Interview with Álvaro Gómez from Google
Álvaro Gómez is Agency Development Manager at Google Spain. He will speak next May 27 th at Applause about Google App Indexing, an interesting topic for improving your app traffic, downloads and engagement.
Most of professionals know that to promote an app they have to invest in App Store Optimization (ASO), but also in App Indexing, the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) addressed to mobile apps contents. App Indexing consist on modify your app code because Google need to be able to read the content in order to index it and show it in search results. If you want to learn more about it, come to Applause and discover why Google App Indexing is essential to promote your app.
Quick Quiz Álvaro Gómez – Google
1. What’s your story?
I was born some 26 years ago in Madrid. Mastered in Law and Business, and started working in a Law firm but pretty soon fell in love with marketing and after working in very different countries (South Korea, UK, Belgium, etc.) got the chance to enjoy the beautiful weather of Ireland. I love travelling and getting to know how different cultures experience tech. I’m also a huge fan of craft beer. Fun fact: I even brew my own beer at home!
2. How is your day-to-day?
I try to keep up with the news in the market and in tech. Feedly and a very curated RSS feed comes in handy for that. Also, I try to be very much in touch with our advertiser’s needs, talking to them everyday and actioning the 4 or 5 things that I set out to do every-day. It’s a lot of reading, a lot of listening to the market and executing together with other teams to bring the Google magic to the table.
3. What was your biggest mistake and what did you learn from it?
To be honest, it took me too long to live abroad. Even though I took one year of boarding school when I was a child, it wasn’t until I was 21 that I finally got to live on the other side of the world: South Korea. Living in Seoul was a total lifechanger; that kind of experiences force you to question and rethink everything that you take for granted back home. It gives you perspective.
4. If you didn’t work in app marketing sector, what would you be doing?
I’d love to be a basketball coach, and you never know when it’s too late to take on that challenge.
5. How many years have you been working in the mobile industry? What has changed since you started to nowadays?
When I started working in marketing, mobile was starting to become the hot new thing, five years ago. I’d have to say that when I started studying the mobile paradigm, mobile was a nice thing to have. People were starting to develop in responsive frameworks, as in “this can also be somewhat experienced in mobile, how cool”. Unfortunately, that experience was very short from the real deal. After quite some time finally we’ve come to terms to the need to design and strategize around a Mobile-First strategy, focusing on providing the best possible experience in Mobile, and then the rest.
6. Which are the hottest apps that have surprised you the most?
I’m loving what’s coming out from a VR perspective. Not only on the high-end of the spectrum, but specially using your mobile phone, which is already a great platform to experience VR. I’m talking about Cardboard, of course; it’s still crazy to think how a very humble piece of cardboard can take you to VR. From creating your own 3D content with the Cardboard Camera, to enjoying amazing content from very different sources: from the highly curated NYTimes, to music concerts in Jaunt to surreal stories in Within (formerly known as VRSE) or all the content that is already on Youtube. Also, have you seen the new Google Earth app using 360-VR?
7. What’s the main contribution of apps to our society?
I always think of how technology can reduce the friction between what people can to achieve in life. Sometimes is helping people get entertained, or a way to shop or hire products or services that makes your life easier; but also having such a powerful computer with you all the time and by having native experiences developed on it, it can unlock really magical solutions that are lifechanging.
Think of Africa’s lack of traditional retail banking; that was a huge stopper to the flow of credit to entrepreneurs and businesses due to the lack of robust credit scoring models. Well, a very bright team has put to work the wonder that is M-Peza and all of the apps that you have on your smartphone to create a personalized credit score and an application to request credit on-demand. This is changing societies.
8. How do you think the app marketing ecosystem would be in 3-5 years?
It will definitely be on the later side of the S-curve. More matured, with a lot less focus around downloads and more about making every download count. There is going to be much more pre-qualification (think “Instant-apps”) and app developers are going to develop ways to retain users for longer.
Also, technologies like AR & Voice will be layered over the interfaces of apps, providing with an even richer experience.
9. If you’d have to give any advice to an entrepreneur/business who’s ready to launch an app, what would it be?
Find the one thing that you provide that your ideal customer can’t live without, and focus on that. No need to have an app that kind of does a little bit of everything; like Larry Page said, “focus on the user, and the rest will follow”.
10. Could you give us a hint about your keynote?
The internet has changed the way that consumers interact with businesses. We as users decide what we consume or what we buy in our own terms; what we want, when we want, how we want it. That means sometimes the interaction will be purely on an app, but also include web or even an offline interaction. We must strive to offer the users a seamless and unique experience, regardless of which medium she chooses to interact with us.
Deeplinking is quite a powerful way to enhance that, giving app developers the chance of making that transition experience seamless.
11. What do you think would be the next app marketing hit?
The use of automated Machine-Learning based algorithms to help app developers market their products without the burden of dealing with channels, bids or creatives, which together with identity-based systems will provide users an omnichannel experience through seamless integration between offline, web and app.
Hope you enjoy the interview! Learn more about Google App Indexing at Applause 2017, on May 27 at W Barcelona 😉
