AppAgent

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a co-founder and CEO at a health & fitness mobile app. We're a team of 15 people, the product is global, 17 languages, 1M+ MAUs.

For what projects/services did your company hire AppAgent?

We were looking to start Facebook and Google ads, and build data analysis, and measurement flow around it. Also, we needed some help with Ad creatives, the structure of it, and testing the best creative concepts.

What were your goals for this project?

As the demand for fitness apps surged in the Covid-19 lockdown (March 2020), we partnered with Appagent to help us kickstart our Paid user acquisition, which we never did as we were 100% product-focused.

How did you select AppAgent?

Appagent's blog and presentations on conferences caught my eye. We met in person with Peter (CEO), and Martin (Head of Marketing) at a conference a couple of months prior to the cooperation. Besides Appagent, I've been considering multiple agencies and freelancers.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

We came to Appagent with the request to help us kickstart our performance marketing. They scheduled an intro call during which they interviewed us about which issues we face.

Based on that, they started to help us create a marketing dashboard, and also to integrate our MMP (we decided for Appsflyer). We defined our ROI goals and budget.

And Appagent started first PPC campaigns. We ended up running campaigns in ~5-10 languages. Appagent also helped us evaluate the creatives, and suggest the best performing concepts to iterate on.

The collaboration took about 7 months. We've been getting weekly update calls, and a pdf report every 2 weeks (or every major iteration to the campaigns).

What was the team composition?

I've worked mainly with Lucia - we had weekly calls, and reports from her regarding the campaigns she was running. On an irregular basis, we also had access to the data analyst and Martin (Head of Marketing) who helped us with some holistic decisions in our marketing efforts.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Appagent was always close to our defined ROI goal. There were some seasonal effects, but after we started the cooperation, our revenues went up more than 5x.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow was very smooth. We initiated the conversation through mail, but later we invited 3 "Agents" to our slack so we could communicate faster. Lucia was very responsive and proactive.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I especially like how fast they onboarded us in the beginning. We knew we could profit from starting performance marketing ASAP, but we weren't ready on our end (analytics, MMP, dashboards).

I can't imagine any other agency would

• a) have the necessary knowledge and
• b) act so quickly.

Are there any areas for improvement?

-

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a startup kids and family tech space company. We’ve been working on a private family messaging platform that kids can use to communicate with their families and friends in a safe environment. Our company is in the app space — we have Android and iOS apps. I’m the chief growth officer and I oversee product management, product marketing, and paid marketing for our company.

What challenge were you trying to address with AppAgent?

Our company was set to launch our app to the App Store and Play Store in January 2020. We knew that we needed to start user acquisition efforts, but we also wanted to better understand how to set up our overall app ecosystem in a way that would allow us to measure the product’s performance, optimize the product, and set the foundation for a successful paid marketing program. The team doesn’t execute 

We were looking for an agency that was more full-service than just user acquisition or paid. We wanted to find a company that had expertise in the mobile app space and could support us with the implementation of analytics and, attribution, as well as the strategy for our paid marketing efforts and execution of our campaign.

What was the scope of their involvement?

On the preliminary agreement, AppAgent audited the app and gave us recommendations on how we should structure our product analytics and insights. This allowed us to take a very data-driven approach to understanding some of our funnels and metrics, such as whether we’re effectively acquiring users and how we can turn them into engaged, retained users over time. 

The AppAgent team supported us with the foundation of the product’s analytics and insights, and they have since done a number of rounds of strategic feedback or recommendations. However, they don’t own the execution of prioritization of any of those ideas — they share their findings and recommendations, and then we take those in-house. We have a fully in-house design and development team, so we very much own the product. 

In terms of the app itself, we use Firebase as our analytics platform. We also have an attribution marketing partner. Then, we have our backend and marketing data. AppAgent has a proprietary, in-house dashboard that they built. The dashboard stitches together those various data sources, so that we can have macro-level visualizations of the product’s performance.

In terms of how we structured the engagement with them, it was a six-month agreement. They were a full-service agency and looked at our product analytics and performance. They set our marketing strategy and then executed on our user acquisition campaign.

After that six-month engagement ended, we shifted the relationship to more of a pure user acquisition and marketing partnership. Although we were really happy with the engagement, we’d done all of the heavy lifting we needed to and felt good about the foundation that we’d set, so we pulled back the scope of the work. Now, they’re our user acquisition partner. They’re doing our paid marketing strategy, executing our paid marketing campaigns, and summarizing performance and insights. 

What is the team composition?

