In this episode of Out of the Box, our host Jess Overton, Director of Demand at ironSource Aura, sits down with Karan Bhavnani, Associate Marketing Manager at Tripledot Studios, a fast-growing London-based mobile game studio.
They discuss team structure in a high growth environment, experimental marketing and testing new channels, and key growth trends.
Structuring a team in a high growth environment
“That’s our secret sauce. Team structure will always have an impact on productivity and on performance, and is something we see positively impacting our day to day operations and the bigger picture. Something we try to do is make sure that everyone has a good understanding of all of our key traffic channels, particularly on the UA team. We have specialists for different networks and channels, but ensuring this base level of general skills means we can be flexible in the moments that call for flexibility.
"We have specialists for different networks and channels, but ensuring this base level of general skills means we can be flexible in the moments that call for flexibility."
- Karan Bhavnani, Associate Marketing Manager at Tripledot Studios
Another thing is actually having people together. Tripledot is an office first space and we encourage people to come into the office whenever possible assuming there are no health concerns. We’ve created an office that is a fun and friendly space that tends to have a really positive impact on performance and on the people…
[We also sit with the product team.] That’s something we did by design. We feel like there is a lot of overlap between product and marketing. Knowing when product is doing different A/B tests means that we know what we can expect on the UA side and jump on the opportunities they create or manage any risks created as a result.”
Experimental marketing approach
“We are definitely a data-driven company. We want to test everything. We feel like if something has potential, we test it and let the data guide us. It’s quite a beautiful mix of instinct and data which allows us to leverage the traditional channels and also make the most of the experimental channels we bring on… we definitely want to try things. We want to see what we can do and how it can impact us and the results we can get… The most important thing for us is ensuring that the ways in which we acquire users are attributable and measurable.
"The most important thing for us is ensuring that the ways in which we acquire users are attributable and measurable."
- Karan Bhavnani, Associate Marketing Manager at Tripledot Studios
We want to know that we can measure the impact that it has on our user base, and ensure we know where it’s coming from, and it’s not getting mixed in with everything else because we do have so many channels.”
Going about finding new cutting-edge channels
“Usually, the channels come to us. There’s so much competition in the market these days and there are so many different types of tools you can use. People are always trying to find people to test their tools and we’re always happy to be in that position. Apart from that, we try to be out in the public. I was recently at the Pocket Gamer conference in London. Places like that have amazing insight into new technology and the new things that are happening in the market. They’re a great place to meet people and share ideas… that’s how we hear about things.
Deciding on what you should test first is the challenge - how much time you can commit to all the different types of traffic and types of channels that are available. We try to take a structured and measurable approach to setting goals and what we expect to see. Then we can test and see if it meets the goals we were trying to meet and if it did what we expected it to do...
On the newer titles, not having a very established baseline can sometimes make you unsure about how effectively the channel is working. We try to create an hypothesis of what we expect to happen and that’s usually much easier when we’re talking about something where we don’t really know how it’s going to react or have something to compare it to.”
Giving users what they want with our new games
“We have a lot of new titles that have recently come out. The launch process is all about ensuring we’re sharing a game that we’re really proud to share. It goes without saying that we play our games a lot. We have to love them before expecting others to love them.
There’s a lot of small but still crucial steps we have to take in the launch process. The most important part is monitoring and responding to customer interactions, whether that’s interaction with our creatives (so pre-install metrics) or whether that’s trends around engagement on post install metrics.
"The most important part is monitoring and responding to customer interactions, whether that’s interaction with our creatives (so pre-install metrics) or whether that’s trends around engagement on post install metrics."
- Karan Bhavnani, Associate Marketing Manager at Tripledot Studios
We want to know what our customers like, what they don’t like, what they’re enjoying and what they’re not enjoying. We do this by looking at the data at every stage and trying to optimize it… we’re constantly trying to make sure that we’re listening to our users and giving them what they want.
Once we have that foundation, once we have a user base, once we know that there are people enjoying our game day in, day out and we’re getting positive feedback, that’s when we go to the next stage of pushing it more and recognizing it as one of our key titles. We will put ourselves behind it instead of letting it run operationally.”
Trends in 2022
“This past weekend at the Pocket Gamer conference, what was really surprising was the significant presence of NFT gaming at the conference - how far it’s come in the last year is really incredible. The fact that everybody wants to know more about it and everybody wants a piece of the pie is really amazing. It’s really great for our industry because it means that, once again, gaming has been brought to the forefront of technology and it’s the first place people are using this technology and using these new ways of reaching users and engaging with them…
"It’s really great for our industry because it means that, once again, gaming has been brought to the forefront of technology and it’s the first place people are using this technology"
- Karan Bhavnani, Associate Marketing Manager at Tripledot Studios
I’m really excited by TikTok. We’ve all seen it rise to the forefront of social media and become this massive powerhouse in social media. I’m really excited to see if that’s going to translate into the ad space and if they’re going to compete with the big boys of advertising and cement their position.
I think automation leaves me in a great position. I’m a big fan of automation and I think it’s here to support UA managers. For me, it means there’s a lot more time to focus on strategic tasks and the strategic side of my role… It's the idea of converting logical thinking (some may call it gut instinct) into a mathematical formula. That gives it real substance. It’s a way of turning something that happens in your mind into something that you can mimic and can improve on… I think it’s taking us to a point where we need to make fewer decisions. It’s better to make one or two amazing decisions in a day than to make 40 average decisions.”
"It’s better to make one or two amazing decisions in a day than to make 40 average decisions.”
- Karan Bhavnani, Associate Marketing Manager at Tripledot Studios
