[Fully Managed] Lior Eldan Ep. 56 – Podcast Highlights and Transcript

Shannon (Host): Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Fully Managed by Penji Podcast, the podcast where we discuss marketing and business tips to help assist you on your business journey. I’m your host Shannon, Penji’s partnership coordinator, and I’m joined here today with a very special guest, Lior from Moburst.

About Moburst

Lior: That’s kind of come to us and we do mobile growth still from some amazing brands in the US. But we’re also getting into more of the digital transformation projects whereby companies which are a bit early in terms of their digital adoption come to us and we really build the infrastructure, the website, everything they need to succeed in digital marketing, and kind of give them that holistic solution for everything they need. So more of a digital transformation solution, so to speak.

Shannon: That’s great. It’s really great that you have been able to adapt from having kind of a specific thing that you do from the beginning, but realizing that clients needed something more and being able to adjust to that and also learn more throughout the process.

Lior: That’s definitely grown from the needs of our clients and what we saw the marketplace needs. When we started, influencer marketing wasn’t even existed. And nowadays it’s probably one of our fastest growing services. So it’s a very dynamic space, marketing and digital marketing especially. So we try and keep up to date with all the changes.

Shannon: That’s really good. Yeah, I think that agencies that do their best are ones that are able to adapt to the adjusting world, I would say. And the world is constantly changing. Marketing is constantly changing, so it’s always good to be able to kind of adjust and pivot to be able to do what’s required and what people are looking for. So that’s really nice.

Company Name and Logo Origins

Shannon: So, something I was curious about is, one, how did you come up with your name and also your logo? I like the logo, so I was wondering how you came up with that as well.

Lior: Thank you. So, I’ll start off with the name. The name, at the time, burst campaigns was quite a common tactic to do mobile marketing. So essentially, it would drive a lot of traffic in a short amount of time. And then that would create a surge in installs and that would rank an app higher, and then that would kind of propagate a viral effect of people seeing that an app is ranked in the top charts downloading and so on and so forth. So it’s essentially mobile burst and kind of combined.

As for the logo, it went through a few transitions, and we actually started off with a slingshot. It was really bad.

Shannon: I kinda like that. The concept is nice.

Lior: But when we started speaking and dealing with US clients, they didn’t really get it, especially coming from Israel, and my co-founder and I actually met in the Army. So it has all that background of that. So we shifted to this kind of nice element. Some call it a kite, some I don’t know. But basically, it’s something we’ve adapted a bit throughout the years. Every color we like to think of it as a line of services, so product and media and organic.

So we’ve kind of developed it, so if you had a chance to go into our website, we have like different diamonds with different colors and there’s a nice animation our team did, going like into our logo and all the different services. So I think we’ve been very happy where it landed today.

Shannon: That’s good. That’s cool. So it’s all of the elements kind of confided into the logo. I like that. That’s very unique.

Media Buying Services

Shannon: So, speaking of your website, I noticed it as a category for media buying is something that I don’t really see a lot on marketing agencies’ websites. Can you kind of explain what this encompasses and what kind of work it is?

Lior: So media, it has I think many different names. We basically run ads for everything and anything. And I think one of our specialties is really the knowhow we have within the mobile space specifically. So all the nuances, obviously with when thinking about advertising, probably Google and Meta and Apple are the few names that come to mind. And then TikTok and a bunch of other social networks. But there’s actually thousands of mobile networks outside of the kind of self-reporting networks.

And I think one of the things through all the years we’ve worked with different clients is really finding the right mix of where actually to showcase an app or a product, to get the right type of users. So we obviously work with all the big ones as well. But I think also looking beyond that and looking on where might the audience be.

Influencer marketing for instance, is something where it’s more considered to be kind of a top of funnel branding, but we actually kind of treat it as another media channel and look at the statistics of every influencer. What is the look of their audience? How many users are actually engaging and not just following? And through that, really look at the performance of every post, how many views and kind of down the funnel what it actually did.

So through that kind of a performance-oriented approach, I think we were able to develop a methodology of how to run ads, which is much more sophisticated than “let’s run your app or product on Google or Facebook.” But let’s look at it more holistically. Let’s look at your creative. Let’s look at the product.

