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Insights

Top 3 CTO Secrets to Success

As technology becomes integrated into every aspect of traditional business, CTOs are taking on more and more responsibilities. CTOs are no longer back office administrators that are called in to put out fires, they are front line leaders that require business acumen, top notch communication skills, and a deep understanding of every part of business from the sales cycle to the supply chain. Externally, CTOs are expected to stay on top of the latest and greatest tech products in the market. They are constantly weighing the pros and cons of system redesign and held responsible if product deployments slow down productivity.

So how do successful CTOs navigate the waters in constant sea change? Greg Madison, CTO at Synaptik, provides insight into what it takes to succeed in the 21st century startup:

1. Know your needs

Understanding the scope of a project or product is critical to identifying what your needs are and will help in the evaluation of new technologies. There is an overwhelming amount of new tech solutions to problems, and all marketing sells a specific technology as “the next big thing that you need,” but if you’re really not in need of it, don’t use it. Correctly identify what you’re needs are, and what the capabilities of your current technologies may be. If some new tech doesn’t solve a problem, then it’s not worth an in-depth evaluation.

2. Know your team

Most of us get into the tech industry to work with computers and we’re shocked to find out that we have to work with people instead. Knowing those above you, in your charge, and your peers, can help in avoiding personality conflicts, as well as increase efficiency of task completion and cooperation. Not to say that all things should be tailored to an individual, only that knowing the preference or passion of the individual can be of a benefit when taking an idea from your CEO, translating that into actionable tasks, and assigning those tasks to the right team member.

3. Know your code

As your dev team grows, you code less and less as a CTO. Though this may be a difficult reality at times, it’s necessary. However, that doesn’t mean that you should lose touch with the codebase. Though a CTO should be looking for new technologies, you also can’t forget to maintain and refactor existing code. Not many people will code it right the first time, and so it must be refactored and maintained without the mentality that you can just scrap it and start over if it gets too out of control. Establishing and maintaining a set cycle for code evaluation and maintenance is key to ensuring a stable product.

To learn more about Greg’s work at Synaptik, sign up for a demo and explore the best in class data management platform that is designed to adapt by providing a lightweight ready-to-go module-based software framework, for rapid development.

“Synaptik offers traditional business users access to high-powered data analytics tools that don’t require advanced IT skills. Whether you are working in insurance, media, real estate or the pharmaceutical industry, Synaptik can provide deep insights that put you ahead of the competition.” – Greg Madison, CTO at True Interaction and Synaptik

By Nina Robbins

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Insights

Engaging and Keeping Your Most Valuable Mobile Customers

Retention

According to WhaTech, some 80-90% of apps downloaded from app stores are only opened once before being uninstalled. This has been the norm for years. That’s quite the endorsement for a proper preload with the business requirement that the user cannot remove the app. Facebook has found only about 6% of apps it works with are still being used 30 days post install. KISSmetrics found that it can be up to 7x more expensive to acquire a new user than retain a current user. Acquisition campaigns are structured with retention in mind. This requires a keen understanding of the lifetime value (LTV) of one’s customer segments.

Who are your avid consumers? Which customers consistently purchases your higher tier content? Who consistently subscribes to your services? You can use Synaptik to segment these buckets. Over the course of the next three years, programatic will likely become the only way to engage them. Firms like Element Wave focus on user engagement and retention via real time, precision targeting at key moments during games or app navigation. They utilize native messaging and well timed push messages to drive users back to the app with incentives and contextual information such as how many persons in a geo-fenced region are placing a bet or attempting to bid on an item. Whether it’s gaming or non-gaming apps on Android or iOS, the latest study by Localytics shows Facebook is still the most valuable platform for targeting.

“Retention has transcended to becoming a highly objective metric to measure how users find your product or service,” says WhaTech. “Market research suggests that even a 5 percent increase in customer retention can lead to increasing profits by 25 percent to 125 percent.”

Customer Acquisition Cost

How much is your firm spending on acquisition costs for mobile ad campaigns? You need to look at cost per install and cost per registration as well as what your conversion rate is to get a customer to go from installing your app to registering to be a user. There’s a big drop off point here in mobileUX, which is why single sign on is huge. As a mobile product manager, I found that best way to convert installs to purchases was to deliver the experience of the application as a deferred sign-on without requiring initial registration. I often find myself deleting apps if the path to use is too cumbersome and requires too many fields to be filled out.

Obviously, the total cost per acquisition is a key figure, but we just want to make sure it’s less than the life time value of that acquisition. You decide what your margin needs to be. What’s your model look like for 2017? Let us know if we can be of assistance with the development of your mobile app or website. Do you need some help in getting your app to market or finding a way to get it preloaded onto the newest mobile handsets and tablets? Reach out. True Interaction has a team of mobile experts. At True Interaction, we stay ahead of the curve and help you do the same.

by David Sheihan Hunter Lindez