developers will receive up to $10 million in VC funding, Variety reported. In addition, the show’s website states that developers will get the chance to receive “hands-on guidance from some of the most influential experts in the tech community.” And while that is not likely to be a Zuckerberg, Gates or Wozniak (few people are), it is extremely unlikely that Apple won’t have a deep bench of established app developers available when filming starts.
Celebrity mentors aside, Planet of the Apps is supposed to showcase the creativity of the apps economy, which is something that Apple is in a unique position to do. Aside from HBO’s Silicon Valley—well-written satire—and the occasional show about hacking (USA Network’s “Mr. Robot”), the world of software development is a mystery to most people.

Apple is trying to create original programming around what it knows—apps. It’s a weird choice for Apple to be in the reality television market in the first place, but at least it is playing to a core strength. It is also odd that Apple’s first foray into original programming will be a reality competition … but they feel they have to start somewhere to combat the likes of Amazon and Netflix when it comes to streaming media.
Up to 100 developers will take part in the show and there is a deadline of September 21 to apply. Apple is not promising to make app developers into bona-fide tech celebrities, but Planet of the Apps may (possibly) be a groundbreaking series in popular culture.
If successful, developers will need to have an iOS, macOS, tvOS or watchOS in a beta or functional state by October 21 so that Apple can finalize the cast before filming starts. The show will be based in Los Angeles and is slated to debut in 2017.

Musical.ly: It’s About Marketing Opportunities, Not Endless Monetization

adexchanger.com

Musical.ly is mainly known as a lip-syncing and video sharing app popular with teens, but it’s starting to sing a different tune and expand its user base.

“We’re probably that lip-syncing app you hear about from your niece or nephew,” said Kevin Ferguson, director of sales and business development at Musical.ly, which allows users to create 15-second videos of themselves singing along to pop songs with layered-on effects like time lapse or fast motion. “But we see ourselves as a general-purpose video and social network.”
Rubbing elbows with the social network titans is not all that unrealistic if you look at the stats. Users spend an average of 13 minutes per day engaging with Musical.ly content, and the app recently hit 117 million users, up from 108 million in July. The app has also consistently stayed in the top 40 of app store charts – charting at No. 27 in the US free apps category in Apple’s App Store as of Monday.
Although Musical.ly’s core audience still falls between the ages of 13 and 24, the app is starting to attract a slightly older demographic. Roughly six months ago, 90% of its users were in that demo, while these days it’s closer to 60%.
With that maturation and equalizing of its base comes a flowering diversity of content.

“Users are creating more original musical comedy, skits, fashion videos,” Ferguson said. “That type of content is becoming a focus for us internally. It’s a matter of creating a broader use case for ourselves.”
Musical.ly is in the midst of running what Ferguson called “revenue experiments” to show that it has what it takes to be a partner for brands without sacrificing user growth and engagement.
Music-related efforts make perfect sense for the platform. A number of recording artists, for example, are turning to Musical.ly to launch albums, run contests and promote their music, including Jason Derula, Selena Gomez, Flo Rida and Megan Trainor.
But having amassed a large, loyal audience – users create more than 9 million videos per day on the app – it’s up to Musical.ly not to ruin that with an ad experience that feels at odds with its roots.
That’s part of the ever-present challenge facing apps looking to monetize without alienating their users. But for Musical.ly in particular, the greater challenge is demonstrating that the app can be a valuable partner to general brands, not just teen-focused ones.
Musical.ly recently ran a campaign with Coke, and another with Lionsgate for the release of its film “Nerve.” In the Coke example, users were asked to shoot videos of themselves sharing a Coke with friends or family. More than 900,000 videos were submitted.
“Some folks have asked me, ‘Is advertising on Musical.ly really valuable considering how young your demo is?’ But they have credit cards – whether their own or their parents’ – and they have an incredible amount of influence,” Ferguson said. “I think a lot of people underestimate that.”
Consider that 16-year-olds and their parents could be on the cusp of making a car purchase. A 17-year-old is likely about to head off to college and be in-market for a whole host of products – everything from bedding to financial planning.
“It makes sense to start chatting with that demo now,” Ferguson said. “But it’s not about trying to create endless monetization opportunities off of our users. It’s about creating marketing opportunities for brands and studios that feel organic to the app and lean into the behaviors we’re seeing on Musical.ly so that users are excited to participate."