Actually, we help many of our clients with what happens after they download the app. What’s the onboarding experience like? Maybe we need to work on that to make sure that the money being spent is actually driving real users that will use your app. So really trying to look at all the services and all the marketing fundamental holistically. But media buying at the end of the day is probably the most common way to drive traffic in users.

Shannon: It’s good that there’s like a personal approach to that. ‘Cause I think a lot of agencies will have almost a template for these. And if you don’t personalize it, you might be missing this target audience that you’re kind of looking for. And if you’re not familiar with that field or that specific category of media or something that you have no experience or don’t consume yourself, then it’s really difficult to get the outcome that they’re looking for if you don’t consider all those factors. So it’s good that you’re doing that.

Lior: And I think with especially like with all the recent changes in privacy in recent years with Apple rolling out, it really has become more complex for the average advertiser to really understand what’s going on. ‘Cause there are a lot of nuances of how to track and how to monitor and kind of best practices that you need to do in order to really drive goods return on your ad spend. So I think taking that data-driven approach with the holistic view I spoke to earlier is what I think is key to succeed today.

Competitive Advantage

Shannon: Do you think that this is, this approach is kind of what sets you aside from other agencies that do similar work to you? Or do you think that there’s other elements of your agency that is unique to you and caters better results than kind of your competitors?

Lior: I think we like to think about our work as kind of art meet science. And I think that our team also kind of represents that mix. We have the folks which are more of the analyst running media or doing apps, optimization, analysis and optimization. And on the other hand we have the more creative folks which write or design or write and create video animate.

And I think combining kind of the best of both worlds and making sure that you get that creative spark. Because at the end of the day, there are so many ads around us, especially on when we’re on mobile or on web. So, how to get people to actually look and see you’re there and consider checking out your app or your product. And then also kind of tying that in with the data. So, I think that holistic approach and the data-driven approach is how we try to differentiate ourselves today.

Business Growth Strategy

Shannon: Great. So, how have you been? Okay, so you said that you kind of adapted to what your customer needed and kind of added these elements to your agency that the market was looking for, how were you able to almost seamlessly add these to your agency? Like how have you been able to grow since then without kind of overloading your team, making sure that there’s a good balance between this? Did you have any kind of specific strategy for moving forward with that?

Lior: It’s definitely been through a lot of trial and error. I think the way we see it, there’s basically two ways to add additional capabilities. You either build it yourself, which means hire people that come with some outside knowledge or kind of try and extend the current folks you have. And we’ve been very lucky to hire and work with some amazing talent that helped us build these new services.

And the other is obviously acquiring an agency which already has that service up and running. And when we’re doing these types of M&As, we’re also looking for founders which want to stick to the run, stick with us for the long run and continue build the service and the agency at large.

Regarding specific opportunities, I feel like the digital space, as we talked about earlier, has so many opportunities. There’s so many new things now. Obviously AI is a big buzzword and everybody’s trying to incorporate that, but there’s so many things going on and so many opportunities. I think it’s not finding what to do. It’s what to focus on and what not to do.

So it’s through trial and error and through what we see our clients need, that that has been something that we’re always thinking about better ways to serve our clients. We’re seeing what our clients are asking us. For instance, we’re getting asked by our clients if we do PR, so we’re now in the process of looking to acquire a PR agency to add that capability. So that’s kind of how we go about adding additional capabilities to the agency.

Shannon: Is there ever a time where you, you said trial and error, so has there been a time where you’ve tried to implement something that maybe just wasn’t a good fit? And what do you do from there? Do you try again, like a different strategy of implementing it, or do you kind of forget it and move on to the next thing?

Lior: I think it really depends. In our early days for sure, we’ve done so many things. We are both very entrepreneurs in mind and try to throw darts in so many ways. We invested in a startup in our early days and tried to become a publisher, and through that we learned, okay, what we do and do well is like a service business. So we kind of let’s focus on that.

And then, in terms of what actually works, we think we’ve developed through the years, a framework whereby we really measure everything in terms of what our team is reporting time against, clients and projects. So we know how we’re spending our time. On the one hand, we know what clients are paying for and we kind of make sure we’re profitable as an agency. And that’s how we approach the projects and types of projects we bring on are profitable and try to learn kind of okay, why was this more profitable or why did this not work?

