Interview with Kobi Edelstein from Appnext - Applause 2018 Skip to main content

Interview with Kobi Edelstein from Appnext

Kobi Edelstein is the VP of Advertising for Appnext. With over 18 years in Games and Media, Kobi is a seasoned marketer and product innovator. He has founded an indie multiplayer game studio and was a CMO of a mobile strategy game studio. Prior to that he had many years of experience at companies like 888.com where Kobi spearheaded the casino product department, and Exent where he established and managed a free ad supported game portal and network of white labels. At Appnext, Kobi leads the Demand side, helping thousands of App developers grow their business. Kobi also oversees the Appnext Platform including Support and Operations activities.

Find out more about Kobi in this interview 😉
Kobi Edelstein - Appnext

Quick quiz Kobi Edelstein – Appnext

Kobi will join us at Applause 2018! Do not miss the chance to learn from him and purchase your tickets now 😉 See you on Friday 1st of June at the W Barcelona Hotel.

1. How and when did you arrive to the mobile industry? Why did you decide to stay and work on this sector?

I was years in gaming where I did senior product and business positions. In 2012 I left to open my own social gaming company and moved from Facebook to mobile in 2014, moved to another studio before joining Appnext at 2016.

2. What project are you working on now?

My main project is to get advertisers on board the Appnext actions product. It’s a very exciting new product where we help app publishers to integrate additional services into their app (third-party services for shopping, food ordering, taxi ordering, etc) – and the results for advertisers are amazing as the user intent in this product is spot on.

3.What is the most important professional quality an app marketer can have?

I think you need to have a good combination of analytical skills on one hand to dive into the vast amounts of data and optimize your ROI and on the other hand – have great people skills, as good relations with your partners will go a long way.

4. What KPIs do you control every day? Which ones are the most important?

We look at a combination of yield KPI’s for our publishers (like eCPM, impressions, unique advertising packages) together with advertising facing ones (like spend, installs, post install engagement metrics, ROAS, Cost per sale of a returning users, etc). The combination of KPIs is critical for succeeding in this field.

5. What problem do you face in your everyday as an app marketer?

The vast amount of data and the very big amount of foul play. At Appnext we are fortunate to have one of the biggest SDK install base, so we have deep control over our publishers. This way we don’t have to spend a lot of time worrying about questions such as – Is this a real user? Did he actually click? Did he use the app, etc.

6. What is the best option to monetize a mobile app?

We always work with our publishers on a multi-tiered monetization approach, it’s good to be able to get return via non-intrusive ads on all users, and up sell to a purchase as much as possible, balancing retention and conversion. The great thing about Appnext actions is that it helps bring incremental revenue and increase time spent on app and retention as it gives the users a great way to discover services they need when they need them the most.

7. What advice would you give to a company or startup before launching a mobile app?

Get a quick MVP out, test it with real users as quickly as you can. Do a soft launch in your target markets (don’t get tempted to do it in a cheaper markets) and make sure you get all the tech stack in pace to optimize your monetization, retention and UA funnels.

8. What are the biggest challenges facing the mobile app industry?

I would say mainly fraud and discovery. Fraud is limiting a lot of the bigger UA budgets to Facebook and Google. This increases costs and limits marketers ability to increase their reach at a cost effective price. Take this effect together with the over crowded app stores you get a situation where a newcomer or a an app which is not the top app in it’s category will have a hard time to get discovered. Rediscoverbility is also a big challenge, most users will not use your app they day after they install it. The sophisticated marketers have understood they need to spend in advertising to get the app used and increase sales. Both those who are not and who are already spending at a high payout per install with low margins are trying to limit retention efforts to the free channels and are missing out on this game.

9. What trends will mark 2018?

Advertising and App Marketing in general. I think we will see many more apps integrating their services into big meta apps. Either via solutions like Appnext Actions or doing direct deals. Users are spending much more time in apps, however if you don’t want to montiese via disruptive video units which will get more brand $$ in, you are will see more players cashing out the time spend by offering more services.

10. How do you keep up to date with all the news in the app marketing industry? What sources do you consult?

It’s good to follow the MMP’s blogs, the Major platforms blogs and some industry blogs like MobileDevMemo.

11. What will you talk about at Applause 2018? Why should the attendees not miss your panel?

I will be focusing on the service based monetization opportunity for publishers and advertisers and IMHO it’s very important trend to keep up with.

12. To finish, what apps or games have surprised you in the last year?

To my surprise I wasn’t surprised or actually it’s not surprise it’s a mature market

See you on Friday 1st of June at Applause 2018!

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Daniel PM

Author Daniel PM

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