In the preliminary engagement, we kicked off with the CEO, a data and analytics lead, and a user acquisition lead. We’ve also worked with a creative lead, as AppAgent has built a number of marketing campaigns for us. Now, we work most closely with the data analyst and the user acquisition lead, and then we work with the creative lead on an ad hoc basis.

How did you come to work with AppAgent?

I used a number of agency look-up services, and Clutch was really helpful. I reached out to AppAgent and did a number of phone call evaluations with them and other agencies. The fact that they were able to be a full-service agency when we needed them to be, but also support us from a more focused marketing capacity, was very appealing to us. 

There are a number of agencies that specialize in a single area, and if you don’t need that area anymore or need to supplement that expertise, you need to hire another party or terminate the contract. I was compelled by AppAgent’s suite of capabilities and flexibility. 

They also seemed to have a particular interest in the space that we’re operating in, so I felt that the industry knowledge they’d bring to the table was applicable and appropriate. Culturally, we wanted a company that felt like an extension of our small team, and they have certainly done that. We’re a startup, so I didn’t want an agency with a lot of overhead or bureaucracy.

How much have you invested with them?

We paid $10,000 a month for the full-service scope, and we’ve scaled that back quite significantly to $3,000 for the user acquisition efforts. The total is about $50,000–$100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I believe we signed the contract at the end of 2019. Then, the engagement started with the launch of the app in January 2020. We didn’t use AppAgent to bring the app to market. It was also a soft launch — we just wanted to start getting user feedback and understand how we were performing.

The full-service agreement was through July 2020, but we ended up extending it until the end of September in order to finish up a couple of major initiatives with them. As of September, we’ve transitioned to the more pure-play marketing agreement.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

There were some foundational pieces that we wanted to see put in place that we were looking for as measures of success. For instance, we looked at their ability to consistently measure, evaluate, and monitor product performance in an automated fashion, which they’ve done with the successful implementation of our attribution model, analytics model, and data visualization dashboard.

From a paid marketing perspective, we set out certain KPIs for them in terms of user acquisition. Right now, we’re primarily focused on building a base and then moving more aggressively into growth next year. AppAgent has maintained its performance under the cost targets that we’ve set out for them, so within our CPIs and cost per fully onboarded user. I’m sure we’ll shift some of those metrics lower funnel next year as we move into more engagement and growth in the product.

How did AppAgent perform from a project management standpoint?

Communication has been excellent. We meet on a weekly basis and communicate back and forth through Slack on a near-daily basis. We’re based in Canada and they’re located in Prague, but we haven’t had issues with the time zone differences. The overall communication has been a good mix of both structured meetings and monthly presentations, as well as just ad hoc asynchronous support. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They deeply understand our business, products, and industry. AppAgent is able to partner product insights with marketing insights, and that is important to me because my background is in marketing and product, so I see those two areas as very connected. They’re able to and paint that full whole picture for us — it’s not just about user acquisition campaigns or what’s happening with the product, but how those two spaces come together. Their cohesive approach to product and marketing strategy and insight is impressive, as is their ability to really feel like an extension of our company. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have anything specific to point out. One area they could potentially improve upon is but they can potentially improve around the project management side of things.

While I said they met all of our key objectives within the course of our agreement, the status of the given activity or when the work would clearly complete was occasionally a bit unclear. If there is an opportunity to improve, it’s more clear communication of deadlines and deliverables.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you want to grow your mobile app business from the ground up with a cohesive approach to product management and marketing, AppAgent is a great option.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Pockethunt Oy (ltd) is a social recruitment platform founded in Helsinki, Finland. I'm Co-founder and CEO.

For what projects/services did your company hire AppAgent?

Mobile marketing and campaign management for social media marketing.

What were your goals for this project?

Get better results in mobile marketing and user acquisition for our app.

How did you select AppAgent?

We sent out a couple of offer requests and general inquiries, and AppAgent responded quickly with a high level of professionalism. It was not just a matter of us selecting, it was also a matter of AppAgent selecting their clients.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

The beginning:

• Social media marketing (fb/ig) campaign management

Later on:

• Creative work for video ads
• Strategy counselling
• Some consultancy in product development

What was the team composition?

Marketing manager and part-time work from AppAgents creative team and directors

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

As our teams worked in a collaborative fashion, AppAgent's team helped us simplify and clarify our USP and thus, we achieved a significant 90%+ decrease in UA costs during a timespan of 6 months. These numbers are possible when both teams work aligned with a common goal and a mutual understanding of strengths and responsibilities and above all, willingness to learn from each other.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Quite good nowadays, we had to work on this at the beginning. As all well-performing teams must.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

AppAgents will and ability to nurture client relationships is something that impressed me the most. Also, their ability to introduce more value in terms of offering during the partnership, eg. creative work and mobile marketing strategy. Much appreciated and they have a lot of knowledge in this department.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Room for improvement would be in:

More proactivity in terms of analyzing results and suggesting creative improvements or better storytelling, preferably over just 'managing campaigns'. This is obviously very individual and related to whom is managing the account and the person's skill set.

