Julia Wu

Q&A with Julia

This Q&A reflects Julia's time as Senior Digital Marketing Manager at American Well. Currently, Julia is Director of Performance Marketing at Ten Percent Happier.

Julia Wu was formerly a Senior Digital Marketing Manager at American Well, based out of Boston. After a stint at TJX with brick and mortar retail, she started her first marketing gig at Rue La La. She managed affiliates and paid social mobile marketing, two very different channels. Next, she became the growth marketing lead at Runkeeper/ASICS Digital, where she helped monetize an app with over 55 million users worldwide and brought a new app, ASICS Studio, to market. Julia found her passion for performance marketing, so she joined American Well to be part of a team at the forefront of mobile marketing in healthcare.

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

American Well powers a suite of apps (desktop, mobile and SDK) that provides live, on-demand video visits with doctors. We are in the business of making your life that much easier when you are sick. In addition, I have the privilege of working with the Amwell app, along with the apps of of our clients, who are some of the biggest names in the healthcare industry.

How did you get started in mobile marketing?

I started my marketing career managing affiliates and paid social app marketing. The two couldn’t have been more different. As much as I love the relationship and negotiations of the affiliate world, I gravitated towards the fast-pace and innovation of mobile marketing.

What do you like most about mobile marketing?

Mobile marketing requires constant collaboration between marketing, product, engineering, design, and analytics. I love working cross functionally with these groups to build a successful mobile marketing program.

What does it take to succeed in mobile marketing?

Align. Measure. Iterate

1. Goal alignment provides the technical support necessary for success
2. Have the right tech stack and reporting in place to measure against said goals
3. Come up with iterations to constantly test and learn

What does a quality mobile user look like to you?

We often define quality users as financially quantifiable users. As much as I want to optimize toward an LTV for every app I work on, the reality is different. For me, a quality user is someone who aligns with our goals at a certain point in time, especially if these users continuously meet our evolving goals.

What strategies work best to convert installs into engaged users?

The best way to convert installs into engaged app users is to start off with a deep understanding of the user and the problems they are trying to solve. This helps set the users’ expectations from the get-go and provides a foundation for CRM messaging iteration.

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?

In one recent campaign, we doubled CTR through creative optimization while maintaining lower funnel conversion rates. Our hypotheses for creative optimization were a fusion of qualitative research from product and quantitative testing powered by the marketing team.

How do you stay ahead of changes in technology?

1. Leverage different resources.
2. Passively, I like to follow industry news, forums, and thought leaders I come across on Medium.
3. Actively, it is interesting to catch up with like-minded marketers in the mobile space. Talking to investors in MarTech and getting a feel for what gets them excited also provides an interesting perspective.

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

Mobile marketers have leaned heavily into performance marketing with measurement and MarTech improvements. Brand marketing has taken a back burner for most of us. I believe we are on the cusp of developing frameworks and measurement to bring brand marketing back into our toolkit. I see a future where we will not only find value in our users, but also value in our brand.

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

I am a big fan of proactively vetting partners from the get-go. I will get on the phone and ask for references. After onboarding the partners, I am all about developing reporting and benchmarks to help spot deviations.