Interview with Jorge Canga from Playwing
Jorge Canga is a growth marketer in love with the mobile industry. Currently enjoying User Acquisition, Ad Monetization, and ASO at Playwing; previously combined UA and Ad Monetization efforts with a product owner role for developing an Ad Mediation software.
Get to know more about him!
Quick Quiz Jorge Canga – Playwing
Jorge will join us on Friday 7th of June at the W Barcelona Hotel. Do not miss the chance to learn from him!
1. How and when did you arrive to the mobile industry? Why did you decide to stay and work on this sector?
It was almost 4 years ago; I had an internal debate between investment fund management in one of the biggest private banks in the world or join a mobile ad-tech startup.
I decided to stay as soon as I discovered how fast can you reach someone on the other side of the globe, how fast can you grow things and the industry’s pace lead by continuous innovation.
2. What project are you working on now?
I’m involved in growing a new game studio whose goal is to provide entertainment in several verticals ranging from mid-core to hyper-casual mobile games to AAA multi-platform titles.
3. What is the most important professional quality an app marketer can have?
Be a testing maniac: Fail again, fail better. Never take anything for granted and test every part in the equation.
4. What KPIs do you control every day? Which ones are the most important?
From macro indicators like costs, revenues, and ROI to ARPDAUs, eCPMs, CTRs%, Retentions…I love having a 360º vision of things.
5. What problem do you face in your every day as an app marketer?
I’d say one that sometimes drives me crazy and it is trusting algorithms and follow their rules. There are some cases where you need to scale campaigns but you can’t make changes +20% in bids or budgets since you are risking the whole campaign performance so you either go step by step or going again through the learning curve with your “winning” set.
6. What is the best option to monetize a mobile app?
Really tough question…it depends on the vertical, the content, the target group… Subscriptions are taking over lately but difficult to answer.
7. What advice would you give to a company or startup before launching a mobile app?
Do not launch anything unless there is a product-market fit. Research, a lot. Soft launching is key. Get an MVP, test fast and iterate faster.
8. What are the biggest challenges facing the mobile app industry?
Shifting from IAPs to subscription-based products. Tinder and Calm are some examples that opened many people’s eyes. In the gaming ecosystem, I think we have the challenge of monetizing via IAPs / subscriptions the non-gamer “gamers” hyper casuals have evangelized and slowly introduce them to more complex mechanics.
9. What trends will mark 2019?
If Tiktok releases a self-service platform…that could be a game-changer in the UA side. In the monetization side, curious to see what Max (Applovin) can do with their header bidding solution. A bit skeptical about header bidding nowadays.
10. How do you keep up to date with all the news in the app marketing industry? What sources do you consult?
Pocketgamer, Mobile Dev Demo, PickASO & TheTool’s blogs, Incipia’s blog, monthly ASO Stack…
11. To finish, what apps or games have surprised you in the last year?
I won’t say Fortnite that easy. Pretty new but “Draw It” from Kwalee because it can shift hyper-casuals as we know them now (High Retention Day 1 > Really low retention D30); they are also trying to include subscription on it. Let’s see how the game evolves.