Taking ownership in areas that are not familiar with the client, eg. data analysis dashboard creation and project management with a sturdy hand

Following up on results and satisfaction with certain bigger tasks and projects (this don't apply to AppAgent management, they ask for feedback quite frequently on a personal level)

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am CEO of Lightneer, developer and publisher of so called Hyper Casual games that are super fun, innovative games that anyone can play

For what projects/services did your company hire AppAgent?

We wanted to have an external company review our D2C Marketing and Data stacks and provide feedback on what we were doing well, what could be improved and also let us know if there were any things that we should be thinking about that we were not already doing

What were your goals for this project?

We focused the audit on the mobile game Hammer Jump that we have been scaling the past 6 months or so

How did you select this vendor?

We approached a couple of companies and decided on app Agent after these meetings as they were the most responsive and had a very structured and thorough approach

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

App Agent reviewed our UA, ASO, Ad Monetisation, Data set up and provided feedback

What was the team composition?

App Agent's specialists in the particular areas in question asked the Lightneer teams a bunch of questions, reviewed a bunch of materials and performed their audit. We then got together with AppAgent specialists and senior management at end to review and make a plan

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We have taken on board the feedback and are in the process of implementation Once done, we will review the impact on performance

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We established a good workflow and communication between our teams

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Really liked the way they put credible experts on the various activities and the way the feedback was delivered was professional and actionable

Are there any areas for improvement?

Quantification in some areas could be improved, assigning values in terms of likely impact to all recommendations in the process versus qualitative

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO at an LGBT+ dating app company. We have 3 different apps, developed from 2016. Surge, Zoe and Grizzly.

For what projects/services did your company hire AppAgent?

We hired AppAgent to help us with keyword optimization in the US market and also inventing and testing different ASO strategies for our apps Surge and Zoe.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal was to increase our rankings in the App Store and therefore increase organic downloads in the US market.

How did you select this vendor?

We already had a great relationship with AppAgent due to the local proximity, so it was a quick decision about whom to hire.

Describe the project in detail.

At first, AppAgent performed in-depth keyword research to find relevant keywords and also to find keywords where the app didn't rank at all. After that, AppAgent ran Apple Search Ads and tested all of the keywords to see if users are downloading our app from them and if those keywords are more active in searches or not. Based on that, AppAgent decided which keywords to pick for keyword optimization. They performed 3 keyword optimization rounds for the US market, while each update brought new rankings which led to an increase in organic downloads.

What was the team composition?

I worked with the marketing manager Martin and the ASO manager Jiri.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The keyword optimization performed by AppAgent brought thousands of new organic downloads per month and we saw an increase of 38% in downloads within 3 months.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We had calls if needed. Otherwise, we communicated via email and then we opened the Slack channel. The communication was very smooth. We

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They were able to clearly explain their workflow and how they approached the work they delivered. The team is nice to communicate with as it almost felt they were part of our team.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I didn't find any and look forward to continue working with AppAgent in the future.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of marketing at StudyCat, and we make language-learning apps for kids. We’re a Hong Kong-registered company, but we’re also based in Taiwan and the UK.  

What challenge were you trying to address with AppAgent?

We were looking to boost our performance and increase our traffic in app stores. We were seeking ways to expand our business beyond the constraints of organic search. Our goal was to improve our onboarding and retention of users.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They initially executed a product review of our existing apps and products. Their market analysis of our tools allowed us to collaborate with them in creating a marketing dashboard. The dashboard provides us with user analytics and helps us with PPC campaigns, moving forward.

While we were initially considering off-the-shelf products, their analysis allowed us to develop our own solution. They utilized Kochava as our attribution tool, which is presented in Google’s Data Studio. We also used Firebase and BigQuery to consolidate the data to pool into the custom dashboard.

We’re about to launch into PPC campaigns, which are projected to last about three months.

How did you come to work with AppAgent?

We always took care of app store optimization in-house, but I noticed Peter (Founder & CEO, AppAgent), contributing to the groups and forums that I followed. He always provided very useful information without being overly-promotional about his company.

