App Marketing: What We Learned From Our Webinar With Branch

Maria Lannon, VP of Account Management at Remerge Americas, joined a two-part webinar series led by Branch, one of our key mobile attribution provider partners. The series focused on women in tech but also addressed diverse mobile marketing topics, such as privacy, the latest industry trends, in-app retargeting, and personalization.

This blog summarizes the main talking points covered in the webinar series and the insights Maria shared during the discussion.

Personalization in digital marketing has gone from a novelty to an essential part of business strategy in a short period of time. Consumers aren’t simply looking for a personalized brand experience; they expect it.

Consumers love personalization because it offers relevant recommendations, reminders about things they might be interested in, and seamless omnichannel communications. Customers who receive messages specifically tailored to them become more loyal to the business, leading to increased revenue.

“I think any way brands can incorporate any type of personalization is powerful. We work with major e-commerce brands, and in this privacy-compliant world, they can attract and retain users. One of our clients did a great job when iOS 14.5 rolled out by creating an incentive for users to opt in. Instead of having a regular prompt, they made it native to their app and personalized it. It allowed them to explain to the user why it would be beneficial to opt in. That value exchange today is what’s necessary and keeps brands relevant.” shared Maria.

This level of personalization is achievable because of the use of client data. To better connect with consumers, marketers are increasingly using such data, as well as machine learning and artificial intelligence.

“The more that brands can personalize and be true to who they are and speak directly to their consumer, it’s only going to benefit them in the long run. We’ve definitely seen that with the performance of [our client’s] campaigns,” said Maria.

It's more important than ever for businesses to earn and keep the trust of their consumers. Mobile app users often have a lot of options, which can make retention hard to attain. If something goes wrong with an app, the user will simply move on and use another one.

Loyalty is chief when attempting to retain consumers, and one of the best ways to make a consumer loyal is through transparency and a high-performing product.

“When it comes to performance, I think that being really transparent with customers goes a long way in establishing confidence and ensuring campaigns stay on track,” shared Simran Sahi, Global Product Marketing Manager at TikTok.

“A lot of our customers come to us to retain and acquire new users. The metrics they look at are down the funnel, performance-driven metrics such as return on ad spend, cost per order, or average revenue per user. Our customers can come to us with very aggressive goals, and it's important we are honing those day in and day out.” said Maria.

At Remerge, first-party data from advertisers is crucial. Maria explained that signals from first-party data help understand what needs to be put in front of users and serve relevant content.

Maria explains, “first-party data that we’re getting from advertisers are telling us what types of users they’re looking for, and then it’s on us to use our tech to determine how we can get in front of those users and drive an efficient return on ad spend based on what we know.”

Additionally, she shares, “without first-party data, our technology wouldn’t exist because a lot of those cues are feeding into the Remerge algorithm to serve relevant content and get in front of users at the right time.”

At a time when budgets are becoming smaller, Maria talks about helping customers navigate reaching KPIs while doing more with fewer resources. Here, Maria recommends that clients ditch vanity metrics and focus on bottom-line goals that need to be achieved.

Maria explained, “with reduced budgets, advertisers and marketers need to understand that we can’t look at vanity metrics anymore. What’s going to be important when you have fewer dollars to spend is what comes out in the back end. What are those bottom-line goals you need to achieve? While you might see more in-app activity or traffic on your website, that isn't going to come to anything if your users aren’t converting.”

Lyndi Thompson, VP of Marketing at mParticle, also shared, “I think there'll be a huge shift in metrics around lifecycle and retention. It’s own channels ahead of paid media channels that are going to get more thought put into them.”

When talking about best practices in the industry and advice for those interested in transitioning to tech marketing, Lucy Rogers, Sr. Director ATS Channel Partner at LiveRamp, shared her wisdom about finding one’s place in the ad tech space.

One of the key strategies Lucy shares revolves around adaptability. “You have to be adaptable. This MarTech space is ever-evolving, it’s ever-changing, and it’s happening very quickly.”

Other best practices she shared are:

1. Be strategic and innovative. Think outside the box for a solution to a problem that you probably haven’t faced before.
2. Create a network. The industry is small but mighty, so be sure to leverage the willingness of people to help and connect.
3. Find yourself a mentor. Reach out to people on LinkedIn, attend networking events, find someone you respect, and invite them for a cup of coffee to talk about your and their journey.

The discussion also focused on becoming a woman leader and the advice you would give to your younger self. When asked the question, Shannon Cook, Director of New Channel Activation at Movable Ink, shared:

“Reflecting on this question, I will boil it down to this: What I would tell myself, 20-year-old Shannon, would be to lean on what makes you you, what makes you strong that stereotypically may be written off or looked at as a weakness.”

Instead, she mentions, it’s key to amplify those unique characteristics and use them to your advantage. Other bits of advice that Sharon shared include:

1. Develop relationships by making emotional connections.
2. Drive results by applying a big-picture vision.
3. Be curious, don’t be afraid to ask questions, and challenge the status quo.

When discussing how crucial it is to find the right mentor, Lyndi Thompson shared, “reach out, put yourself out there, and then find organically, throughout the company, people that will give you their ear…but also, reciprocate that.”

Once the conversation progressed to sharing tips and tricks on how women can succeed in a heavily male-dominated environment such as tech marketing, our very own Maria shared how imperative it is to take an active role in your community. For example, she shared that she’s been hosting Remerge’s Women in Mobile podcast for over a year, and has become a great way for her to connect with many other women in the industry.

Maria also talked about finding your voice as a woman or a minority. One key aspect of this is building a network and finding male and female allies that will help lift you and make you feel more comfortable speaking up. As Maria says, “even if you are the only woman in the room, we need that perspective, and we need to have that voice.”

She also shares, “we need more of these events because the more you hear from women or have a woman mentor, the more you can learn, apply, and have the confidence to speak up.”