And that’s how we also treat services. Like if there’s a service where we see we’re consistently losing or kind of not matching the business. So we’re trying to understand are we bringing the right types of clients? Maybe the offering is not right, maybe the pricing.

So, I think it took us a long time to hone in on that more businessy way of looking on everything. Looking at the agency as a product at the end of the day, like, I think you can think about each of our services as a product and then think of the different P&Ls and really just trying to make sure that every piece in itself works and that the whole product, the whole machine works together.

So, I think it’s a constant part of making sure everything is aligned, that we have the right staff, we’re hiring on time. We have the right number of employees, and a lot of checks and balances. So I think that’s where we invest. We invested a lot and have a team and an infrastructure in place to kind of monitor and have all these checks and balances in place. But I feel that as the agency grows, there’s only more, there’s more to do and more opportunities to get better.

Shannon: It’s good that you’re able to navigate all of these different avenues of going down, because I think that’s something that a lot of agencies really struggle with is trying to not only adjust to a changing system, but also kind of figuring out what works and what doesn’t. And trial and error is certainly a way to be doing it, but I think it’s very difficult for people to do. So I think that it’s really a testament to being able to not only survive through that process, but thrive. So that’s really great.

Lior: And I feel that today, in the digital age, you can test ideas relatively cheap and quick. To throw out a landing page or in our case, to pitch in different ways and see what resonates with clients and what gets them excited and what’s not. So it’s kind of constantly AB testing and it really changes throughout the years, the types of services, what clients are excited about, what is the current buzzword that everyone is looking for.

And many times we’re kind of, we can give you that service, but that’s not what your brand specifically needs. So, I think having that perspective to be able to serve the clients and adapt to what they need. But on the other hand, being true enough to say we can take your money, but it’s not right for your brand. You need to work on your product. You need to work on your app store listing or whatnot.

Client Happiness and Communication

Shannon: So, how are you able to maintain clients’ happiness? And not only at the end product, but also during the process. Like, do you have a specific communication style that you kind of implement during that or what’s your strategy for communicating?

Lior: I know that many agencies, there’s basically two different ways of how clients manage. It’s either the person who does the work is actually running the client, and that becomes more complicated once you do many different services. ‘Cause then there’s a bunch of different people speaking to the same client.

So we early on kind of leaned into the account manager role, and we actually ensured that our account team is in the US, is in the same time zone as our clients. And I think through that we kind of developed a good system of like there’s the main point of contact. And obviously there’s the delivery team, which are the professionals and make sure to deliver. And the account team pulls as they need the professionals from the delivery team. And that has worked quite well.

We try to measure that as much as we can too, like with NPS, and just generally look at retention of clients and track on a weekly basis client sentiment. So we know where we as a leadership need to focus. But it’s tough. And I think the last few years have also been like from the craziness of Covid, which for us it was amazing, we grew four times during that period because everyone was online, all this funding for startups and companies. So we leaned into that.

And now that it seems brand, like not as much funding going around. So, startups are generally looking to spend less and be more careful with their marketing spend. So also kind of understanding what are the client’s goals, setting expectations, really early on with them. ‘Cause that’s also something that we learned that if we can’t sell, we’re trying to over deliver, but also make sure we set that expectations to make sure we can keep clients happy. But it’s something that isn’t trivial. I think at an agency, at any service business is something that we work really hard for.

Shannon: It is really nice that you were able to grow during Covid. I think a lot of agencies had to pivot when that happened because they weren’t already doing something that was Covid proof. So it’s really good to hear that. ‘Cause I know a lot of agencies went under or had to really completely do a whole loop of being able to figure out what did work for them. So it’s really nice to hear.

Referrals and Client Satisfaction

Shannon: So something that is really important in agencies I think, is referrals. This is something that I think that everyone’s looking for. It’s really nice to have a client that, or a potential client that has heard of your work and knows good things about it. I think it’s always like a better relationship almost 100% of the time. How do you personally kind of hope or almost guarantee that you’ll get a referral from a client that you’ve dealt with before?

