“This latest distinction gives Perion competitive reach capabilities and positions the Company to drive global ad objectives,” a provided statement explains.

According to Doron Gerstel, CEO of Perion, being named a Snapchat Partner enhances Perion’s offering, “adding to our long term organic growth strategy, taking us to the next level with a more expanded one-stop ad solution for our Fortune 500 clients worldwide.”

Backed by a survey collaboration with IFOP (Institut français d’opinion publique), MakeMeReach can now deliver high level Snapchat ad management to its existing social platform allowing advertisers to launch campaigns on any size budget and optimize performance on their platform.

“This new integration will allow our clients to run campaigns on Snapchat and benefit from the expertise of our team on this rapidly growing mobile platform. Being recognized as a Snapchat Partner marks a new milestone for MakeMeReach, and for Perion as a whole. Further to successful partnerships with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, we can now deliver the ultimate social media ad management platform, creating a stronger synergy among Perion’s business divisions in the process,” concluded Pierre- Francois Chiron, co-founder of Perion’s MakeMeReach division.

The post Perion’s Social Media Division Named a Snapchat Partner appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

In practice, we’re told that the partnership will expand Undertone’s suite of offerings to include Cycle’s inventory and native ad offerings, as well as integrations into the media company’s multiple ongoing video series.

“Undertone delivers the most innovative, impactful and engaging creative across all digital formats and channels. Cycle shares our core values of leading with quality creative, powered by data, to bring brands and consumers together in authentic ways that drive results,” said Eric Franchi, Co-Founder and SVP of Business Development at Undertone. “Cycle has proven to be an incredibly fast-growing, premium, culturally-relevant media company with real scale. As they continue to set the bar for branded content, it makes perfect sense for our companies to collaborate. In a world where ​media is being redefined as it’s consumed in a​ social and mobile way, ​our brands and agencies demand the best. This partnership with Cycle secures them access to the best-of-breed at preferred rates via upfront long-term deals.”

Today, Cycle delivers over 200 million content views each month across its owned channels and over 3 billion-per month through its network of influencer, athlete and entertainer talent, all through authentic, culturally-relevant content. The vast majority of Cycle’s views come from the under-34 demographic, ensuring Undertone clients engage millennial audiences with content created by and for millennials on the channels across which their consumption continues to surge.

“Cycle’s analytics and editorial teams work incredibly hard to produce the most engaging content online. It’s humbling when a top media sales organization like Undertone, with a shared focus on quality creative and data, wants to align with the awesome content our talented team delivers each day,” said Jason Stein, Founder and CEO, Cycle. “While Cycle is a relatively new media property, it’s clear that the market values our highly engaged audience. We know that the premium inventory and social distribution that Undertone is able to offer to their customers through this partnership will lead to continued mutual success.”

The post Ad Tech Innovation at the Center of New Strategic Partnership appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

The following is a guest contributed post by Shai Gottesdiener, the General Manager of Growmobile by Perion.

Now that the holiday season is in full swing, we thought it would be a good time to pause and think about the amazing things that happened in the mobile marketing sector this year.

Here are the four trends we thought dominated the sector in 2015, as well as some thoughts on what will be big in 2016.

Mobile video: lights, camera, action

Mobile video advertising spend on mobile has grown massively in 2015. According to Venturebeat, spend in 2015 has tripled in size from an enormous $1.5bn in 2014 and shows no sign of stopping.

And the reason for that growth is simple: mobile video advertising is very engaging. You get to see and engage with more content, as well as have a more engaging user experience, in a 30-second video, rather than in normal creatives. Adding audio to moving visuals creates a really captivating ad and that’s very tempting for advertisers.

Sometimes it can have a downside though. Some of the gaming advertisers created amazing clips for their games, which didn’t match what users saw in the app. That means they ended up spending lots on advertising, because they spend whenever there is an install, without getting users engaged.

Takeaway: the more marketers learn about video advertising and the better they get at creating custom audiences, the more they can ensure their customers are getting a better user experience.

Retention and engagement: the rise of “get ‘em and keep ‘em”

Probably the biggest overall trend in the mobile marketing sector this year was the shift from thinking only about user acquisition to what happens to your user after they install your app.

At Growmobile, we found that many of our customers were spending decent amounts of money on getting traffic, but losing it very quickly. And with the likes of King, Supercell and Uber able to spend millions of dollars on acquisition, developers on a smaller budget – who aren’t able to keep their users interested – quickly find they’re losing out in the market.

As a result, we spent a lot of time this year connecting our acquisition, social and engagement parts of our business together to introduce our “get ‘em/keep ‘em”proposition.

