Interview with Katia Zolotareva from TheTool
Katia is Marketing & Customer Success Manager at TheTool, a powerful and easy-to-use platform for tracking and optimizing ASO KPIs in over 90 countries. With over 3 years of experience in digital marketing, web and mobile, Katia loves sharing knowledge about App Store Optimization and mobile growth and helps developers and marketers improve their app marketing strategy.
Get to know more about her in this interview!
Quick quiz Katia Zolotareva – TheTool
Katia will join us on Friday 1st of June at the W Barcelona Hotel. Do not miss the chance to learn from her and purchase your tickets now đ
1. How and when did you arrive to the mobile industry? Why did you decide to stay and work on this sector?
I started to work in mobile just a year ago, shifting from the world of ad networks and User Acquisition in web. I find mobile industry vivid, fast and actually, very friendly – I enjoy working with developers, learning about new products and trends first-hand. The world is clearly going mobile – every cool new product appears on mobile pretty fast (or even first), and itâs exciting to be in the center of it!
2. What project are you working on now?
As a Customer Success manager, my role is to make sure the developers know how to get the value from our ASO platform, from research stage to actually increasing app downloads and improving performance. Right now the goal is to become more didactic and stay personal at scale – so my primary project at the moment is setting up automated marketing and support processes for TheTool.
3. What is the most important professional quality an app marketer can have?
Being able to adapt to the changes really fast, act quick and provide innovative solutions.
4. What KPIs do you control every day? Which ones are the most important?
I am more on the SaaS side of the things, so for me the main KPIs are the user activation, retention, churn rates and MRR.
5. What problem do you face in your everyday as an app marketer?
No single dashboard is perfect – in the end of the day, I need to compile my own reports, collecting data from 5-6 other dashboards.
This is why the idea is that TheTool will be able to reduce this problem for mobile marketers, providing all the essential data and analytics in one single place.
6. What is the best option to monetize a mobile app?
Depends completely on the type of app! The best way is to test different options and see what will the users respond to best. There is a thin line between encouraging the users to pay and destroying their experience – and I am very happy to see that more and more apps and games now excel at integrating monetization seamlessly as a part of user experience.
7. What advice would you give to a company or startup before launching a mobile app?
Do your research and know clearly where youâre going. Define KPIs before you launch, set up analytics and measure everything from the day one. Market your product from the day minus one đ
I would also recommend to define your monetization strategy from the very beginning – it is essential to have a clear idea what is the value that your product provides that the users will be willing to pay for.
8. What are the biggest challenges facing the mobile app industry?
From my point of view, the most important trend right now is how businesses treat user privacy – this problem has global repercussions: GDPR in Europe, Telegram ban in Russia – you name it.
9. What trends will mark 2018?
The whole process of app discovery is shifting towards editorial selections – first we saw that happening on the App Store 2.0 and now Google Play Store follows. In the new circumstances, it is interesting to see how to adapt ASO strategy to get visibility in the new âzineâ format of the app stores, how to establish relationship with editors and how to balance search and conversion rate optimization efforts.
10. How do you keep up to date with all the news in the app marketing industry? What sources do you consult?
ASO Stack and MobileDevMemo are both great sources that also have amazing Slack communities. If you want to have your finger on the pulse – follow Thomas Petit on twitter đ
11. What will you talk about in Applause 2018? Why the attendees shouldnât miss your workshop?
If you, like us, can never have enough of ASO – Daniel Peris and myself will lay all  trends all out for you. We will talk about the new trends, strategies that work, new forms of app discovery, fresh insights we can get today to increase app visibility tomorrow, challenges of the ASO and how to overcome them.
12. To finish, what apps or games have surprised you in the last year?
I got really impressed by the concept of Whim app – their project is now taking place in Helsinki and expanding to more cities. Monthly subscription to Whim covers all the urban transportation: it includes rent a car, taxi, bike and all the public transport. Mobility-as-a-Service done right and totally the service of the future – I canât wait to try it out in more places!
On the other hand, I am a big fan of all the things related to awareness, and want to recommend Fabulous app – award-winning, based on latest behavioral studies, this app helps you build tiny healthy habits. Amazing UX, onboarding, everything – this app is seriously fabulous – try for yourself!
Did you enjoy Katia’s interview? Share it on your social media profiles and see you at Applause 2018!
