Learn how to use data to boost engagement at Mobile Summit

Small, medium, and large companies alike are overwhelmed with data, much of it being siloed for use by different teams for varying purposes.

That’s why we’ve committed a deep-dive session at next week’s VentureBeat Mobile Summit in Sausalito, California to discussing the ways to gather all your data and implement an actionable strategy to boost mobile user engagement.

Above: Michael Fedor, VP live product, Pocket Gems

We’ve invited some experts to lead the conversation, including Michael Fedor, who built the analytics and marketing automation platform for Pocket Gems, one of the pathbreaking companies building multiplayer free-to-play games for mobile phones. Pocket Gems last year launched the popular game War Dragons, has received $65 million in investment, and recently received an investment from leading Chinese company Tencent.

We’ve also invited Andy Yang, CEO of Upsight, a company that helps publishers big and small mediate the large amounts of mobile data they are getting and advises them on how to put it to work. The company says it serves 25 percent of the 100 top-growing game companies on the Android and iOS app stores and is now expanding to serve enterprise companies outside of games.

Above: Andy Yang, CEO, Upsight

Facilitating the conversation is Jon Cifuentes, VentureBeat analyst, who has researched the data industry and written a report, “A Mobile Data Strategy to Drive Sustainable Growth,” that we’ll soon be publishing on VB Insight. The problem is that there are about 200 companies that count themselves as providers of technology to help mobile apps market themselves, serving in niches like user acquisition, app discovery, monetization, mock-up and A/B testing, attribution, and more.

That’s way too many. So smart companies will drive to unify all of that data and find simple ways to act on it to keep user engagement high, and translate it into growth. The boardroom session at the Mobile Summit will discuss how just how to do this.

One big trend we’re seeing is that big publishers are pushing to reduce the dozens of SDKs they’re getting from the multiple ad networks they’re using, sometimes by merging them with other marketing and engagement services. Marketing vendors are responding to this demand by offering “mediation services” that allow publishers to implement a single SDK to sort through all of the networks for the right ad at the right price at the right time, while also offering these publishers analytics and other marketing services.

Yang’s Upsight moved in this mediation direction when it acquired Fuse Powered in January, and Glispa did this when it acquired ad mediation company Ampiri. Other companies like Tapjoy and Fyber are moving in similar directions.

Learn more about this at the Summit, where our boardroom sessions offer deep dives with senior marketers, product, and engineering executives around the table. Other speakers at Mobile Summit include leading executives from Google, Amazon, Pinterest, Lyft, Pandora, GrubHub, Touch of Modern, Runtastic, Kik, Zynga, AOL, and more.

We invite only 180 executives to the Summit (you can apply to attend here). It’s designed to be an intimate experience where executives exchange strategies around some of the hottest trends in mobile — at a time when brands are having to move quickly to embrace instantaneous distribution. The goal is to make the Summit the best insider event, and an independent one free from influence from specific vendors or platform owners.

Leading vendors will be there, but we prioritize brands and other independent app owners to create the best mix possible.

Working sessions go into depth on specific topic areas, and cocktail receptions make sure the networking juices flow.

Topics include the following:

• User acquisition
• Designing the user experience
• Messaging and video
• Mobile marketing automation
• Targeting your marketing
• How to build your mobile marketing team
• How to orient entire organization around mobile
• M-commerce and online-offline convergence
• Nurturing existing users
• Harnessing data for mobile engagement
• Mobile advertising attribution
• Predicting and measuring