While I spoke to a few other companies, I decided to go with Peter because I was impressed by the breadth of the knowledge he demonstrated.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $30,000 so far, and we’ve just committed to another $10,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

While our conversations started in January, we began working together in April 2019 and the work is ongoing.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

An out-of-box analysis tool would have been twice the cost of the dashboard that they helped us develop, so we’re very satisfied with how cost-effective this solution has been. The completed tool also helps us save 20% of our expenses, every month. Their app store optimization has led to a 20% uptick in traffic, as well. We’ve been very happy with their work.

How did AppAgent perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been first-class at every level. Their product management has been flawless; they keep us updated about all developments and meet all of their deadlines. We held regular meetings and otherwise communicated via video conference.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have a wide scope of expertise. They’re never trying to sell you one particular service because they excel in a broad range of services. They can really fill in the gaps that exist in your organization.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’ve never failed to be impressed by their professionalism. Just give them a chance and have a meeting with them; you’ll most definitely be impressed.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the managing director of a software development company based in Hong Kong, that is primarily focused on mobile app development.

For what projects/services did your company hire AppAgent?

We had a few popular apps for iOS that had already achieved reasonable growth organically, but we had hit a plateau and wanted help to lift the apps to the next level. We hired AppAgent to help us optimise our App Store listings and design eye catching video advertising creatives which together resulted in a significant increase in sales.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to push past the limit that we had reached with purely organic growth to improve our conversion rate, user acquisition and ultimately sales.

How did you select this vendor?

We extensively researched various options for ASO and digital marketing companies and after reaching out to several companies, AppAgent was the one that stuck us as the most professional and had the best track record and portfolio.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

The project consisted of several phases, for each of the two apps we had them helping us with:

1. Optimise the metadata for the App Store listing, including description and keywords
2. Design new eye catching screenshots for the App Store listing
3. Design new icon for the app
4. Iterate over steps 1-3 several times making continual changes until arriving at the combination of elements providing the best results
5. Once the App Store listing had been optimised, then App Agent prepared localised versions targeting different major markets such as Japan, China etc
6. Simultaneously, AppAgent prepared some amazing video adverts (working with professional actors, hiring sets/props etc) which we ran on Facebook with great results (the ads broke even and resulted in a positive uplift in our organic traffic).

What was the team composition?

After initially reaching out to AppAgent we were in discussions with the owner, Peter, who we worked with us to establish the scope of the project and finalise the goals and the process.

Then we were assigned a manager within AppAgent who was our main point of contact subsequently and liaised with us throughout the duration of the project.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

After completion of the project we have enjoyed a permanent uptick in our sales thanks to the additional exposure and improved conversion rate resulting from the App Store optimisation process.

In addition, we have a solid user acquisition strategy incorporating both organic traffic and the video ads created for us by AppAgent which we continue to leverage to grow our user base.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow was very effective; our point of contact within AppAgent did a great job keeping us updated on progress of the project, taking our input and feeding this back to the rest of their team. Information was presented to us in a clear and accurate way and any questions we had were answered promptly.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Two things really stood out - the first being how well organised the entire project was from start to finish, which made AppAgent a pleasure to work with. The second is simply the extremely high production quality of the creative assets they provided - all images and videos were very well designed and obviously created by professionals.

Are there any areas for improvement?

None that come to mind.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the director of product marketing at Babbel, a language learning platform.

What challenge were you trying to address with AppAgent?

We requested an App Store audit to better understand our potential performance drivers and to get recommendations on how to take advantage of them.

What was the scope of their involvement?

AppAgent served as a consultant. They ran the first phase of analysis, looking at market data and our internal data to understand the drivers of our current performance. They compared us with both our competition the and evolution of the language learning landscape in the App Store. From that, the team found areas where we have room to perform better. 

We then conducted a two-day workshop at our offices. With two people from AppAgent in person and a few connecting remotely, we’d run through their analysis so far and their initial recommendations. AppAgent passed that feedback through our team. In this process, they learned about what we may and may not have done in the past and figured out ways to ensure that their final written recommendations were in line with our capabilities. We then presented these recommendations to a broader set of our team.

What is the team composition?

We were in direct contact with 2–3 people from AppAgent, but the workshops had five people involved from their team.

How did you come to work with AppAgent?

We knew of AppAgent as a potential ASO agency from our network. When we compared their proposals to those submitted by other agencies, we were interested in their holistic approach in answering our questions. Their team made sure to involve traffic analysts as well as strategic people. They also budgeted a buffer of 20 additional hours into their quote, just to make sure we wouldn’t run out of time in any area. Their realistic and comprehensive proposal appealed to us.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $15,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together on this project from May–June 2019, but we’ve started more projects with AppAgent since then.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

By implementing AppAgent’s recommendations, we’ve achieved 20% more daily installs and see our cost per acquisition (CPA) rate on App Store ads drop by 18%. As a result of their work, we have more installs and sales through existing sales channels, which we’re thrilled with.