Facebook will pre-load mobile content, warns advertisers to optimize their sites

marketingdive.com

Dive Brief:

• Facebook is launching "prefetching," an initiative that will pre-load mobile content on the Facebook app before a link is tapped, according to a Facebook Business blog post.
• Facebook is also pushing advertisers to optimize their websites for mobile, suggesting that mobile page load times will affect whether ads get served to mobile users with poor network connections. 
• Facebook says that prefetching "can shorten mobile site load time by 29% or 8.5 seconds, improving the experience and decreasing the risk of site abandonment.“

Dive Insight:

With this latest move, Facebook wants to optimize the mobile experience for users. While Facebook is helping advertisers that are slow to optimize their own sites by pre-loading their content for mobile, the social network is also warning advertisers to be mobile-friendly or risk not reaching mobile users with slower connections.
For any complaint that marketers might have about Facebook, one thing the company has made clear are its two main goals for advertising on the platform: Deliver value to advertisers and provide a good experience to users. Prefetching falls right in line with both goals.
This isn't the first time that Facebook has done something like this: The platform created Instant Articles for publisher content in part to improve mobile load times. Google has recently been pushing advertisers and publishers in the same direction with its Accelerated Mobile Pages project.
The move makes sense for Facebook: More than 91% of its daily one billion users access the platform via a mobile device. Pushing advertisers to do their part to improve the mobile user experience should help everyone from Facebook to its users and advertisers. In its Q2 earnings report, Facebook stated 85% of its ad revenue now comes from mobile.

Recommended Reading

Facebook: Improving Mobile Site Performance
Social Media Today: Facebook Announces “Prefetching”, Prompts Advertisers to Improve Mobile Response
Marketing Dive: Marketers can now create Facebook Slideshow ads on mobile

The biggest marketing dilemmas answered in under 20 minutes

yourstory.com
A slightly evolved marketer would nod along fervently to the fact that if you have multiple conversions on multiple platforms – like offline, desktop as well as mobile – it gets messy. Marketing today has gone really tech-based- after all, there are terms like marketing tech stack, tech-marketing being thrown around liberally, signaling to the next big wave. In this situation, the first thing that you want to do, when you want to rationalize how much money to allocate to each of your marketing channels, is attribution- it is a primary tenet of marketing. Here is a complete lowdown on how to pick the best attribution model for your brand, and how to rationalize your budget allocation to each channel.

 

Back to the basics

1. Same end, but different means

‘Attribution’ is basically attributing a conversion to a particular channel – or advertising and marketing campaign, to be more specific. The consumer journey begins at awareness, goes to consideration, advances to intent, eventually ending at decision, which leads to a ‘conversion.’
But the journey through channels, to a conversion, is different for different products. Consider looking for a hair transplant versus buying socks. You’d do a lot of research for the former, but none really for the latter. For the first case,a user searches how to prevent hairfall, lands up on a blog where he sees Dr X’s ad, does some more research, spends a week deciding before finally looking up Dr X directly and booking an appointment with him.
For socks, you simply search, see the Google ads set up through its adwords programme, open four to five tabs, pick the best ones, and make the decision. But perhaps you get lazy at the last stage and leave the check out midway. At a later stage – when you’re on a news website, the ad pops up with the same product you had chosen, which is a retargetting and remarketing tactic. So, you’re reminded that you do need to buy them, and make the final purchase.
If you attribute the sale to either the first or the last click while evaluation, in both cases – it will be inappropriate. Because, in the first case, the entire credit goes to the display ad which was shown to the user. In the second case, the retargetting sealed the deal. That is why attribution is not as simple as it seems.

2. Finding your attribution model

You need to find your attribution model –that is the channel to which your conversions must be attributed. This attribution can be different for a research heavy product and an intent-led product category. One model is the ‘last click model’ where the last click is the winner, for impulse-based categories. The other is a ‘first-click’ model where the first clock gets maximum credit – and then, there are various combinations, where you do a first and last combination.
“If you look at Google analytics, you are doomed. There has to be a multi-click attribution technique,which Google does provide. It is not something you get correctly at the first go,” says Suyash Katyani, CXO at Purplle.com, at a Branch meet-up in Mumbai’s own Silicon Valley – Powai’s Of10.

3. Figure out your pathlength

A simple thumbrule is checking how many of your transactions are happening at a pathlength less than ‘2’. A path length of one is people directly coming to your website and buying your product, through only one campaign. But, there can be cases where you have multiple campaigns, like remarketing, display ads, emailers, until the user converts.
If that ratio is really high, then you need to have a multi-click attribution in place, with appropriate weightage given to the right channel. To start with, you need to give equal weightages to first, middle and last click. But going ahead, you need to analyze that with most of your converters, how important are the middle channels? If majority jump from the first click to the last, the middle channel may not be so important. You need to identify it for yourself – but the first and last click are very important.
Marketers everywhere agree that intent to decision is an easy journey, because once the consumer knows what they want to buy – like the socks – you just have to make sure your ad shows up. But awareness to decision is the most tricky – as you need to convince the user of your existence, use case, and then quality and value to make sure they convert.
Intent to decision is always a limited number – as in, the number of people who search for ‘buy socks online’ will not suddenly go through the roof. So, if you want to grow 20x, you cannot chart your growth plans based on increasing the intent, you must work on improving your brand awareness, like telling people, ‘if you want socks, we do keep socks are great prices’. Intent in your existing users will not go up dramatically, awareness amongst the new ones can. 

The three key problems in attribution:

1. Cross-device

People have still not started doing transactions on mobiles. They may research for what they want on a mobile, because the device is handy when they get the impulse, but the final purchase is made on the desktop. Navigate through this problem, by enabling UID in Google analytics, which is a feature where you can identify every user based on their log-in ID, and then Google tells you which user first responded to your mobile first campaign, and then converted on your desktop. It will attribute those conversions appropriately.

