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As one of the fastest growing international e-commerce platforms, Joom is now a household name. Birthed in 2016, the company invested time, money and resources to expand across the European market and now has over 150 million users across 150 countries in both their mobile and web versions.
Currently, Joom is focused on actively expanding into new markets by successfully buying traffic in Europe, CIS countries and the United States. We caught up with Mikhail Biteryakov, experienced Traffic Analyst at Joom and asked him to share with us the intricate details of Joom’s 3-ingredient recipe for a successful mobile marketing strategy: optimized user acquisition, effective ad campaigns, and the fight against mobile ad fraud.
- How long have you been working in mobile marketing and what is your role at Joom?
I have been working in mobile marketing for over two years now. But in my opinion, each year in a startup such as Joom counts for five. When working in a small team in a rapidly growing company, you take dozens of roles and outperform yourself every day. But for the last year my role shaped to anti-fraud defense and external partner management.
- What do you like most about your job?
The dynamism - I never have a dull day! New challenges and new opportunities arise every month and it rarely becomes a routine. I also like the limitless possibilities in terms of progress, with dozens of fields you can explore while on the job...you learn and gain value from each field you tap into.
- What does a quality mobile user look like to you?
The ROI-positive user is a good user for us, that is no secret. And to understand this in the early stages, we look at the CPI of the cohort and the first week ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) in the same cohort. When a ratio is at a certain level, this cohort is a quality one. If the ratio is lower or higher, that is a telling sign that we did not perform at our best.
- When it comes to user acquisition and engagement, what challenges do you face?
There are dozens of them. Scaling, incrementality, quality of traffic, right creatives. We could not achieve our current position without looking at all of these. And we can not move forward without paying even closer attention to each and every one. But if I had to choose the biggest challenges that we’ve faced so far, it would include scaling and the quality of traffic.
- How do you stay ahead of mobile ad fraud?
With the right partners by our side. By choosing the right anti-fraud solution partners, we feel safe as our business is taken care of and we don’t have to worry about reinventing the wheel by creating our own anti-fraud solution. Instead, we nurture the working relationship with the anti-fraud solution partners and we know our business well enough to feel confident about interpreting the results we receive.
- What do you think is the most difficult thing about app install ad fraud?
It is hard to admit when fraudsters managed to fool you and got away with your money. Sometimes, you’ll want to pretend like nothing happened and keep on working with fraudsters thinking of new reasons to discredit the data. But it is important to admit, let go, and learn valuable lessons from the incident. That way, you will be smarter next time - and will probably be fooled again, but it is a race where the ability to lose is essential.
- What is your advice to marketers to help them combat mobile ad fraud?
I have three pieces of advice: always use the second and third source of information; trust your gut, especially as your instruments might not be perfect yet; and implement a layered line of defense against fraud, making sure to use layers that work differently. You should look for a trusted partners that have advanced anti-fraud technology to strengthen your stance against fraud. In addition, it helps to track your campaigns internally to pinpoint the specific source of fraud and proving it with data in order to take assertive measures to prevent and counteract fraud attempts.
- What are the best tricks you can share which made the biggest performance with user acquisition of your app?
Dynamic ads with deferred deep linking are essential for e-commerce. But to make it work, it’s not about hiring ten marketers and telling them to do the trick; instead, you must have an experienced team of engineers that dig deep into advertising - that was the key for us.
Mikhail’s testimony is loud and clear: data is the key to successful app growth, but using an anti-fraud solution is just as important and should be an essential part of scaling your ad campaigns. An experienced traffic analyst like himself understands the value of having a layered line of defense to fight fraud since from experience, he’s learned that it is the best approach to not only stay ahead of fraud but to effectively combat it. His recipe is definitely one to put into practice.
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