By offering developers ways to better engage with their app users and measuring what users are doing in-app, whether it’s making in-app purchases or sharing, we’ve seen a bigger shift by developers towards preserving their client base to meet business objectives – rather than buying more, sometimes costly, traffic.

Relevancy and the fight back against the ad blockers

One of the big challenges the mobile marketing industry has seen in the last year is the rise of ad blockers on mobile. Ad blocking has already cost the desktop ad business potentially billions in revenues, so Apple’s decision to allow blockers into the App Store set alarm bells off for marketers.

So far, it hasn’t had much of an impact. The blockers only really affect the mobile web, so what we’ve seen is ad spend shift from there to native mobile ads in apps as a result. And we expect to see companies develop “ad blocker blockers” to fight back against people using the tech.

The biggest way marketers have fought back is by providing relevant ads to users on their mobile devices. Blocking started in the first place because we missed the point of the advertisement; there’s no point banging someone in the head again and again if they don’t want to see it.

But if I know you’re a male, of a certain age, who lives in a certain area and has a certain interest, then I’m able, more than ever, to better target the right creative at the right person – stopping the tension caused by low quality advertising on the web and beyond.

2016: rapid evolution of the sector

Finally, we think that 2016 is going to be a really good year for mobile marketing because companies are finally aligning their marketing efforts with the strength of mobile.

Although mobile advertising spend is growing, publishers have still been relatively slow to switch over to it. With its effectiveness demonstrated most clearly with the boom in Facebook’s revenues, we expect mobile advertising spend to increase significantly as advertisers come around to how effective a channel it is.

This will only likely increase as the technology continues to rapidly improve. New video formats on Facebook like “boomerang” videos, that play in reverse, and 360 videos, that allow people to look around within the video ahead of the arrival of VR next year, suggest video is getting ready to skyrocket.

And relevancy is only likely to improve as marketers get better at knowing their customer base. Devices like smart watches, which track users’ movement and behavior much more accurately, will help location-based advertising, while new channels like Instagram will offer great new formats to target a totally different audience.

As technology continues to get better and marketers get smarter, mobile marketing is only likely to improve. Are you ready to capitalize on it? (we know we are…)

The post Mobile Marketing Round-Up: Must Read Trends to Get you Ready for 2016 appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Last week, Growmobile was a contributing sponsor at the Gaming Insiders Summit in San Francisco. The event, the largest gathering of professionals in the videogame industry, saw Growmobile demonstrating its enhanced mobile marketing solutions, including its recent addition of Instagram advertising.

“Kicking off October’s events, Growmobile will participate at the National Retail Federation Shop.org digital summit, held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia on October 5 to 7, as a sponsor and exhibitor,” the company says. “Shop.org has become one of the most important annual events for digital and multichannel retailers. Growmobile’s team (is) led by its Global CRO, Ms. Joanna Sammartino Bailey.”

Growmobile’s user acquisition platform is available as a self-serve or fully-managed solution, allowing advertisers to promote their app across the industry’s top traffic sources, including mobile ad networks, ad exchanges, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more, all via one operationally-painless interface.

“Our mobile marketing solutions provide some of the world’s best known and respected brands with unmatched user acquisition and engagement capabilities,” said Shai Gottesdiener, General Manager of Growmobile. “We look forward to showcasing our platform at these important events.”

The post Growmobile Showcases Its Mobile Platform at Top Mobile Gaming and Digital Industry Events appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

That may be why Growmobile, Perion’s social and mobile marketing division, just announced its support of Instagram advertising through its mobile user acquisition platform.

“Growmobile was one of the first Facebook Marketing Partners to receive early access to the new Instagram Ads API, enabling advertisers to run ad campaigns on one of the fastest-growing mobile traffic sources in the industry,” a company statement provided to MMW reads.

It’s the never-ending gravitation to the social media that’s rocking it at any given moment. In any event, Growmobile believes it’s definitely a step in the right direction for the company.

“The introduction of Instagram advertising enhances our social media advertising capabilities and our overall mobile advertising capabilities, extending our ability to provide unrivaled mobile advertising solutions for our clients,” said Shai Gottesdiener, General Manager of Growmobile. “As one of the first Facebook Marketing Partners to receive access to the Instagram Ads API, we have a unique opportunity to strengthen our position as a mobile advertising industry leader.”

The Instagram community now numbers more than 300 million users. And according to a recent eMarketer report, Instagram mobile ad revenues are expected to reach $2.81 billion in 2017.

