Three Essential Marketing Integrations Into Your Code
A constant challenge of product development is communication between development, design and marketing. Having recently released an iOS app called Venn (it’s like Google + Friends. It uses friend & family recommendations to filter reviews across different apps. You can download it on the app store here), I am focused on user acquisition and retention. Surprisingly, taking full advantage of certain marketing channels require SDK integrations into frontend code (on iOS and Android) and custom Javascript code into your website. Here are three essential integrations:
1. Facebook(& Instagram) Mobile SDK
Facebook owns Instagram and integrates both into Facebook’s ad management platform. When you advertise, there’s the option of having a direct download button on Facebook & Instagram ads. You can only do this if you integrate the Mobile or Web SDK into your frontend code (Swift, Java (Android) or Javascript). With Venn, I had to do a good amount of testing to ensure that Facebook’s SDK properly integrated (pictured above)
Tip: Be proactive about asking developers about integrating Facebook’s SDK before you reach beta to leverage full benefits of this channel. Learn more about setup at https://developers.facebook.com/docs/app-ads/sdk
2. Google Analytics & Actions (Web)
Understanding your user acquisition funnel requires how a prospective user/customer spends their time on your web site. While you can integrate Google Analytics with script generated by Google, getting full use out of your analytics requires custom javascript. You want to understand your CTR on essential outcomes (like sign up for email or download app). To do this, you need to create a custom javascript function that sends data back to Google Analytics.
Tip: Technical, design & marketing folks should discuss their analytics strategy before developing the website itself. Visit https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/events for more info.
3. Fabric & In-App User Actions(Web)
It’s difficult to track in-app actions without integrating frameworks and trigger points in your code. Yet this is vital to understand how users are using your app and for retention. For Venn, I use Fabric and their Answers framework (on iOS — it’s also on Android).This task requires making a list of actions to be tracked in-app, and inserting the code at the right places in your app.
Tip: Your team should have a discussion at the beginning of the development process to make a plan to put triggers into your code. You can learn more about Fabric’s events at https://docs.fabric.io/apple/answers/answers-events.html.
Have any comments or questions on any of the above? Feel free to tweet, Linkedin or email me at e@vennn.io.
About Elon : Elon is a full stack developer, UI/UX designer, data architect, growth hacker, attorney and musician. He is Lead iOS Developer of Venn(iOS, download here), a social search engine. He also serves as a technical advisor to AngelHack, and has founded several tech companies prior. You can connect with him on Twitter, Linkedin or at e@vennn.io. In high school, Elon’s 10th grade English Teacher admonished him for “soapbox writing.” He proudly remains on his soapbox to this day.
