Orhan Gelmedi: “AI can help developers tailor games to each player based on their interactions”

Written by Tappx

Created Jun 09, 2023 - Updated Jul 31, 2023

Highlighted questions

What is most important for an efective UA strategy?
How crucial it is to combine organic and paid growth strategies?
What is your advice for someone starting out in UA?
What are the most important trends in mobile gaming and UA?

GamesForum Hamburg 2023 was filled with interesting panels, presentations, and case studies. One of them was that of justDice by their User Acquisition Managers Sena Yalçın Yousuf and Orhan Gelmedi. A few days before the event, we spoke precisely with Orhan about the case they shared in Hamburg and the mobile trends and hot topics in the industry.

How are you Orhan? Looking forward to GamesForum?

Hey Tappx team, I’m really good, very excited for GamesForum this year! I’m looking forward to exchanging ideas with people from the industry, seeing some of the familiar faces, and networking with others.

Can you introduce justDice and give us a preview of the case you will be presenting in Hamburg?

justDice is a market-leading mobile app and game developer where we build honest play-and-earn products. With a team of 52 from 27 different nationalities, we call Hamburg our home. We have over 20+ live products and with that, and adding new ones to our portfolio. As we soft launch different products regularly, we’ll present our strategies and challenges in this process.

Your aim at justDice is to increase the user base profitably for more than 20 honest play-and-earn apps and games. What are the biggest challenges you face?

The inconsistent policy decisions are sometimes giving us a hard time, but once the networks get to know our products better, they’re being resolved.

If we ask what is the most important thing for an effective User Acquisition strategy, what would you tell us and why data? 😏hehe

To be fast! It is also one of the most important values of justDice. We have an environment where it is acceptable to make mistakes that we can learn from rather than lose big opportunities, and it gives us the freedom to take action as soon as we see the potential.

If you could only choose one UA KPI, which one would you choose?

Impossible to choose just one! 😀 Choosing only one KPI disregarding how intertwined all the metrics we’re monitoring, would lead us to an unsuccessful UA activity.

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How crucial do you think it is to mix organic and paid growth strategies to grow an app’s user base?

Both organic and paid growth support each other. However, it is important to be measuring every step we take and not waste a single cent randomly. This doesn’t mean every test we run ends with positive results, but we should reach valuable conclusions after them and review what we have done, and what could be done differently.

And working together with the design, marketing, and product teams to go as far as possible?

As the UA team, we’re in very close contact with the other departments because a minor change in the products or creatives can greatly impact our UA activity. We also work together with both teams to test new products or creatives to provide them feedback.

What advice would you give to someone who is just starting out in user acquisition for mobile games and has limited resources? Maybe, creativity is the limit?

I would suggest testing several paid channels with low budgets at first to find out which one would be performing the best for them with limited resources, and not to miss the opportunities with ASO.

You have a lot of international experience in the industry working now in Hamburg and previously for companies based in San Francisco, Istanbul, and Bergamo, among others. What distinguishing trends do you see in the North American, European and Asian markets?

North America is the biggest market for most of the gaming companies, and most of the focus is there. For example, CTV platforms and content marketing agencies are focused on the US market, however, it is important to see the potential in Europe and Asia as well.

You have a background in psychology and experience working in human resources. To what extent is this a plus for working on user satisfaction?

Both quantitative and qualitative research methods are a big part of a psychology degree, and they are very helpful to understand the data and make informed decisions and conclusions also in UA.

What are some of the most important trends in mobile gaming and user acquisition that you see emerging in the next few years? Starting with Artificial Intelligence, I suppose…

Most marketers have already started taking advantage of AI in several ways such as AI-generated content or keyword research. It will be important to utilize AI to complete tasks in a shorter time to compete with others. Also, I expect it to be a common practice for developers to tailor games for each player depending on how they interact with their games, which would help players enjoy the games even more, increase retention, and also help UA as well.

Back to GamesForum Hamburg, what do you hope to learn from the event?

I hope to learn if there are any opportunities we can take advantage of in our UA activity, and what the others think of the future of UA.

You say that “the fun never stops” at your work. We hope you also had fun with this interview and that you enjoy GamesForum!

True, having fun together at justDice is part of our culture, and there’s a great sense of community with lots of humor. I enjoyed this interview and really looking forward to GamesForum Hamburg. Thank you for interviewing me and your good wishes!