11 years ago, Yury decided to work in the field of Internet marketing and connect his life with the digital sphere. Today he is a sought-after digital performance marketing specialist, and millions of people use his projects. Among them are Google Search, ABBYY Mobile OCR, Mafin (financial marketplace), “Mail.group” taxi and ridesharing apps , and Yandex Food delivery apps.
Yury, tell us how you managed to work in large IT companies such as Google, Mail.ru Group and Yandex?
The digital market is growing at a double-digit pace and there are always a huge number of projects and tasks that require a large number of qualified specialists.
Google had a recruiting program and I was recommended there as an expert. I taught marketing directors and managers how to effectively manage Google Ads and digital advertising. My area of expertise was Mobile Advertising and I have advised marketing managers for Avito (Naspers), Uber, Samsung and other companies on how to take full advantage of digital advertising.
At Mail.ru, I managed to go through an M & A and takeover of another company. At that time, I worked at the Citymobil startup, which then became part of Mail.ru. This transaction was the largest in the Russian market, and was written about worldwide in media and tech communities.
I started work at Yandex with10 years of experience at a variety of companies. First, I developed ourDelivery and logistics industry in 26 countries in Europe, Asia, the CIS and Africa. I was responsible for b2b and b2c acquisition in last mile delivery services, and our main competitors in these markets were Uber, Didi Chuxing, Careem and Cainiao
During my work, I was responsible for opening more than 10 new key markets, I developed customer and business acquisition from scratch to a 20-30% market share of 20-30% and helped get us into the Top 5 delivery companies.
After multiplying the growth of the Delivery markets, I switched to the Food delivery market.
In my opinion, food delivery is one of the most competitive markets and absolutely everything is important, including advertising, delivery speed, and food packaging.
I would say that working in this area is a huge challenge, but I enjoy being in the most demanding and competitive markets and helping them grow and develop.
In general, the industry is so dynamic that once you start , it is impossible to stop, because you want to achieve more and more victories.
You are a sought-after specialist in the rapidly developing field of Digital Marketing. Why did you choose this particular area?
I was lucky with the field as I studied marketing at the State University of Management and graduated in Marketing management.
It so happened that my first job was related to marketing, but in the Digital plane, at the time this area was relatively young and was just beginning to develop. Then it began to grow and today it is very competitive and in demand. I stood at the origins of its development, so to speak.
At that time, there were no such specializations as Performance marketing or Growth Hacking, but I already liked working and developing in them.
Performance marketing is related to digital advertising in Digital channels – such as Google, Facebook, TikTok and others, while Growth Hacking covers the mechanics and approaches that can multiply growth in new customers and sales. It deals with the best way to package and sell a product to a customer in order to multiply sales.
You promoted international startups that have become large companies and leaders in their markets. Tell us how to see the potential in a little-known start-up business?
I believe that in order to see the potential in a startup, you must first of all believe in the product and, of course, study the market. It is also important to understand that not everything can be predicted, but if you like the company, the cultural code, or you yourself use the services of the company or its competitors, then this startup has a chance to rocket, become popular and attract venture capital.
When I worked at the Citymobil startup, I used taxi services myself, had a full understanding of the product and believed that it would benefit future customers. But again, faith alone is not enough, it is important to convince investors of the benefits of the product, which is what I did.
I developed a system for monitoring and analysis of marketing activities, and also managed all Digital and Performance marketing advertising. It is much easier for investors to invest when there is a specialist who can predict growth and multiply sales. For example, in the first year of work, I set up and managed advertising campaigns on Google and Facebook, and the volume of orders under my management grew 25-fold. In the second year of work, we also grew another 5 fold compared to the first year, and in many respects this was the merit of the Performance and Digital acquisition channels.
Thus, the share of Citymobil in the taxi market grew from 1% to 30% in all cities where the service was present.
We managed to realize the potential inherent in the DNA of the startup and convince future investors represented by the Mail.ru Group conglomerate that we could change the Taxi market, and multiply the growth of the company.
You are a member of the Jury for one of the most prestigious Digital awards in Europe, the Tagline Awards. What did this experience give you?
The Tagline Awards is one of the most prestigious digital awards in Runet and in Europe, and I, as an invited specialist and jury member, singled out and evaluated the best works, distinguished by the most effective approaches in digital advertising and Performance. I evaluated 25 works, among which were brands such as Ikea, Tinkoff, SberMarket and other teams from Europe and the CIS, which showed an excellent level of knowledge and expertise.
This experience gave me the opportunity to learn new technologies and different advertising approaches that can be used in my work. Being a member of the Tagline Jury means knowing all of the latest trends in Performance and finding their application in business.
You set trends in E-commerce, IT and Ride-hailing apps, and developed mobile marketing. Tell us about this experience.
I developed mobile marketing at ABBYY, promoting the Fine Scanner and Business Card Reader mobile applications (applications for text editing and scanning) in the global market. Mobile marketing, as a rule, means the promotion of mobile applications in the AppStore and Google Play using various advertising channels, such as Google, Facebook and others.
The largest market was the US, and I was surprised how different it was from the markets of the CIS countries or Europe.
First, an important trend in the US in mobile marketing is working with Influencers, adding rich content in integrations. If you do not pay due attention to this, then your product simply won’t be noticed, you need to be on the same wavelength as potential customers and understand how they think and what problems your product helps to solve.
Second, sites like TikTok and Snapchat can bring in a huge amount of customers because the US market is distinctive, unique, and consumes content differently.
What was a new trend back then is today a mandatory skill fora Performance and mobile marketer.
Yury, what do you plan to do in the future? What projects do you consider promising?
I see great potential in helping start-ups, large companies, and small and medium-sized businesses to enter international markets, because they have great potential.
Our world has no boundaries and there is no limit to our capabilities, so it is always important to have a big dream and even more important to fulfill it.
Therefore, I plan to move into the development of international businesses and help bring companies to a global level, attract venture capital, increase capitalization and accelerate company growth.
Work in an environment that is copied around the world.
In other words, my goal is to multiply business performance in the field of marketing, Digital and Performance marketing.
I want to help conduct IPOs and increase the capitalization of companies with the help of growth and user acquisition experience.