2. View-through conversions

Your YouTube is full of ads at the side or on your video. You may not click on the ad, but end up going to the website of the product directly. Marketers, in this case, do not get the data. But, UID could save the day again. Google will do the math and tell you when the same UID that was logged in on mobile when your ad flashed is the same UID that eventually visited your website and made the purchase. You must activate the option of importing all the impressions and enabling cross-device conversions, so you can calculate the cost per acquisition of your campaign. But, if you do not do so, Google will not optimise the campaign for you, because you are not allowing it to link the impression of one campaign to conversion on another device.

3. Mobile apps being treated like a step child

"For companies that have apps as well as websites, it is common to say, “App ka data alag se dekhenge – which is not the right approach. You have to look at campaigns – no matter what the device or channel is – and attribute the success of a conversion to the right campaign,” says Suyash. As mentioned, a lot of customers are still using both devices heavily for the same transaction, and as far as the data today are concerned, every conversion is a joint effort between campaigns on desktop and mobile.

Learnings from Purplle’s marketing journey

1. Take control of your data

“What we realized was, you have to take control of your data – there is no way out. Especially for a company with a website, app and multiple conversions, looking at just the conversion numbers is not enough. We started storing all the events instead – a hit on the website, a product zoom, an add to cart –we started taking stock of everything, a registration, etc. Any campaign click is also an event – so, we homogenized the whole process to see how many events the campaign led to. We could slice and dice to any extent, to link the campaign to total activity on our sites. Bottom line – we started storing all the events,” explains Suyash.
Clevertap and Webengage are smart tools, according to him.

2. Look at the lifetime-value of a customer

“A sincere request is for you to stop going by just conversion numbers. Look at more - the lifetime value of the consumer‑in six months, how many conversions has the customer given,” says Suyash. Retention is another metric. Based on your product, decide if the client has come back after appropriate time has elapsed, to make yet another purchase. How many of your users are still active, how many still have your app? These are all important events to record and act on.

3. Lift tests

At a stage when you are evolved, to see whether your display ads and view-through are actually working, you can perform experiments like make the ad visible to only 80 percent of your target audience, and keep the remaining 20 unexposed. Then, record the behaviors in both groups, on various metrics like hits on your website, add to cart, etc. If the former group shows higher conversions compared to your latter, you know your campaign is working. The same goes for your non-clickable display ads. If you see a sudden spike in hits or inquiries, you know you must attribute it to your display campaign, even though the numbers may not tally.

4. Weed out ineffective channels

People discover you from another channel, come on your site, start to transact, see the coupon code option, then go to websites like CouponDunia, click on see deal – and come back. So, the last click becomes CouponDuniya, which is misleading. Diagnose this problem.
Another sign is if the time for carrying out a transaction is very low, you know you’re missing something while attribution. This could happen if, while checking out on an Amazon, one sees a plug-in like pricefountain ad – nothing but affiliate channels - with the listing of the same product on a Flipkart at a better rate – so, the user immediately clicks that and completes the transaction there.
Another metric is gauging the behavior patterns of customers acquired from different channels – say, if you have a low performing customer from one channel compared to another, weed out the channel that is giving you only sporadic users. Work on sustainable growth which is organic.

Tips and hacks

1. As a hack, Suyash has started looking at ‘last-click’as ‘purchase session initiator’ and accordingly reformed his strategy.
2. App indexing: You must have ‘app indexing’ to become discoverable for people searching on Google. “These are low-hanging fruits. Through tools like Richsnippets, structured metadata – when you search for a product, the listing automatically appears with stars and a price,” explains Suyash.
3. Google says it will be placing a lot of weightage on https websites. Suyash advices marketers to anticipate this wave and be prepared.
4. Segment your buyers and target them differently: focus on buyers and prospective buyers. For example, classify them between regular buyers and buyers that have just transacted. For the latter, your objective would be to not make them buy again, but just engage with them. And identify the user patterns from prospective buyers. From the browsers, zero in on the people who showed more intent, buy zooming in and clicking the product description, and then work out a way to retarget them.
5. Have very clear objectives and set goals for your business, which don’t necessarily have to be conversions, like getting a user to open the app, use it thrice, transact once, etc. After you have decided, work towards each goal using separate strategies.
6. Deeplinking: another tip is to deeplink all your google adverts in a way that it leads directly to your app, if the user has it. Marketers hate this because Google will not be able to keep track and attribute once the user reaches the app, but you can use your own data to attribute it to the right channel. Purplle recommends Branch – which helps them to have a deep link for every page. If you are sending a blast SMS, for example, use deeplinks that lead directly to your app, or the specific product, service or scheme you are promoting – especially for the convenience of your loyal customers. “By the end of this year, there will be a beta test for Instant apps – apps, as we know it, will become obsolete. When you click an ad, a temporary SDK gets created, which lets you browse through it just like an app. And once you exit it, it self-destructs – like a website that simply closes. With these instant apps – deeplinks are a must,” concludes Suyash.