MAU [Talk]
MAU [Talk]
Ep. 011 Jenny Taran
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Adam chats with Jenny Taran, head of growth for Call of Duty mobile at Activision about high-level-based implications that affect performance marketing channels in the international sector.
To connect with Jenny directly, you can reach her on LinkedIn @JennyTaran or on the MAU Vegas website, MAUVegas.com.
Hey guys! Welcome to MAU [Talk] a podcast from MAU Vegas, the premier mobile acquisition and retention summit. Today Adam talks to Jenny Taran, head of growth for Call of Duty mobile at Activision about high level based implications that affect performance marketing channels in the international sector. Take it away, Adam.
Adam Lovallo:Jenny, welcome to the podcast. So Jenny's spoken at MAU countless times. And is now in a growth role at Activision. I'll let her describe it. But thank you for joining me.
Jenny Taran:Thanks for having me. This is, um, this is my first podcast. This is also probably like the first well maybe like second speaking thing I've done since of any sort since Activision, I just disappeared into like an Activision black hole. It's kind of fun. It's a brooch out a little bit. And this seems like a nice casual way to do so. Um, but yeah, I've actually visited since July of
Adam Lovallo:Yeah. And a passionate audience, no doubt in that game. I mean, is it literally available globally? Or is that thing or?
Jenny Taran:Yeah, so Call of Duty mobile is available globally. Activision publishes it in a bunch of core regions internationally. And then it just launched, as well via our developer, Timmy, in China, and like other regions there. So it's pretty interesting. And we publish it via Garena in Southeast Asia. So we've got like a pretty global footprint, I directly work on kind of like North
Adam Lovallo:Okay, cool. Well, we're gonna talk about international stuff, primarily, but I feel like mobile dev memo is churning out like one blog posts a day about various IDFA whatever stuff. So at a high level, industry wise, you know, not so much Activision specific. What are the biggest changes you think? What are the biggest implications? For instance, one thing Eric has talked a lot
Jenny Taran:So, yeah, so I think that's interesting. I think there's a few things. I think, like, so if you kind of like paint the world of like, performance marketing, it was like this sharp deviation from what we know is traditional media. It's like TV, billboard like that stuff doesn't work. That's for the old age, like now we're gonna run these ads that are highly trackable. We know been happening for a long time. Like, for example, like podcast advertising. Like for, at least for COD mobile, like we do a bunch of stuff with like streamers, influencers, content creators, like, I mean, that's not new, like content creators as a form of like, advertisement has been, like, heavily evolving in our space for I mean, I don't know, at least like 10 years now, right? So I think that, and try to like, flip it into, flip it into a decision that you think is going to be best for your business. And like, I think that like the most interesting things that people have done historically, with, like advertising or growing products, they're probably not in like, they probably were just kind of like, like, I have this intuition, I'm going to lean into it, and then I'm going to analyze i
Adam Lovallo:Yeah, no, I think I think that's it, I think that's exactly right. I mean, versus you know, obsessing over increasing the CPI's in country x by 10 cents or whatever in your bids, which is valuable, but I think can be, I think performance people, myself included, do have a tendency to like over index on that kind of stuff, and grossly under index on strategy and like, actually think
Jenny Taran:So, like, my first gut instinct is to be like, well, CPM's will probably drop a little because there's like, the reason CPMs are so high is because like, we know so much about the user that we're targeting, right. And we're able to then make so many decisions once we get them in and find more users of a cohort that are similar to that. So like, the gut instinct is to say, CPM's are
Adam Lovallo:I think you're right, there's no shortage of multibillion dollar sales of gaming companies to this and that private equity group.
Jenny Taran:Yeah.
Adam Lovallo:Like I have to imagine the intention is to get pretty aggressive post those acquisitions as opposed to like letting these things
Jenny Taran:Yeah, yeah, because it's almost like if if, for example, like if I was to think about this clear, like, clearly, especially the spaces where like, niche like performance marketers are really heavy in like those ones. As soon as this launches, everybody's probably gonna, to some degree pull back a little bit to see the, I mean, you can start to see live data now. So we're doing like happening. So that'll be interesting to see. I think too like something I was thinking too about like recently with like publishers and like traditional networks, which are always like, I thin traditional, like already networks have been in like a tough spot. I think we see that like kind of like with app love and like reinventing themselves in a bunch of different ways. Because t
Adam Lovallo:Yeah, exactly.
