Top takeaways from AppsFlyer’s MAMA India: The Digital Bharat 2.0 event for startups and tech, product, marketing heads

The ‘MAMA India - The Digital Bharat 2.0’ event – the Indian edition of AppsFlyer’s iconic global MAMA event series, which was held in Mumbai on December 2, 2022 – had several important takeaways for stakeholders of the Indian app ecosystem, including insights on the rise of app users from Tier 2 and 3 market, their unique consumer behavior, and related product needs. By providing a definitive platform for top leaders in business and policy to come together with Indian app ecosystem stakeholders, the MAMA India event by AppsFlyer, in partnership with the Economic Times, catalyzed conversations and connections to enable startup founders and investors, product leaders, mobile marketing heads, and app developers to navigate India’s rapidly evolving mobile app economy and stay abreast of the most effective mobile marketing and product-market-fit strategies to cater to a fast-evolving consumer base.

“I think the last ten years have been a very spectacular time for India… it's the case where you saw the confluence of several sorts of enablers coming together in a way that none of us could have predicted. And this has happened not just for the India-building-for-India consumer-tech businesses, but it's also for India-building-products-for-the-world,” said Shweta Bhatia, Partner, Head of Technology Investments, Eight Roads Ventures, India, in an investor roundtable discussion moderated by Kamlesh Bhatia, Head of Digital Innovations at AWS, India.

In the same roundtable with other marquee investors from the Indian startup ecosystem like Alok Misra of General Atlantic, and Amol Warange, Director- Investments, Omidyar, the panelists decoded their playbook for identifying winning startup ideas, shared their outlook for the Indian startup ecosystem and thoughts on their top sector picks while elaborating on the key strategies that startups must adopt to ensure sustainable growth in a market that is wrought by uncertainty and volatility. Like the investor roundtable, the MAMA India event also featured a series of focused roundtables on the themes of diversity, product development, and app marketing, where women leaders and entrepreneurs, Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs), Chief Product Officers (CPOs), and app ecosystem enablers spotlighted the key growth opportunities and innovation avenues for Indian app developers.


App marketing lessons
At the CMO roundtable on the topic ‘Unlocking Innovation and Driving Growth Across The Marketing Ecosystem,’ marketing heads like Gaurav Verma, Associate Vice President, User Growth, Games24x7, Rajan Bansal, VP - Growth Marketing Head, Airtel, Ranjana Mangla, Sr. Vice President & Head of Ad Revenue - SonyLiv, and Vakul Agarwal, Vice President - Growth, Licious delved on a range of strategies that marketers can adopt to drive user acquisitions, ensure data analytics and retention, one of the major challenges faced by marketers today.

“I think if you look at it for any marketer, I think it's a boon. At the same time, it's a very complex situation to be in today's world, because honestly, data is very complex to study. There is no single source of data in digital, unfortunately, to really tell you where your customer is going from point A to point B… it is a very complex job. But I think it's very important for marketers to see it as an opportunity. And I think that's exactly what everyone's trying to do in that complex world to really try and find that perfect mix,” said Ranjana Mangla, Sr. Vice President & Head of Ad Revenue - SonyLiv. From the opportunity that brands today have to talk to customers through many channels, unlike in the past, to tips on how to build an effective martech stack, define the best mobile marketing strategies and the right measurement tools for your business, the speakers at the marketing panel highlighted a range of best practices and themes emerging in the marketing ecosystem.

“Traditionally, marketing, we all have looked at from a brand perspective, doing acquisitions, creating a lot of top of the funnel for the org. I think in the last few years, we have seen marketing going beyond it. And I think it will further evolve,” said Rajan Bansal, VP - Growth Marketing Head, Airtel, highlighting the recent creation of functions such as Employer Branding that go beyond the traditional definitions of marketing and the need for deriving greater value from the existing user base.

“If I look at customers, apart from acquisition today, even from the existing user base, upsell and cross-sell have become very big revenue lines for most of the industries. So marketing has to figure out how do you personalize it. And how do you extract value from the existing user base also… eventually, marketing is somewhere embedded in every part of the organization. It's not a cost or revenue; it eventually unlocks the value of whatever the organization is doing. It just gives a multiplier factor to it,” added Bansal. Tech and product lessons
“Your marketing tech stack evolves as your product evolves. And as your marketing goals changes… martech space is changing so much that there's no point in thinking of a really long-term strategy. When you talk about adopting a tool or building anything, it's more practical to think about the medium term, because things are evolving just too fast,” said Gaurav Verma, Associate Vice President, User Growth, Games24x7.

At the product visionaries panel on the topic ‘Turning a product into a brand and finding the perfect product-market fit,’ Apoorva Sharma, Associate Director Product, upGrad, Saichithra Swaminathan, Chief Product Officer, Matrimony.com, Dilip Chandra, VP - Product & Analytics, aha, and Himavant Kurnala, Chief Product Officer - Marketplace, Reliance Retail also deep dived into how companies can create the right product experience for their customers while also building effective consumer relationships.
“While listening to customers, it is important to look at the behavioral data patterns, and really understand what the customers want and what their pain points are. And once you understand this, you'll also see what is the biggest problem and what is the size of the impact… And also, we should be open to learning and understand our mistakes. It's like launch, learn, iterate; all the three cycles should be continuously done to improve the product or features,” said Himavant Kurnala, Chief Product Officer - Marketplace, Reliance Retail.

The panelists also shared insights on the key strategies companies must adopt to scale a category defining product, how to maintain consistency in communication and ensure differentiated customer experiences. From how to understand your product-market to the nuances of the constantly changing and evolving ecosystem of the Indian app development industry, the panelists also shed light on the different product-led growth strategies to keep in mind, including addressing the diversity agenda when building products and solutions. Decoding the cultural nuances brands must consider when building a product or business in India as well as the need for creating innovative solutions with a focus on diversity and inclusion were panelists Suchi Mukherjee, Founder & CEO, Limeroad.com, Poonam Bhatt, EVP - Digital, Vodafone Idea Ltd., and Rashmi Chadha, Founder of WoVoyage. In a roundtable discussion moderated by Ritu Sharma, Country Manager, India, AppsFlyer, on the topic ‘Destination India: Addressing the Diversity Agenda in Digital India,’ the panelists emphasized the importance of ensuring diversification in terms of user personas, not just in terms of geography, and identifying the right customer acquisition strategies to cater to the standards set by the Bharat user.

“This Bharat user is a very, very tough user to please. They are tougher than you and me because the standards that they're setting. They’re raising the bar (by saying) ‘Saste me dho, badhiya dho’. And on top of that… ‘I am on Instagram; I know what Bella Hadid is wearing, I am that user’. So all of a sudden, I think in one line, Bharat has raised the bar. And it is a really, really tough bar. That's number one. And therefore the acquisition strategy for us is that now you acquire this really tough consumer,” said Mukherjee, summing up the challenges and the opportunities for the Indian app ecosystem in effectively catering to the needs of growing Tier 2 and 3 market users in the Indian app ecosystem.

To know more about the MAMA India: The Digital Bharat 2.0 initiative and/or watch any of the sessions on demand, do visit the website.