Growmobile’s Instagram campaigns are available to customers in Germany, France, and the UK, with additional locations to follow

The post Growmobile Expands Opportunity for Marketers to Reach Engaged Mobile Consumers on Instagram appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Growmobile was one of the first Facebook Marketing Partners to receive early access to the new Instagram Ads API, enabling advertisers to run ad campaigns on one of the fastest-growing mobile traffic sources in the industry.

“The introduction of Instagram advertising enhances our social media advertising capabilities and our overall mobile advertising capabilities, extending our ability to provide unrivaled mobile advertising solutions for our clients,” said Shai Gottesdiener, General Manager of Growmobile. “As one of the first Facebook Marketing Partners to receive access to the Instagram Ads API, we have a unique opportunity to strengthen our position as a mobile advertising industry leader.”

According to a provided statement to media, Growmobile’s integration with the Instagram Ads API offers marketers “the opportunity to extend their advertising reach to Instagram’s community of more than 300 million users.”

To learn more about Growmobile, click here.

The post More Advertising Opportunities Come to Instagram appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

“Designed to increase conversions and customer spend while reducing churn, the newly expanded offering is the first to combine mobile user acquisition, mobile CRM engagement, and social advertising under a single roof,” a statement provided to MMW reads. “Growmobile provides the most complete mobile marketing solution for acquiring users and increasing their value, and each offering works in synergy with the other to maximize client performance and marketing business objectives.”

Growmobile’s platform is available to clients as either a self-serve or fully-managed service. Built to help mobile marketers easily acquire users from the industry’s top performing traffic sources (ad networks, ad exchanges, Facebook, and Twitter), Growmobile’s newest user engagement offering should help CRM managers “engage and retain the users they invested time and money to acquire.”

“Acquiring and retaining users is the lifeblood behind the long-term success of any app,” said Shai Gottesdiener, General Manager of Growmobile. “Marketers and app developers know both of these efforts are non-trivial endeavors. That’s why we’re excited to unveil our newly expanded mobile marketing platform at Casual Connect.”

In addition, Growmobile’s Global CRO Joanna Sammartino Bailey will share key insights on how to maximize user value in her presentation, “Get ’em, Keep ’em: The Synergy Between User Acquisition and User Engagement,” on August 12. Casual Connect runs through August 13.

The post Perion’s Growmobile Shows Off Expanded Mobile Marketing at San Francisco Exhibition appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

The following is an exclusive guest contributed post to MMW from Boaz Yaloz, the VP of Mobile Engagement at GrowMobile by Perion, a provider of top user acquisition and engagement solutions for mobile businesses.

Stickiness is considered by many to be an important element in the success of any mobile app or game. As Lauren Drell writes in Mashable, “the best apps have ‘stickiness’ and offer something inherently valuable to users.”

But what exactly does stickiness mean? Why does it matter for your mobile app or game? And how can you go about building stickiness into your app to make the most of it? Check out our tips below.

Stickin’ around

Out of all the mobile marketing jargon terms, stickiness is both one of the most difficult to precisely define and one of the easiest to instinctively understand.

Essentially, an app or game that boasts “stickiness” is one that keeps its users. While it is difficult to explain exactly what that entails, or to calculate it confidently as a coherent figure, the following metrics can all be used to measure stickiness.

• The uninstall rate of your app or game.
• The number of sessions within your app over a period of time.
• Retention figures such as 1, 7 and 30 day figures.
• The session length, particularly for detailed or involving apps.
• How much players are spending in your app or game.
• Whether it has natural virality.

Stickiness, therefore, is about engagement. But it is something more than that. It isn’t simply about measuring whether people are engaging with your app or game and that they continue to use it.

Stickiness is about your app possessing a certain je ne sais quoi that enables it to dig into the habits of a user. It’s not just about being used; it’s about becoming a constant part of that user’s device and their life.

Why it matters

An app that possesses stickiness will have a strong advantage over an app that doesn’t. As we’ve discussed on this blog before, the maturing mobile market is rewarding companies who can create products that enrich or become a part of a user’s life.

In particular, sticky apps will benefit because:

• Apps that engage have more chance of surviving. 60% of users won’t open an app again if they open it only once in the first week they have downloaded it, making sticky apps and games more successful at surviving.
• Sticky apps have greater chances of going viral. The likes of Tinder, Periscope, Crossy Road and Snapchat show how apps with longevity can drive installs via that all-important word of mouth discovery channel. They will also often find their way into the free charts, where the stickiest apps can often sit for weeks or months.
• Sticky apps retain better and, ultimately, offer you more hope of marketing them effectively. Life Time Value (LTV) marketing relies on strong retention rates to make it really effective, making app stickiness important.

