Adam Sand, CEO at Shopkick, sat down with us to talk about how industry trends have been shaping his mobile app strategy.
Earlier this month, Adam Sand, CEO at Shopkick, sat down with us to talk about how Shopkick measures success during the holiday season. We learned how Shopkick maintains its high open rates and long in-app sessions - and want to share these insights.
Shopkick offers a leading shopping rewards app that serves both consumers—enabling them to earn gift cards through the app—and brands and retailers—delivering a unique customer engagement solution. Its pay for performance model is designed to deliver high ROI, engagement, and monetization.
App Annie (AA): Tell us about yourself, Adam.
Adam Sand (AS): Thank you for having me! I am the CEO of Shopkick. Prior to leading Shopkick, I’ve had several roles in law firms, as well as in-house roles, and used this knowledge to push Shopkick into new markets and product offerings. I am passionate about helping retailers and brands engage directly with consumers online, offline, and via their mobile phone.
(AA): We’re happy you are using App Annie to drive your mobile business. Let’s start with goals. What are some of the most important objectives you have for 2019?
(AS): Shopkick’s goal is to provide moments of joy for shoppers anytime, anywhere. We plan to continue to focus our energy on creating these meaningful and memorable moments for our users, and be in front of shopping trends in-store, online, and everywhere in between. The evolution of our omni-channel offering is what will keep our brand and retail partners—as well as our user base—coming back for more.
(AA): How have these objectives evolved from the last year?
(AS): Last year, we responded to shifts in consumer behavior by introducing mobile shopping, growing beyond our brick and mortar footprint for transactions. In addition to continuing to grow m-commerce, we are always innovating and adding new products and features to Shopkick. Video is a strong area of focus for us right now, as video offerings are in extremely high demand amongst both marketers and consumers. Video is the most engaging marketing vehicle, and we’re incorporating it further into consumers’ shopping experiences. By adding innovative in-store placements, we hope to continue to hold our place as the most engaging shopping app, while also delivering the marketing messages of brands and retailers in a unique way. In the next year, we will also move forward in areas including surveys, data, and innovative new kick redemption formats.
(AA): What are your top mobile challenges?
(AS): Mobile is a very crowded space. The average consumer has over four shopping apps installed on his or her phone. The key is to provide the most value and be as contextually relevant as possible to stand out among the clutter. We do this by providing moments of joy for shoppers all along the customer journey, anytime, anywhere.
(AA): Are there any industry trends that have come up recently which have helped shape your company strategy or product roadmap?
(AS): There are more and more touch points along the consumer journey, from mobile to offline and everything in between. This makes it harder and more fragmented for brands and retailers to reach shoppers. The key is tying these touchpoints together through the use of technology. For example, incentivizing shoppers to play a brand’s video while they have the product physically in their hands. On the flip side, our mobile commerce growth closes the loop and allows brands to reach consumers that may have had these engagements in-store during the consideration phase, but have not yet purchased - or are ready to purchase again.
(AA): What role does App Annie play in driving your mobile app strategy?
(AS): As a mobile app, it is critical for us to understand the extent to which users are engaging with the app, and how our growth over time compares to other solutions. App Annie provides in-depth data on app usage that helps us to get to the core of what sets us apart from other shopping apps. For example, our users spend on average nearly 2 hours per month in the app.
App Annie helps us with two key business needs:
- Demonstrate our superiority and differentiation when compared to other shopping apps, specifically in user engagement metrics such as time in app and number of sessions. It’s good for us to measure internally to gauge how we’re doing and determine what we want to do next in user experience to further improve this strength. However, we also use these “proof points” in our sales conversations with brands and retailers who want to find engaging ways to attract new customers.
- Serves as a competitive benchmark for key user stats all along the funnel, from the first day of installation, to the 30th day of engagement. These stats give us a sense for “what good looks like” in the shopping app category for retention, for example, and how we stack up. App Annie helps us determine where there may be opportunities for improvement, as our culture is one that is focused on continuous improvement.
If you are interested in how you can use App Annie for all of your app business needs, please contact our sales team.