How did AppAgent perform from a project management standpoint?

We had a tight timeline. Unfortunately, sometimes our agendas for workshops were too long to fit in all the material we wanted to cover. Otherwise, AppAgent kept our expectations clears; they helped us understand their strengths and where they could best support us. The team also managed absences due to illness or family emergencies well.

We used email and Google Slides to collaborate. Google Docs helped us prepare presentations for a specific workshop or agenda point. We’d then share documentation about past initiatives and our ASO history through Google Drive.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I can’t think of anything in particular.

Are there any areas they could improve?

In our current collaboration, we’re working to balance having short deadlines to achieve a change and maintaining the same level of quality. This means adding buffer time to review documents or pushing back on when something can be ready. Our own team is working on this as well.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Musopia is an music app developer company from Helsinki, Finland. We make guitar and ukulele apps that make learning to play the instruments fast, easy and fun. I am the CMO of Musopia.

For what projects/services did your company hire AppAgent?

We wanted to maximize the number of organic downloads by increasing our visibility in the app store. All though we´ve been featured several times by Apple, we wanted to have more permanent visibility and make sure that our apps appear well in the search results.

What were your goals for this project?

To increase the amount of page views and organic downloads.

How did you select this vendor?

AppAgent was recommended to us by a colleague. We got a chance to meet the AppAgent people here in Helsinki and had a good meeting with them. We got the impression that they really know what they were talking about.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

App Agent started to improve the visibility of our apps by improving the keywords of each app (and each language). There was discussions how to handle the titles and subtitles (the visible parts of keywords) and they managed to create keyword sets that improved the number of downloads in all the countries.

What was the team composition?

We worked closely with Tina from AppAgent, who was then communicating with their team.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

So far, we´ve worked with AppAgent in the keyword-related projects. Results from the different apps and different languages have bee all positive, ranging from 25% to 300% improvement on the visibility and downloads. The quality of the increased user number has been good as well, which is the most important thing.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow has been effective, and they´ve had time for very detailed conversations discussing different options, on Skype.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They work in a very detailed oriented way so that they can put forward their best effort. Also the reporting is good and clear.

Are there any areas for improvement?

As a client, I would like to move faster sometimes, but I understand that they need their time to make thorough work.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CFO of a mobile gaming company.

What challenge were you trying to address with AppAgent?

We needed help with the soft launch of our mobile gaming app, including support and insight into the monetization of the launch. We also needed insight into the condition of our backend data tracking system. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

They worked on the design and strategic marketing. They provided artwork for advertising on Facebook and Google Ads. They also provided visuals for the App Store and produced an advertising video and an explainer video for the App Store as well. They also helped us with the App Store optimization.

For the design, they started with sketches, and after approval, we moved onto the detailed work and the finalization. We supported them with 3D models because it was easier for them to work with the existing intellectual property or art that we had already.

On the strategic advisory side, they set up a media plan, and we discussed how our soft launch will look on iOS and Android and which country to address. From a geolocation perspective, they also gave us advice on how to move forward. They also helped us with the app logo.

What is the team composition? 

Our main contact was Martin B. (Marketing Manager, AppAgent). We also worked with their Founder/CEO and a motions graphic designer.

How did you come to work with AppAgent?

I found them on a site that compared marketing agencies for apps. They stood out to me because they had worked with smaller development teams like ours and specifically in the gaming environment, which was the reason we moved forward with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $25,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from January–June 2019.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The overall experience in terms of designing, clarifying the scope of work, and preparing the project was excellent. 

How did AppAgent perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management was good. It was all well done. We communicated via Skype conferences, and we set up our appointments on Google Calendar. We also used Google Meetup as a means of communication.

They were impressively responsive and always available. They made expectations clear and defined what’s in the scope and out of the scope. Working with Martin B. was also great. He was fully transparent and kept in great contact with me. He was always easy to reach.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Everything was according to normal business practices in the field. Everything looks good, and it was a pleasure to work with them. Martin B. and I are close, and the CEO made a great effort to see that our project went well.

Are there any areas they could improve?

On one element, there was a mismatch in expectations in terms of the quality of the results when we received a preliminary video about one of our ads. We were told it was 80% ready, but we felt it was only 10% ready. We got it sorted out quickly, and after that, we were all on the same page again. Other than that, there’s nothing needing improvement.