Drew Fung

Q&A with Drew

Drew began his marketing career at Pocket Gems, where he developed the skills to market casual gaming apps. Two years later, he moved to New York to join Zynga, driving growth for their slots title, Black Diamond Casino. Shortly after, Drew decided he wanted to work with apps that improved peoples’ lives and joined Letgo, a second-hand marketplace app, managing programmatic ad networks. Drew now works at Current, a prominent mobile fin-tech app.

In your own words, tell us about the apps that you manage?

Current is a mobile banking app and debit card that helps improve the financial outcomes for individuals who have been underserved by traditional banks. We are a branchless banking solution that is completely mobile. Aside from not having hidden fees, overdraft fees, or minimum balances, the app provides visual insights into your finances, so you can keep track of your expenses by categories.

The app also includes trends on how your spending has progressed over time, and has built in automatic savings tools. We also have a banking solution for parents and teens, helping parents teach their kids about financial responsibility from a young age. It gives the parents full transparency and control on where their teens spend.

How did you get started in mobile marketing?

I started on the Customer Success team at Pocket Gems with no knowledge of marketing, but was always passionate about all things business. My manager at the time told me there was an opening on the marketing team and that they were willing to give me the opportunity, so I went for it. I learned everything from the ground up and found that I enjoyed the data driven nature of the role. To this day I am very grateful that I was given a chance to learn mobile marketing with no experience at Pocket Gems.

What do you like most about mobile marketing?

Mobile marketing has a great balance of business, data, and creativity. It is an ever changing industry with no rules. The strategies you test and find success with now will most likely not be the same in a few years, so it certainly keeps you on your toes.

What does it take to succeed in mobile marketing?

I believe there are four core components and traits you need to be successful in mobile marketing:

1. Data Driven: You must be analytical and willing to break down data to explain why things are or are not working.
2. Creativity: Since we have no rules in our industry, we have the freedom to imagine, create, and test any ideas that come to mind. More often than not, creative ideas that I think won't work end up working better than the ones I think are guaranteed to work.
3. Business Acumen: Understand the objectives and goals of the business and tune into the creative ideas and data from your marketing stack to reach those goals.
4. Adaptability: The mobile environment is constantly changing and our industry is always evolving. So don’t get stuck using old practices just because they worked in the past.

What does a quality mobile user look like to you?

A quality user is someone who not only installs and performs down funnel actions that meet our KPIs, but also continues to use the app. This leads to more engagement with features and monetization in the app as users believe in the product and enjoy using it in their everyday life.

What strategies work best to convert installs into engaged app users?

Understand your audience. We make it a point to do extensive research to figure out what a “best user” looks like. We want to ensure our marketing strategy and creatives will resonate with them.

Also, listen to what the customers want. We like to hear a consensus of what is needed most to help better serve our customers, then work closely with product to make those needs come to fruition.

In the past year, what is one tip you can share which made the biggest performance difference with UA or re-engagement of your app?

Strong creative. This may be a generic answer, but the devil lies in the performance. And the best performance comes from the strongest creatives. Don’t be afraid to test weird ideas and different formats or lengths. One of our best performing creatives this year came from a video that was almost two minutes long, which goes against everything I have learned as a marketer.

How do you stay ahead of changes in technology?

I read blogs by Liftoff’s Mobile Heroes and Andrew Chen. I also discuss trends with peers they have noticed in the UA community, things they have tested, and other tips. Lastly, I frequently talk to vendors about new product releases and opt in to beta programs for testing.

What do you see as the next big thing in mobile marketing?

TikTok and Podcasting for performance. TikTok has the user base for young audiences, they just have to improve their platform for marketers and algorithms for performance. I have also noticed more and more people going to podcasts as a channel for performance, and seen better strategies for attributing this traffic.

What advice can you offer to help marketers combat mobile ad fraud?

Use an MMP that has a fraud tool and have baseline benchmarks you know would qualify as fraud. Although fraud is getting more sophisticated so non-dynamic benchmarks become less useful, pay attention to anything that clearly does not make sense. For example, if you have tons of installs but no post install conversions, you should bring this up with your vendor and pursue a legitimate answer. A great place to start is here.

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