ComboApp California Trip: Sergey KanishchevReports from Apps World 2014

It’s really amazing to dive       deeply into the hopes and       fears of the mobile     industry and see first hand       how it deals with     turbulence and reaches   out for new horizons.

During Apps World North     America 2014 the   ComboApp team was able     to join in with our       colleagues, share our   opinions and learn from the masters. It was a buzz of activity, with people talking around the                               clock about mobile apps, listening to gorgeous keynote presenters and drawing wisdom from                       industry leaders in panels. It was energizing to be in amongst “our people” ­ part of a community                                 ­ when, normally many miles and busy schedules prevent us from connecting in such a                           meaningful way.

Fruitful meetups with the current, new and prospective partners were filling the few moments in                           between presentations and workshops. Apps World (or, conferences like it) are a great time to                           meet as many new colleagues and partners as you can. It is a time to put your company and                                   ideas front and center, letting the results your hard work shine bright and impress people.

This conference proved the mobile   industry is really   maturing, building more and more   knowledge and expertise with each   passing year. A lot of       companies who started out in a “lean       startup phase,” now   lead their businesses   to the new heights     (and higher revenues)   

with smart, well thought­out approaches that deliver measurable and achievable results to their                       shareholders.

Top publishers admitted they’re investing much more ­and, are willing to invest even more, still­                           because they see both the high revenues and potential for even greater successes.

“Games bring much more revenue nowadays and we can invest more afterwards,” said Baudoin                         Corman, VP Publishing Americas, Gameloft.

At the same time, senior marketing people at Zynga, Gameloft, Gree and other major publishers,                           underlined that’s its crucial to pay as much attention as possible to initial product releases and                             updates. Yusuf Bhijee, head of growth at Zynga specifically said that “app developers should                         come well prepared to battle for the paying customer” as the cost of developing chart­breaking                           apps and the cost of marketing those rose this year to the new levels.

Specifically, they advised developers to focus on delivering high quality apps: The market is                         overflowing with simple, quickly and cheaply created apps. The competition is fierce these days.                         Quality matters.

A lot time and talk was dedicated to importance of understanding where mobile revenues comes                           from. The speaker   and audience agreed   that it’s only possible     to monetize products   and services by   understanding and extensively using analytics on a   continuous basis.

Many underlined that   it is important to not       only understand your   audience, perform channel attribution 

and cohort segmentation, but also you need to really do something with that data. Josh Williams,                             CEO of Kontagent + Playhaven noted that “customizing the user experience based on the data                           is what allows smart app developer to succeed in effective monetization.”

One the most important takeaways from Apps World is the understanding that the industry has                           begun to recognize that the days of big push and and large/overnight money spends are over.

Oliver Lo, founder of the industry standard analytics tool App Annie, agrees on this point: Lo                             admitted that most of the successful apps are still very social. So, developers should think and                             introduce features to drive virality and distribution across multiple channels, while effectively traIn                       2014, marketing apps should and need to involve completely new strategy: We need to turn from                             just pushing a lot of downloads ­to­ really fine tuning strategy used to find loyal users (which                               developers spend so much money and effort to acquire). In order to see revenue, developers                           have to track the whole user journey and develop a profound understanding how to get very                             personal and interact with their users effectively.cking the whole user journey from seeing the ad/downloading ­to­ making their first in­app                         purchase ­or­ engaging with in­app content.

As the level and the bar of sophistication in mobile marketing is rising. It is vital for app owners to                                     have the ability to not only effectively aggregate data, but to also turn it into actionable steps that                                 drive high lifetime user values. In 2014, the only effective way for a stand­alone developer to not                               only reach the break­even point, but to find your app in world leading top grossing charts, is to                                 find a trusted partner or agency to help avoid all the hidden traps of mobile user acquisition, data                                 analysis and user engagement.

These are the takeaways we at ComboApp pulled from Apps World 2014.

Serg Kanishchev, Director of Marketing