Lior: That’s a good question. Like we do ask our clients when we know that the project was successful or a client is happy, then we try to leverage that and ask for a positive review. And we often get a referral from clients. But I think that the happy clients is probably the best business card. And we really invest a lot in making sure to maintain a good review and reputation to make sure our best presence is out there in all the places where there is reviews for us.

But at the end of the day, it’s just making sure that clients are happy. And we’ve gotten some amazing referrals. Like I remember that when we were working with Google at the time, they referred us to a few clients, which was probably the best referral that you can get, coming from Google. So that’s definitely something we’re very appreciative for. And try to keep happy clients to keep in coming.

Shannon: That’s really good. But do you have any kind of survey or anything after you have your final product?

Lior: Yeah, we do a quarterly like NPS survey to keep a pulse on where our clients are at. So not necessarily waiting for the end of the project, kind of trying to understand where we are. So I think that gives us a good pulse on things.

Obviously also like we have our SVP clients check in, or myself, or my co-founder check in with leadership of our clients to understand how they feel about engaging with us. And that gives a good indication. But sometimes people tell you what you want to hear, and it’s not bulletproof as we know. But it does give us a good indication to at least understand where things are, together with the weekly check-ins I mentioned, where we kind of understand which clients are on track, which clients are not, what’s the sentiment, so we can hopefully catch any issues early on and fix them.

Shannon: I mean, even if they’re telling you what they wanna hear, it’s at a detriment for them. Because at the end of the day, if they’re not happy with the end result and they were giving good reviews throughout the entire process, it almost feels like it’s not really your fault or on the agency to be able to read their minds and know that they’re unhappy with something. So it’s good to be able to check in and be able to say, “Hey, we wanted to make sure that everything was good and we checked in with you and we heard all good things. So we’re just unsure of what’s wrong with the end product.” And it’s good to be able to say that.

Lior: I think that, like every business, but especially an agency business, it’s all about relationships. So cultivating those relationships, make sure you gain that trust with the clients. We used to meet much more with clients in person. Nowadays, we’re remote, a remote first company. So it’s very hard ’cause our clients aren’t necessarily in the same office many times.

But we do try when we can. We have quite a few clients which still have in office visits and stuff like that. And I think that that goes a long way to kind of sit in the same room and then really build those relationships. And that then builds relationships that are more than just work and also develop friendships along the way and also understand really what’s going on. Like, what are you happy with, what aren’t you happy with? Things that are more difficult to gather just through Zoom calls, et cetera.

Shannon: I think fostering personal relationships is something that’s really important in this business, and it’s just something that’s nice to do. Like even this podcast is a way for us to make friends as well. So it’s really nice to be able to do that. So thank you for coming on.

And I think that’s really important for an agency. I think a lot of people feel cared about when you make these efforts. Especially meeting in person, even if it’s something that isn’t possible for you. Video chatting is helpful and different things like that. That’s just a nice touch and a lot of people, sometimes they may not have the time, but when they do, it’s really nice to be able to hear from the people that they’re working with, so that’s really great.

Lior: And just to add to that, also making sure to be more thoughtful on, for instance, gifting. So if a client has a birthday or a special occasion or a client is getting married, I think show them that we’re not just doing end of year gifts or stuff like that. I know that some big companies have all these formalities.

I remember when we worked with a few big companies you’re only allowed to buy them gifts of a certain amount, stuff like that. But I think that that’s also something that just shows the clients that you appreciate them. I used to bring, when I traveled to clients from Israel, things that are originally from Israel. So there’s that kind of local aspect to it. So giving that extra effort and extra touch I think goes a long way.

Shannon: That’s sweet. And I think that clients definitely really appreciate things like that. So it’s really good to be able to do that in your line of work.

Conclusion

Shannon: So this is, unfortunately, all the time we have today, but I really appreciate you coming on. This has been absolutely incredible. I have learned a lot. That’s always my favorite part of the podcast, so I always appreciate that. So thank you so much for being such a lovely guest and everyone at home. Don’t forget to like and subscribe to hear more professionals like Lior on this podcast. Thank you so much.

Lior: Thanks. It was really nice speaking with you. Thank you.

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