We sat down with Daniel Todd, CEO at Influence Mobile to talk acquisition, engaging female sports fans and what to expect from Influence in 2019.

Gamesforum: Hi Daniel, thanks very much for sitting down with us today, tell us about your background and your role at Influence Mobile?

I have run online marketing businesses for nearly 20 years.  I co-founded my first digital marketing business in 1999 and it has generated over one billion dollars in revenue since launching.   My goal has always been to find creative technology solutions to align the interests of advertisers and their target audience. As CEO of Influence Mobile, I oversee all aspects of the business, but my main passion is product development. This is because I get to dig in and find creative solutions that deliver value for everyone involved: the sponsors, players and our company.

Gamesforum: You'll be speaking at Gamesforum Seattle on our user acquisition panel, what do you see as the biggest challenge for marketing managers from games companies today?

Trust!  Who do you trust is a pretty big question these days.   Money can get wasted pretty quickly if you are working with people that don’t have your long-term interests in mind.    As a company founder, I understand the importance of aligning the business interests of all parties. Without taking that alignment into consideration, from the beginning to the very end, some people will make self-serving choices that could be avoided.

Gamesforum:  We're seeing games marketers take a much more diversified approach to acquisition and fan engagement. What do you think are the principal causes of this trend?

Too much concentration in any area of business is risky. We spend a lot of money with Facebook ourselves, promoting our apps, and I know that 5 years from now it is going to be more expensive than it is today.   As such, we need to constantly be testing and developing new channels for growth. This is likely the motivating factor for others as well. The same is true with engagement strategies as player consumption habits change. It is important to constantly test out new approaches to maximize onboarding, engagement and retention.

Gamesforum:  Influence Mobile specialize in engaging female sports fans. How does such targeted engagement work and what results do your clients see?

We find the female sports fans that like to play games and then we reward them for playing games within our network of sponsored apps. Much like an airline mileage plan, players earn points (AKA “miles”) when they make purchases, watch rewarded videos, complete levels, compete it tournament, etc.   Just like I choose to fly Alaska Airlines because I want to earn miles for free trips, our players spend with our sponsors to earn free rewards. We focus on females primarily because they spend 60% more in-app over males. We drive 5-25% in-app purchase rates and more importantly, we work to hit all our partners’ ROAS goals.  One of our partners has even found that that the average value of our audience is 400% higher than his organic audience. Our results speak for themselves and it is really nice to see more advertisers embracing our rewarded engagement model. The biggest request we get is for more daily install volume!

Gamesforum: You spoke at Gamesforum last year and it's great to have you here again in 2018. What brought you back?

I made great connections last year and your team is very helpful in putting us in touch with potential partners. This was the most valuable event I attended in 2017!

Gamesforum: What can we expect from Influence Mobile in 2019?

We plan to expand internationally and also target different affinities outside of sports.  We would like to engage females that are interested in fashion, fitness, games and much more.

We are constantly working to evolve our Rewarded Engagement model and we have lots of new changes on the horizon as we learn what works best to drive returns for our partners!

Gamesforum: Thanks for your time Daniel

Join Daniel and all our speakers at Gamesforum Seattle in October. Purchase your passes for the event here