Great things happen when marketers come together… and Unplug 🔌

We’ve all been there. That tipping point at a conference, or event, or even your run of the mill workday when after x pitches from similar vendors, they all start to sound the same. Or worse, they don’t and you don’t really know who to listen to.

It got us thinking, wouldn’t it be awesome if you could talk to someone trying to solve the same challenges as you? Or even better, somebody who’s already solved those same issues and can tell you how they did it?

After some informal conversations with Jampp customers and other marketers, we realized that what people enjoy the most out of industry events is actually meeting peers and sharing war stories and knowledge. All the other stuff is… well, noise. So we went on to create a series of small industry events to address just that. Say hello to App Marketers Unplugged.

🔌How to create the ideal space for conversations

• Steer clear of pitching in any shape or form. If all else fails, you should remember this. Take a step back. This is not about you or your brand. When we decided to move forward with App Marketers Unplugged, we created a new brand for it, to distinguish it from other events we host — logo and color palette included 🎨

• Keep it small. Roundtable formats are ideal for conversation, people are more likely to feel part of the conversation if they can all comfortably see and hear everyone else. Panels work too, as long as you allow plenty of time for questions.

I really enjoyed Jampp’s Unplugged event as it allowed us to connect with other advertisers in a small group setting and discuss ideas and challenges around key topics such as incrementality, flaws in last click attribution and the challenges of understanding the true value of different advertising channels. — Ara Salbashian, Sr Display Marketing Manager at Get Your Guide

I really enjoyed the roundtable format with no pitching allowed. It was a small, informal event with a variety of subject experts in attendance, where we could casually exchange questions and experiences regarding common industry challenges. — Mike Thomas, Associate Director, Mobile at 3Q Digital

• Pick a topic of interest to kick-off the conversation. We’ve been checking in with different advertisers to see what topics they are interested in hearing about. In our industry, incrementality seems to be the hottest topic but it’s not the only one. We’ve had interesting conversations around a series of topics, from what goes on in the publisher side, to how to build mobile marketing teams that can deal with the challenges of running successful performance campaigns.

What’s great about the event is you get solid action items that you could potentially apply on your own strategy — Anil Ravindrakumar , Senior Mobile Marketing Manager at Quandoo

It was very interesting to attend to the App Marketers Unplugged in Barcelona, we could get together with colleagues from other tech apps and listen and learn from each other. We usually have similar problems and it was very cool to be able to share experiences and recommendations. — Agustina Caparé, Senior Traffic Officer at Wallapop

• Guest list. We established a 1:5 Vendor Ratio: Only a few vendors, to share their perspective… still no pitching.
• Food and Drinks. Duh.

App Marketers Unplugged So Far…

Our first ever Unplugged was in San Francisco, at Instacart’s office, and the conversation centered around Incrementality. Since then, we’ve organized Unplugged events in Los Angeles (at the Grindr offices), Barcelona (at Privalia HQ) and Berlin (at Wooga’s offices) and we’re coordinating a couple more before the end of the year covering a wide range of topics (more on this below).

The decision to host the events at an advertiser/partner office, is no minor detail: we want marketers to feel that they’re in a safe space, at home… on “their” turf. Not to mention that it’s cool to see other workspaces… just look at the view from Grindr’s office! 👀

So what are app marketers interested in?

Below are some of the topics we discussed and some of the questions that came up:

Incrementality

• How do you measure incrementality / the incremental value of each paid channel or conversion?
• What are the main blockers for testing incrementality?
• What tips would you give other marketers interested in measuring incrementality?
• How much Uplift is considered sufficiently positive?

I enjoyed the event a lot as well as receiving such interested people at Privalia’s office. It was really nice to share experiences and talk with other companies about the challenges that we are all facing, definitely worth attending! — Giovana Arruda, Advertising Manager at Privalia and Vente-privee (Southern Europe & Latam)

Programmatic Ads from the Publisher Perspective

• What are the main benefits of programmatic traffic?
• What does transparency mean from the publisher side?
• What is the difference between Waterfall and Header Bidding?
• When, if ever, does it make sense to run direct?

Building Efficient Marketing Teams

• How is your team structured? How do you allocate resources?
• What are the competencies you’re outsourcing and what do you need to keep in-house?
• What infrastructure do you use for collaboration and what reporting tools do you rely on?
• What mistake have you made on hiring or managing a mobile marketing team? Can you share any do’s and don’ts with marketers in the audience who are building their teams?

Cross-Channel Marketing Challenges

• What channels do you currently use for remarketing and how do you make different channels comparable? Reporting / Data normalization
• How important is app retargeting (or paid ads, to be clear on what we mean by retargeting here) in your overall remarketing mix?
• How do you make sure you don’t cannibalize CRM efforts with app retargeting?
• What are the challenges you’ve seen regarding cross-channel?

It’s always good to meet marketing experts and exchange views, learnings and best practices. The level of interaction was a lot higher than in big conferences, which made it possible to have an exchange, rather than a lecture…. Finally, really appreciated that there was no trace of pitching!”— Lorenzo Rossi, Head of Marketing at Free2Move

Unplugged was a great opportunity to share knowledge among other industry experts in a relaxed environment without a sales pitch. It’s constructive to speak with other app marketers and share best practices about tackling common challenges in the industry, such as fraud, incremental value from campaigns and building a winning team. The structure allowed for an open discussion and for everyone to get involved. I look forward to the next one! —Tom Brooks, Mobile Marketing Analyst at Delivery Hero

Join us at the next Unplugged in your city…

We are constantly reviewing and improving on the format. We’ been reaching out to different thought-leaders ahead of the events to get their input/feedback, and invite them to come over and kick-start the conversation by sharing their own experiences. We’ll be hosting events in Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires and New York soon.

.