Ultimately, a sticky app will ultimately benefit a company more because it will offer them the basis to form their business upon. Instead of relying on a flash in the pan success, a sticky app or game offers you the basis for a successful company – not just a successful product or service.

How to make the most of stickiness

How can you go about making sure that your app benefits from the effects of stickiness? Well, one of the top tips is to recognize what is considered successful and realistic for your particular app category.

For example, messaging apps sit at the top of the engagement tree while e-commerce apps struggle to drive regular interactions. But while messaging apps rely on constant usage to justify the cost of using it (e.g. WhatsApp’s subscription model) or monetizing their audiences in an alternative way (e.g. with games), an e-commerce app may only need a handful of interactions to generate tens or hundreds of dollars of revenue in return.

Beyond those app specific differences, we recommend looking into the following to increase your app or game’s stickiness:

• Deliver the right offers to the right people at the right time, using the right communication channel – Automate the process as much as possible to relieve bandwidth limitations. Using a mobile engagement automation platform can help simplify this process by allowing you to build multiple CRM campaigns easily. Define the KPIs you want to use in order to assess campaign effectiveness and monitor them overtime.
• A/B test everything – trial and error is the way to go. If it works, great. If it doesn’t, move on to the next idea. Easier said than done right? There’s a science behind this and if you find a platform partner that you trust and that allows you to experiment with several engagement initiatives, you’re on your way.
• Work out a smart communication strategy and intelligent segmentation – Knowing when to send a push notification or an email to a user of your app to drive sales is an important way of keeping users faithful. Dice FM sends emails to you after you book a ticket with it, just before the show and after, to check everything went well.
• Provide a quality app experience – Beyond being practical/fun/an absolute lifesaver, you have to make sure your app experience is high quality. Crashes, battery draining and device memory hogging are all cardinal sins, while low quality graphics and user experiences aren’t far behind. It really matters!
• Consistently add useful features and updates – Regularly including new features or making sure your app runs effectively is an excellent way to retain users. MyFitnessPal, for example, added a pedometer to the app last year to allow mobile users to benefit from the fitness tracking revolution. Automatically counting your steps and deducting it from calorie counts, makes it an excellent addition to an already successful app.
• Integrate with complementary apps – Integrating your app with apps that complement your experience is a smart way of keeping users engaged. High churn games have found messaging app partnerships a smart way to survive, while taxi service Uber’s recent integration with check-in service Foursquare makes a lot of sense.

So it is really worth putting the time into making your app sticky. Not only will it help you succeed and sustain your business, a sticky app is a sure fire sign that users love it.

And if that isn’t a great basis for success, then we don’t know what is.

The post Why App Stickiness Matters and Top Tips for Retaining Users appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Joanna Sammartino Bailey has been appointed as Global Chief Revenue Officer of GrowMobile, Perion’s mobile marketing division.

We’re told that Joanna will lead GrowMobile’s global sales operations and report to Shai Gottesdiener, General Manager of GrowMobile.

According to Perion’s announcement, Bailey joins GrowMobile having spent nearly two decades in account management and strategy roles at digital marketing and advertising companies.

“We are very excited for Joanna to join our team,” said Shai Gottesdiener, General Manager of GrowMobile. “Joanna is a seasoned ad tech industry veteran with a proven track record of strong operational, strategic and sales experience. Her background from the agency side to the technology platform side is exactly what we need to help GrowMobile realize its full potential.”

The post Perion Taps New Mobile Marketing Chief appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Financial terms were not disclosed as of this writing.

If you’re not familiar, MakeMeReach is no small player itself. In fact, the firm is billed as being one of Europe’s leading social media advertising platforms.

MakeMeReach says its AdsOptim technology enables mobile app developers to efficiently and effectively scale their advertising campaigns on social media, with a specific focus on optimizing mobile ad campaigns.

MakeMeReach is a Facebook Preferred Marketing Partner (PMD) and Twitter Marketing Platform Partner (MPP)

By acquiring MakeMeReach, Perion is expanding the capabilities of GrowMobile to include the fast-growing social media space, a significant step towards helping developers scale their user acquisition campaigns on a single, centralized platform for a wide range of traffic sources, strengthening GrowMobile as the industry’s most complete and comprehensive automated mobile marketing platform.

“Acquiring MakeMeReach furthers our position as one of the leading providers of mobile marketing technology,” said Shai Gottesdiener, General Manager of Perion’s mobile marketing division. “MakeMeReach’s mission of making it easy to advertise on social media aligns with Perion’s goal of providing developers with the most effective mobile advertising tools, making this a really great fit for our product and company.”

The post MakeMeReach Acquired by Mobile Ad Giant appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.