Drew Frost currently works and lives in the San Francisco bay area. He studied Marketing at Missouri Southern State University Plaster School of Business then joined a Fortune 500 company where no two days were alike.
Drew has held a few different roles supporting and working alongside various business units at Wal-Mart Inc. including site monetization, advertiser relations, advertising technology, loyalty marketing & behavioral science, and mobile marketing.
Drew currently leads the mobile marketing team for Sam’s Club overseeing Sam’s Wholesale mobile app as well as their in-club shopping app, Scan & Go, where they have experienced a tremendous amount of growth in the past year.
Having never really outgrown playing with Legos, Drew likes to disconnect from technology and attempt to “build” things in his free time.
ON METRICS
Until you have data, you only have a theory and theories are disproved everyday. Data should be at the core of everything you do, or not do. That being said, there is a difference between reporting metrics and understanding what they actually mean.
In this data driven world it is easy to jump to conclusions fast. It is also just as easy to become paralyzed by data. The key for marketers to do their job effectively is to find the happy medium between these two states. What does this metric really mean? For UA what was the attribution methodology? What were the controlling or limiting factors? Is this action easily quantifiable?
If an action is quantifiable then a marketers’ job becomes actionable by selecting a compensation model and doing the math. The drawback is the marketing industry loves its various compensation models. The second key for a marketer to do their job effectively is finding a model that works and sticking with it.
ON CREATIVES
Creative is often what separates an unsuccessful campaign from a successful one. So how do you know if your campaign is going to be successful? You could ask your fellow colleagues, friends, and family for their opinion or you can follow the data.
The good thing about data is it does not care about what you or anyone else thinks. It simply tells you what works at a given point in time. That being said, it’s still not an exact science because what “works” today may not work as well tomorrow.
Therefore, creative needs to constantly evolve to match who your users are and what they are most interested in. The most effective way to achieve this is to always have creative in the “vault.” Create multiple versions of copy and creative, put it out into the market, optimize what is best meeting your campaign objective, and then start pulling new versions to test from your vault.
Learn more about Drew from his Mobile Heroes profile.
ON OPPORTUNITIES
Always keep post install events top of mind. This starts with defining what it means to qualify a user. For example, is a user qualified the moment they login or is it after they make their first purchase? Once a user is qualified, the next question you should ask is how valuable is this user to me?
If you haven’t qualified your users, I highly recommend placing them into actionable segments. Once you do this, the opportunities to target and engage your users become endless. What vendors out there are capable of helping you communicate your message to your chosen segments? Do they have a look alike model capability? If so, how accurate is the model and how big is the opportunity by leveraging their platform?
THE LAST WORD
Have fun and enjoy what you do. As mobile marketers, we have one of the best jobs out there. The future of marketing is becoming more and more mobile focused everyday. You have the ability to be as innovative and creative as you would like to be. The future really is in your hands.