Interview with Thomas Petit from 8fit
Thomas Petit is a Digital Marketing Specialist, with more than 6 years experience in different european startups. He loves experimenting with App Store Optimaztion (ASO) and currently works as a Growth team member at 8fit, one of the Top 25 Featured apps in Health and Fitness category.
We learnt a lot from him in the first Applause edition, where he told us about Reviews and Ratings. One year later, Thomas participates again at Applause talking about Apple Search Ads, a platform launched at the end of 2016, that helps users to find your app at Apple App Store. If you want to know how to create a successful app advertising campaign, do not miss Thomas keynote.
We are eager to learn more from him!
Quick Quiz Thomas Petit – 8fit
1. What’s your story?
I’m a French citizen working from Berlin for a Spanish-born app with US customers, and I’m married to a Mexican. World is a village and borders are getting meaningless.
2. How is your day-to-day?
I’m still working on developing a (healthy) personal morning routine, but once I’m at work it usually starts with a quick KPI check, overview of calendar for the day, and prioritizing between the unfinished tasks from the day before and the rest of the to-do list pending. I then get to it and before I realize it’s the end of the day.
3. What was your biggest mistake and what did you learn from it?
Not really a mistake in itself, as I’d repeat, but I started my career building a business from scratch: while it failed eventually, the series of learnings has been just as big as the long list of mistakes we did. Hard to say what was the worst in the mix.
4. If you didn’t work in app marketing sector, what would you be doing?
Probably something quite similar, but outside of the walled garden of the app stores. I have a background in web, e-commerce and SaaS and would probably still be there if the apps world didn’t disrupt my trajectory.
5. How many years have you been working in the mobile industry? What has changed since you started to nowadays?
I’m fully dedicated to apps for only 2 years, but have been marketing apps for a couple more before that. Major change probably happened in 2016 when developers understood the necessity of shifting the strategy from vanity volume measured by installs towards meaningful but challenging metrics on ROAS, LTV and retention/engagement.
6. Which are the hottest apps that have surprised you the most?
I barely play any games on mobile so that limits my scope quite a lot, and I’m a bit of an old fart using the same few apps over and over, so I probably missed a few disrupting trends lately, especially in the camera/photo/video and social space, such as Hooked or Clip. I’ll still mention a few apps that positively engaged me recently including Hitlist (travel), Fabulous Me (health & fitness), the TV features on Shazam or the latest features of Pinterest.
7. What’s the main contribution of apps to our society?
Probably changing the way human beings communicate between each other. We can debate whether this is a good or a bad thing, but the scale of Instant Messaging apps and other social interactions apps has changed society quite a lot (think Tinder..). For people under 25 it’s become hard to imagine how we organized our social life before these apps appeared.
8. How do you think the app marketing ecosystem would be in 3-5 years?
It’s quite a challenge to predict changes in such a fast paces environment. I’m following closely the convergence of web & apps, with App indexing, Instant Apps, PWA etc… At the same time, the recent moves in VR as well as bots could be game changer for the experience, hence probably the way apps are marketed too.
9. If you’d have to give any advice to an entrepreneur/business who’s ready to launch an app, what would it be?
Aim very big, be ambitious but be prepared to fail. There are thousands of apps launched every single day, millions of them in the store, yet only a few hundreds really have an impact and 2/3 of all revenue is concentrated in the hands of 10 publishers. It’s a tough world avoiding the graveyard, but the excitement of living in an ever changing environment compensates in learnings and fun.
10. Could you give us a hint about your keynote?
I’m still working a few angles as that one seems more serious than I usually do, so I’ll have to find a way to make boring stuff sexy to the audience. The hint would be that the content won’t be limited to what the title suggests 🙂
11. What do you think would be the next app marketing hit?
I’d say something related to the real world in a way. Pokemon Go opened a completely new world of app behaviour last year and eventually more VR crazy ideas will come and disrupt our real lives.
As of marketing only, hard to say if some newcomer will come and shake the duopoly of Facebook and Google.
12. Is there something you’d like to add?
I can’t wait for the date to come, it’s been just as insightful as fun last year and I’m sure Applause 2017 won’t be any different.
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