‘Very Soon We Will Have a Pan India Presence with Offices Across Delhi and Mumbai’ Says Sanjay Trisal, Country Manager, India, AppsFlyer
AppsFlyer Ltd. is a SaaS mobile marketing analytics and attribution platform that helps advertisers measure the impact of their ads on various platforms. The company has recently set up operations in Bengaluru to focus on the Indian mobile market to ride on the mobility upsurge. AppsFlyer assists companies that use multiple platforms to serve ads and track return on investment on each platform. It does this by providing a framework that companies can integrate into their own apps.
AppsFlyer had been working with Indian firms such as One97 Communications Ltd-owned Paytm, Housing.com, online classifieds company Quikr India Pvt. Ltd, Bharti Airtel Ltd, and more. The company has offices in Israel, San Francisco, New York, Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul, Bangalore, and Bangkok.
BWDisrupt’s Sujata Sangwan Interacts With Sanjay Trisal, Country Manager, India, AppsFlyer and Spoke to Him
How and Why AppsFlyer fits into mobile advertising space?
AppsFlyer is the leading mobile marketing attribution and marketing analytics platform. We allow mobile app marketers to take all the data from their mobile advertising and marketing campaigns so they can clearly identify which campaigns brought the best users and which ones underperformed. This allows marketers to optimize their efforts in real-time, and run smarter and more effective campaigns going forward. Essentially, our technology gives marketers the best tools and most accurate insights on how best to increase the value and performance of their mobile marketing efforts.
We don’t have any stakes in the game in terms of wanting any single publisher or advertising source to succeed. We do not offer services to media partners and will not offer paid services to ad networks. Our goal is simply to report on the data and help marketers make sense of it. Unlike others in the market, we remain completely unbiased. At the same time, we sit in the middle of a very large amount of media spend and marketing efforts, so we have lots of great data covering all types of mobile ad campaigns, giving us and our advertising partners a lot of insight into the effectiveness of mobile ads and marketing initiatives. These insights are essential for helping drive the space forward.
How technology is being used for Data Analytics?
Our patent-pending NativeTrack™ technology is a highly scalable platform that handles billions of events on a daily basis. At its core is a complex big data algorithm that utilizes a variety of identification methods – like iOS’ IDFA, Google’s Advertising ID, Referrer ID and fingerprinting – to make real time decisions regarding which media source can be credited with a specific installs. This leads to highly reliable and accurate attribution that is intertwined with a robust analytics layer of post-install events so marketers can pinpoint the best media sources.
As the country Manager, what goals have you decided for the company and how are these goals in line with the company vision and mission?
We have been operational in Indian Market from long time and been associated with some of the top Clients. By setting up the office in India we wanted to ensure that we are close to our clients and give the best world class On Time Every Time support that AppsFlyer is known for. India is one of the most strategic market for us and the opportunity available is huge.
Like other markets for AppsFlyer worldwide, my goal is to ensure we are the go-to partner of choice for mobile marketers across India, delivering the best data, tools, support and service so they can maximize their marketing performance. In Last one year we have built a strong team of Tech Support, Customer Success and Sales. We continue to grow these functions to ensure that we deliver the best Customer Experience.
What was the most challenging part of your journey till now?
I think overall we have had a remarkable first year and we look to build on that success in the coming year. The entire India team is growing fast and working hard to achieve great things.
India is a diverse market with clients ranging varied verticals like ecommerce, marketplace, OTT, Fintech, entertainment, etc. The requirement and expectation from each client is so varied and dynamic and that makes it even more exciting to create amazing solutions and solve for your clients’ problems on daily basis.
How has been your experience with AppsFlyer so far?
It is always great to be part of the world leader in its domain. That coupled with an opportunity to work in one of the biggest and high-growth markets is simply amazing. It is an everyday learning experience where you strategize and execute plans that align with global and market-centric goals, providing fresh technology and practices to empower and educate app marketers, brands and developers in one of the largest and most exciting markets in the world.
How do you see Mobile advertising shaping up in India?
As mobile continues to play a central role in people’s everyday lifestyle, companies recognize the need to increase efforts on digital marketing, with mobile becoming key to the advertising strategy.
A research says that by 2020, the number of Indians accessing the Internet over mobile devices is expected to touch a whopping 600 million.
The future of mobile advertising is bright. According to research by eMarketer, mobile advertising is on its way to becoming a $100bn market for the first time in 2016, and research suggests that total media ad spending in India will be around USD $7.4 billion in 2016, an increase of 11.3% from last year. By 2020 total ad spending in country will approach $12 billion. Of this, digital ad spending - particularly on mobile - will see the highest percentage growth. While the traditional medium like TV is expected to grow by 86% from 2015 to 2020, in the same time frame mobile is predicted to grow by nearly 500%.
Who is the target audience and how will they benefit from AppsFlyer’s platform?
Our target audience is any company that is trying to market a mobile app -- from the biggest brands and agencies to the smallest app developers. We work with app marketers across a variety of industries -- from gaming and e-commerce to finance and travel -- and we work directly with brands as well as with the ad agencies who represent them (in fact we have a solution built specifically for agencies). All of our clients benefit from AppsFlyer’s easy-to-use dashboards that provide an overview of all ad campaigns in a single view, with the power to dig deep into very granular-level data -- all delivered in real-time. With the evolution of mobile apps and their ease-of-use and acceptance from consumers today, we see more of a performance-based focus among leading brands outside the traditional tech industry - from banks to telcos and automobile - emphasizing activities within their apps. Having an app on a user's mobile device is the best way to win customer loyalty. We provide a vital service in helping these companies to monitor and evaluate their loyalty index as well as understand how and why users are engaging with their apps - in addition to the ROI of the company's marketing and advertising efforts.
How does AppsFlyer help advertisers measure the impact and ROI of their ads on various platforms?
The time spent mobile is expected to almost double from 33% in 2013 to about 61% in 2018, meaning more and more people are using Mobile as the first device. Yet, according to a recent report from eMarketer, a majority of marketers said they would spend more on mobile marketing if their ability to track ROI improved. Without an unbiased, third-party attribution provider that helps mediate between the ad networks, mobile publishers and other parties - like AppsFlyer - mobile marketers have no way of knowing which users came from which ad campaigns, or which efforts are attracting their most valuable users.
By getting the cost data from our network partners - including Facebook and over 2,000 others - we can automatically pair each campaign’s cost and inbound revenue, enabling marketers to optimize their campaigns based on actual bottom-line impact. With Facebook’s clout and particularly strong position for app marketers, it is of particular importance to combine in-app activity and lifetime value data with ad cost and other campaign details from Facebook to advertisers. As an official Facebook Mobile Measurement Partner with advanced Facebook integrations, we are proud to offer this capability.
What is AppsFlyer's big plan for the India market? What are your expectations with respect to opportunities?
India is one of the most strategic market for AppsFlyer and we continue to invest in people, product and services to cater to this market. As we are steadily growing our market share at a decent pace, we continue to grow and expand the team in each of the functions. This year AppsFlyer is hiring people across Sales, Customer Success, Support and Marketing. Very soon we will have a pan India presence with fully functional offices across Delhi and Mumbai to begin with.
