Firebase is a mobile platform that helps you quickly develop high-quality apps, grow your user base, and earn more money. At the heart of Firebase is Firebase Analytics, a free and unlimited analytics solution to gain insight into your users from ad click to app usage. Firebase Analytics works with other features such as admob, so you can make smart, data-driven user-centric decisions to grow your revenues by displaying engaging ads to a global audience.
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Sivan Enden is Strategic Partner Manager, Mobile Apps and Gaming for Google EMEA. This work involves helping app developers and game developers increase the money they make from their apps so they can continue building more great games and apps.
Meeting the startups and app developers who are excited about Google’s innovations and the work they do is what Sivan enjoys most about this job. Sivan reveals, “I get loads of energy and excitement with all these new ideas and products I get to see and experiment with at an early stage. The best thing is that Google has so many tools built to make the life of app developers easier, that I actually get to help them and promote their new game, app or product by giving them access to the great Google tools or some ideas on how to use them.”
Sivan began working for Google six years ago, occupied with the startup and tech industry Israel is known for. She worked with companies on product strategy, growth and user acquisition and BI systems, gaining valuable expertise in how to introduce new products to the market, how to grow the user base and who to market it to.
Learning What Startups Need to Succeed
At the beginning of Sivan’s career, she also learned a great deal from working with a number of startups that failed. During this time, she participated with many different roles, including coding, product management, business development and marketing; doing all of it at incredible speed. These experiences allowed Sivan to gain valuable understanding of what the startups she works with need to do in order to succeed and what would most help them move forward.
Sivan grew up with parents who were both involved in the fast-paced, exciting high tech industry. As she said, “In a way, you can say I was born into this world of working with data geeks and innovative entrepreneurs.” Sivan’s own career began in the web industry, including everything from downloadable applications to games and services. As the industry shifted more toward the mobile and apps world, she also shifted her focus to mobile apps and specifically to gaming.
In this fast-paced, rapidly evolving industry, competition for the users’ time keeps developers constantly on their toes, pushing them to create more beautiful and responsive user experiences. Sivan particularly enjoys the people in this industry, who love to play. Games are both their business and their passion.
The Competitive World of Mobile Monetization
However, the mobile monetization world is extremely competitive, as demonstrated by the sheer number of mobile ad networks available. There are many great options for developers to work with in terms of formats, demand sources and IAP. The real challenge is combining it to create a great user experience that will provide a growing revenue source for the developer.
To find and implement the best tailored solution for every app and game is Sivan’s great challenge. This requires thinking beyond traditional models and finding ways to combine different models to make the most from the users.
Google has put a great deal of effort into building tailored solutions for app developers. The full Firebase solution they launched earlier this year in I/O includes new formats, mediation solution and integration. Sivan describes, “Firebase is a mobile platform that helps you quickly develop high quality apps, grow your user base and earn more money, thus answering many of the app developers’ needs.”
Monetization: More Than a Journey
Sivan points out that developers often think of monetization as a journey where you must choose one direction or another. However, it doesn’t have to be a process of moving from one monetization strategy to the next; it should be about building on each phase and making sure they all work together to deliver the highest yield. “I see the more complex games and app developers combining, in a data-based way, different monetization methods (IAP, rewarded, classic banners, natives) to match them to different users. This is where I think the ‘magic’ is, in the user-centric combination of the different strategies.”
Data and analytics services are expensive, so developers have had to choose what to count until now. There was always the question of whether they were counting the right things. But the unlimited and unsampled approach of Firebase analytics provides the option of counting it all, every interaction the user has with the app. Sivan is excited about this opportunity for developers to have a better understanding of their users and adjust their app accordingly.
The ads can now be as innovative as the games themselves. Sivan describes trial run ads Google recently launched, which let the user play within the ad before downloading. The interactive interstitials allow the user to scroll in the ad and really experience the game.
Turbocharging App Growth
Google recently launched a product that helps marketers turbocharge their app growth across all Google’s app promotion inventory, the Universal App Campaigns. This is where Google has put their efforts because they believe the future of user acquisition will be automated. Sivan claims “Instead of you maneuvering through millions of combinations of settings and variables, turning all the knobs and dials, we’ve built simplicity and power straight into the model. Universal App Campaigns also pull in creative assets from the Google Play Store – automatically creating beautiful and effective ads for each network.”
The technology in the industry constantly changes and evolves, but, as Sivan asserts, “Google is all about innovation.” The user is the one thing that is constant, so Google focuses its technology on the user and the rest follows. Sivan adheres to the same philosophy with app and game developers, focusing on their business, their goals and their needs. This helps locate and tailor exactly the right solutions for each company.
Between the job and the responsibility for their young son, Sivan has little free time. However, she considers herself fortunate to have a family that loves nature and work that includes travel around the world. “Discovering new places to explore is a recurring pleasure.”
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