Interview with Jonathan Raveh from Neura
Jonathan Raveh has 10 years’ experience in the mobile industry in various content & advertising positions, Jonathan is the Director of Brand Marketing at Neura. Prior to Neura, Jonathan was solely responsible for monetization at CallApp and managed all Partnerships & Community endeavors at Appnext.
Jonathan frequently writes in several industry-related blogs, including Mobile Dev Memo, TheTool, Medium, Soomla and more.
Get to know more about him!
Quick Quiz Jonathan Raveh – Neura
Jonathan 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 in the mobile industry? Why did you decide to stay and work on this sector?
I first entered the mobile industry in 2008, managing mobile content for a telco operator. The first smartphones (mainly the iPhone) got me to be super-passionate about the industry. Working in an industry that affects our most important and personal electronic device – this idea still keeps me excited.
2. What is the most important professional quality an app marketer can have?
The ability to learn from failure and try again. App marketers don’t have that luxury of quitting. The app industry and user trends are in constant flux, as well as engagement and marketing tools. The ultimate app marketer always wants to iterate, explore and re-invent, and never fears failure.
3. What is the best option to monetize a mobile app?
It seems that Subscription has been growing quite well in recent years and more apps are leaning towards it, but the truth is that there’s no right answer. A hybrid model that includes ads is now very dominant and caters to most app verticals. Ultimately, creating a high-quality product with a strong need and a good K-factor is the best route. Whichever model is chosen, strong monetization is always a by-product of sustainable engagement.
4. What advice would you give to a company or startup before launching a mobile app?
Forget the revenue and focus on getting the product right. Make sure the app is bug-free, and the product or service provides users with real value. Also, make it easy for your app to go viral (or, in other words, for your users to recommend it) and be extremely careful with communication.
5. What are the biggest challenges facing the mobile app industry?
Engagement & retention. Nailing UA is an essential part of app growth, but investing heavily in UA is not sustainable without a long-term relationship with your customer. Creating a profitable business is extremely hard with today’s retention rates.
6. What trends will mark 2019?
- On the UA side – not a lot. Google & Facebook will keep maintaining their lead.
- On the product side, it seems that the GDPR storm has passed and we will start to see more personalized products that adapt to our real-world, day-to-day lives.
- Lastly, 2019 will mark the beginning of the end for the super-casual games’ trend.
7. How do you keep up to date with all the news in the app marketing industry? What sources do you consult?
For general industry news, I recommend Mobile Dev Memo. It touches on any mobile industry-related matter, from ASO & Ad monetization to product and data.
Another good one is I also like Grow.co’s newsletter.
For ASO, I recommend TheTool and ASO stack. Both are focused and provide high, detailed value for any ASO efforts. The ASO stack slack group is an amazing community to be a part of.
For advertising in general and ad monetization specifically, I recommend AdAge & Soomla blog, respectively.
Finally, I recommend following a few industry knowledgeable leaders on twitter – Eric Seufert, Peter Fodor, Thomas Petit, Gabriel Kwakyi and Andy Carvell, just to name a few.
8. To finish, what apps or games have surprised you in the last year?
2 casual games by Miniclip, Golf Battle and Flip Master, had high-quality, sustainable game play and quite an effective monetization strategy. Miniclip doesn’t seem to follow the super-casual trend. I like it.