Jenny Taran:But I think that it's, it's like everybody kind of hit the steady state of like, oh, I've got this, like, I'm like a pro. I've got like, all the I've got all the tricks and tips. And I'm like, awesome. And so this is funny, because it's just like a complete shake up. And of course, like with iOS happening now, like Android is probably like a year, a year out, you know, so it's just
Adam Lovallo:Yeah, I'll give you a one, the way I think about this from the MAU, you know, high level side is five years ago, you could go to MAU or any event, and you might find a solution provider that you didn't know existed, or, you know, they did something as I Oh, I can, you know, I actually can do deep linking from email, blah blah blah, oh wow. To now a year ago, it's like, anyone who's
Jenny Taran:I mean, I think they're working much harder right now than ever than they have recent. But, yeah, I think that we're gonna have to see I think like, you know, the rewinds on the MMP is like, or any tool set, it's like, can I build this in-house? Or is it too much maintenance, too much work? And it's not sustainable for me to put like that level investment in-house. So I'm going to
Adam Lovallo:Or like you're saying cost piece, like tying in the spend and visualizing.
Jenny Taran:Yeah.
Adam Lovallo:That was there. Yeah. Like they came at the industry, seemingly from that perspective, and then got tax attribution. Whereas most of the other providers, I guess, brands being one exception coming out the industry from people like liking and getting really started as we are. Yeah, yeah, I think that's right.
Jenny Taran:Which is funny, because now like Singular is really good at cost. And then like the, the attribution partners are really are like, the best of the bunch of at attribution. But neither one, I think, is like that good at the other segment. And so it's also funny, because I keep using my hands, but nobody can see. But I think that like, you know, there's a lot of, like, on the data
Adam Lovallo:Yeah, no, I think that like, like, if you think about, like two topics intrinsically linked, incrementality, and media mix modeling, you know, that some company, did this some of them didn't, and whenever, but that was not like a top of the pile list of things that were being a plus in this ecosystem. Now, those are like, I would I guess incrementality is kind of maybe a little bit
Jenny Taran:So so like, for this for, for Call of Duty mobile, this is like that, the most international I think of a product I've ever worked on, and when we from both product and from like, kind of marketing, we really think we try, we try our best to think about kind of approaching the world in the way that feels natural and each of like the markets. And so I think it's super important. I think
Adam Lovallo:In your world. regionalization is like, a, you have the special weekend game thing that is for people in whatever we like that sort of thing, not purely, like literally having it be in the right language.
Jenny Taran:Yeah, yeah. And so and I think that's like a big distinction, because like localization, and like good, and like, that's, that's kind of like a bare minimum, right. So someone can clearly understand what's happening in the game. But then, like, creating content or experiences that are for that region, I think that's important, like with our competitive initiatives, we have kind of like
Adam Lovallo:No, it's awesome. And what if you take a step back and build that on Call of Duty, but but even you know, you have lots of, lots of competitors. I assume all of the marketing, all of the user acquisition stuff, is it, is that fully localized? Or is there? Is there any regionalization of that? Or, I mean, are you running more or less the same assets that you hand off to network x, but
Jenny Taran:So we're, we're going towards the specificity, and we've done some of it, but not not everywhere, like and not always is the thing. Like, for example, we had kind of like we for every season, we create, like trailers that essentially launch the season, also living game kind of give a good overview of what's coming. And in Japan, like traditionally, like that kind of experience
Adam Lovallo:It sounds like somehting for the future. Um, all right. Well, I think I don't want to take too much time. This is perfect. If somebody wanted to find you, do you post to do Twitter or LinkedIn posts or whatever or not really, are you not not?
Jenny Taran:I have. I think I have a Twitter that I don't really, I haven't really used and I have a LinkedIn. LinkedIn is like probably right now the space but I probably should, should create like a better a better form of messaging because messaging because my LinkedIn isn't in dire straits.
Adam Lovallo:Perhaps this will be the inspiration you need. Alright, well, thank you. And I, I hope, maybe this calendar year, as we are planning or maybe in sometime in the future, there might be an opportunity for those of us in this ecosystem to like, be in a room together. Look forward to that.
Jenny Taran:Yeah. I miss it.
Adam Lovallo:I appreciate it. I appreciate your time.
Jenny Taran:Thanks a lot for having me and look out for my future web presence that I'll be a developing post recovering of my ACL.
Adam Lovallo:Thank you.
MAU[Talk]:Thanks for joining us. You can find Jenny's contact information in this podcast description or at mauvegas.com Make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to catch on the next episode of MAU [Talk].