Interview with the commercial director of the portal zaycev.net

In the welcome article of our blog on Habré, the founder of the project, Pavel Golubev, already briefly told the community what Appodeal is , why it was created and how, in general terms, it works. But about yourself you can talk for a long time and anything, much more valuable customer opinion. It is for this reason that we offer you to read an interview with Anton Khaminsky, commercial director of the portal zaycev.net . In March of this year, zaycev.net became an Appodeal customer. Anton answered a number of questions and shared his impressions about working with the service.

The interview is presented in Q format : questions from the main interviewer, Qr: questions from the Habré blog editor, A: answers from Anton Haminsky.

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Greetings .

Q: Anton, as I understand it, today we will talk more about Appodeal than about you. But as a little introductory information: huge traffic flows through your Appodeal, right?
A: Yes, we have a large application. I will explain a little why we are going to talk specifically about Appodeal. I do not want to focus on us, because the interview will be published on the guys blog. For this reason, we shouldn’t advertise ourselves at their expense, I’ll just leave a “review” about working with them. I think it will be right.
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Q: Good. Let's talk about Appodeal. Did you have any problems using other ad networks, monetization, which ones?
A: I can tell you about it. If we talk about working with networks, the main problems we encountered are low fillrate, a small number of advertising campaigns in Russia. Since the mobile advertising market in the Russian-speaking segment is at a stage of development and for many is completely incomprehensible, there are still no common canons, it is rather difficult to communicate with each network, since there are a lot of them, networks. Another problem is the difficulty in studying the systems of each network. They are all very different and sharpened by their vision, they have their own view of the market. If we highlight the main, in my opinion, problems, then this is, first of all, communication with advertising networks and, therefore, large volumes of work in this area. Every need to get in touch. Someone answers for a long time, someone is not too imprisoned for Russia, and so on. In the Russian market, many work at low prices, so in order to make a profit, they had to communicate a lot with foreign networks, and they, in turn, do not have many customers who are ready to be placed on the Russian market.

Q: C which networks worked the most? Placed on them some hope, how much time was spent?
A: We worked with so many networks in an attempt to find the best for us. In fact, the work was done with all the top 40.

Q: How did you find out about Appodeal? When you became their clients, they were at a rather early stage.
A: I learned about Appodeal from an article on Habré . I was looking for information about mobile advertising for a long time and came across a publication by Paul. I learned that there is a similar tool. I can say that I was very pleased.

Q: Did the Appodeal help tightly with the connection? They are now trying to do this for first customers.
A: Yes, they helped. in terms of service Appodeal we are more than satisfied. In general, I have only positive feedback about the company, because the guys are working great. We have no complaints about them. We have been cooperating for several months and everything is very cool.

Q: Now you use them only for advertising in an application on Android?
A: Yes, yes, exactly.

Q: What were the first results? When did the “positive” start, that is, when did you realize that the service was working? What is this "positive" put it?
A: The results appeared fairly quickly, already in the first week. We achieved good results already by the third week. 1-2 days is not enough on the mobile market to advertise the application. I think a week is a normal time.

Q: How have incomes increased compared with the best experience in the past? In comparison with the maximum figures before this, incomes have grown?
A: Yes, I can confidently say that income has increased. In addition, Appodeal took a serious chunk off me. First of all, in terms of negotiations and cooperation with various companies. For me, the problems and time costs that arise when communicating with mobile networks have ceased to exist.

Q: What can you say about fillrate?
A: Everything is ok here, it is approaching 100% here.

Q: It all sounds a little fabulous ( laughs ). That is, there was a huge amount of communication with advertising networks, but then a small company appeared that took over all of it. Is it real?
A: Yes. I agree that this sounds a bit fabulous ( laughs ). When I read the first time about Appodeal on Habré, I immediately wrote to the guys. I learned that they work from the United States. One of the first things I asked was: “Guys, is it really all that you are telling? Since it sounds incredibly cool. " I talked with their founder, Paul, he told me everything. And you know, I believed in them, I thought that it should work, even if it sounds like a fairy tale.

Q: What can the guys improve in terms of service? They just started working and they have a long way to go.
A: There is always much to strive for. I think that it is necessary to work in each direction, that is, to choose rather narrow directions and bring the work on them to the ideal. Make them optimally profitable, profitable and effective. And further develop the rest. If specifically: I would like new advertising formats to appear. We now have three formats, but we could add native advertising. I do not know how this is possible on the basis of their model, but if this is done, it will be cool. In terms of service, in terms of customer relationship and communication, Appodeal is already at its best. If you compare them with the companies I had to deal with before, I can write them among the top five.

Q: Is this subject to all possible topics? Or only in terms of mobile advertising?
A: Compared to absolutely with any companies. I like their attitude to work, and just great guys.

Q: Are there any problems that can be emphasized? You talked about the advantage of Appodeal in terms of communication with multiple networks, revenue growth.
A: It is generally good service. I can always ask any question about mobile advertising. You will be advised in detail and will help you to understand what and how is arranged. The company is very open and you can talk about it from different angles. Appodeal position themselves like this: “We don’t take money from you, but take it from advertisers,” get a percentage of the amount of traffic ( Editor’s Note: Appodeal doesn’t take a percentage of ad network traffic. If Appodeal can show a more expensive banner than chartboost , applovin, admob or any other network, it shows and takes its commission. If it cannot, it shows one of the networks listed above and does not take commission ).

Q: Is there anything else that they are good at?
A: Our interview will look customized ( laughs ), but I am delighted with the work with Appodeal. I have no negative reviews about them, because with them there are no problems. They take and do what they say.

Q: You were one of the first serious customers who joined them? Until February, the Appodeal was in a closed test.
A: Yes. As far as I know, we are the first of the large clients of the company.

Qr: Remember, please, about the problems in the work. Everything is not 100% smooth.
A: As far as I know, there are some questions on iOS, we had a couple of comments on working with Android.

Q: Had problems with integration?
A: Yes, Appodeal had one thing that had to be solved manually for some applications. But all corrected in early May. I am not a technical specialist and I cannot give a complete, competent answer to the question about the pros and cons of integration with Appodeal. But, for example, we had one kosyachok, which affected about 1% of users. Appodeal offered to pay us damages. This is the first company in my practice that has offered this. We didn’t claim any damage at all, because everything was decided promptly, within two days.

Qr: It turns out the following picture: you are a large customer, you are one of the first to come to Appodeal and everything is cool with you. There are questions on the threshold of entry. Specifically, in terms of procedures for starting work with the service. Will cooperation with Appodeal anyone small? On Habré there are private developers who would like to monetize and this is an important question for them. Will the connection procedures not be too complicated for an ordinary developer or a small team? You are big players and you have processed these moments. Your personal opinion.
A: It seems to me that any developers will enjoy working with Appodeal. At first, I also did not understand all the details and did not understand some of the points. The guys from Appodeal all clearly explained and told. I got the impression that they are interested in working with any volumes and any customers. The team wants to make a good product and work with it. In my opinion, small developers will succeed and there will be no connection problems. Appodeal is ready to work with everyone.

Qr: Summarizing, "User-friendly"?
A: Yes, everything is very loyal.

Q: Thank you. This is probably all.
A: Good. I was glad to talk. All the best.
Q: All the best.

// The article dealt with the monetization of this application .