Replacing Hype with Rigor: Bidease’s Olya Ulianova on Smart AI, Creative Efficiency, and Building Cross-Functional Trust

In the AI-fueled race to scale mobile app growth, it’s easy to get distracted by shiny tools and shallow optimizations. But for Olya Ulianova, Senior Product Manager at Bidease, sustainable performance demands discipline. Whether it’s creative iteration, AI application, or internal alignment, her message is clear: clarity beats novelty.

In a candid conversation, Ulianova unpacks where teams are overcorrecting, and where they should double down. Backed by new data from the 2025 State of Mobile App Growth Survey, she offers grounded strategies for marketers navigating a landscape shaped by AI acceleration, privacy shifts, and tighter budgets.

Watch the full interview below, or read on for a selection of key takeaways.

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Key Takeaways

1. Track performance signals, not time, when refreshing creatives. Updating ad creatives on a fixed schedule is less effective than responding to real KPI trends. Let data, not a calendar, drive your iterations.
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2. Use AI for efficiency, but own your outcomes. While AI can accelerate workflows and surface insights, marketers must validate its recommendations and stay accountable for results.
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3. Align cross-functional teams with a single strategic narrative. Set a clear goal that everyone can rally around. Then foster a culture where all teams feel empowered to ask questions and challenge assumptions.
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4. Listen to real client use cases to shape scalable solutions. Many of your most impactful features won’t come from big clients or top-down thinking. Stay curious about individual needs and build from the ground up.

Track performance signals, not time, when refreshing creatives

The rapid evolution of AI tools has enabled marketers to produce and test ad creatives at unprecedented speeds. However, this convenience has led many teams to adopt a routine of refreshing creatives every two weeks, regardless of performance metrics. According to Bidease’s report, 74% of marketers now update ad creatives on this bi-weekly schedule. Yet, this approach can be counterproductive if not guided by actual performance data.

‍“Just because it’s been two weeks doesn’t mean you need to update the creative. It depends on your vertical, your campaign goals, and whether the creative is still delivering. Tweaking a headline or color isn’t always impactful. You need to be data-driven about when you do this. Monitor your KPIs like click–through rates and conversion metrics to determine the necessity of creative updates.”

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Receipt Hog’s experience highlights how performance-driven creative updates can outperform routine refresh cycles, especially in high-pressure periods like the holiday season. Instead of following a fixed schedule, the team focused on aligning new creative assets with clear engagement and conversion signals, which helped drive lower CPIs even during peak competition in December. By allowing KPIs to guide creative decisions, they demonstrated how thoughtful timing can deliver stronger outcomes than simply updating ads on autopilot.

Ready to dive deeper into the latest on app advertising? Download The 2025 State of App Growth Survey to explore the data behind these trends and more insights for app marketers.

Use AI for efficiency, but own your outcomes

AI has become an integral part of modern marketing, offering tools that streamline processes and provide insights. However, Olya cautions against over-reliance on AI without human oversight. While AI can process vast amounts of data quickly, it lacks the contextual understanding that human marketers bring to the table.

“AI is trained for speed, not depth. You have to be able to track back why a result happened. That’s why we’re investing in transparent, granular reporting that lets us verify, not just accept, AI’s outputs.”

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Olya’s approach involves using AI as an analytical co-pilot, providing preliminary insights that are then validated through human analysis. This balanced methodology ensures that AI serves as a tool for efficiency without compromising the strategic depth that human oversight provides.

Farfetch, a luxury fashion e-commerce retailer, provides a real-world example of using AI for advertising efficiency while keeping humans in the loop. The company deployed a generative AI copywriting tool to rapidly generate and test email subject lines and content for different customer segments. This approach boosted Farfetch’s promotional email open rates by about 7%, with a 31% lift for event-triggered emails like abandoned-cart reminders. Equally important, Farfetch’s marketing team reviewed and refined every AI-generated output to ensure each message stayed on-brand and contextually appropriate to own their outcomes through human oversight and accountability. 

Crucially, it maintains a "glass box" approach, providing advertisers with clear visibility into how decisions are made, allowing for strategic adjustments based on performance data. This synergy between AI capabilities and human insight ensures that marketing strategies are both data-informed and contextually relevant, aligning with Olya's emphasis on using AI as an analytical co-pilot rather than an autonomous driver.
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Align cross-functional teams with a single strategic narrative

Effective cross-functional collaboration is pivotal for the success of complex marketing campaigns. Olya underscores the necessity of a unified strategic narrative that aligns all departments. Such alignment ensures that every team member understands the overarching goals and their role in achieving them.

“You need to make a bet, commit to a clear story, and align the team behind it. And just as importantly, you need an environment where everyone, from machine learning to sales, can ask ‘stupid’ questions without fear.”

Creating an environment of psychological safety encourages open communication and fosters innovation.

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This approach is increasingly vital as more marketers bring operations in-house. The 2025 survey indicates that 83.5% of teams now manage their campaigns internally or with limited agency support, emphasizing the need for cohesive internal collaboration.

This emphasis on a unified strategic narrative and psychological safety is mirrored in Apple's approach to cross-functional collaboration. During the development of the iPhone, Apple brought together experts from various departments, including hardware, software, and design, to work cohesively towards a shared vision. This collaborative environment encouraged open communication and the free exchange of ideas, fostering innovation and ensuring that all team members were aligned with the overarching goals. By breaking down silos and promoting a culture where every voice was valued, Apple was able to deliver a product that revolutionized the smartphone industry.

Listen to real client use cases to shape scalable solutions

Olya underscores that impactful product development doesn’t start with abstract roadmaps or the demands of the loudest clients. It starts with curiosity. At Bidease, the team prioritizes listening closely to what individual customers need, using those insights to shape solutions that later prove valuable across the broader market.

‍“We're not just trying to find a bigger customer and make it bigger. We're interested in growing every customer and treating them all with the same exceptional service. We are curious about customer needs, and many of our features have grown from one particular use case. It starts with a specific client, and when we see it works, we educate the rest of the market about how it can be done.”

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This client-centric approach ensures that products solve real-world problems, not hypothetical ones. It also accelerates product-market fit by rooting development in proven, field-tested use cases. That feedback loop—building, learning, and scaling—fosters stronger relationships and smarter solutions.

Rethinking Growth, One Decision at a Time

Olya Ulianova’s perspective is a reminder that sustainable growth doesn’t come from automation alone. It comes from judgment. From knowing when to lean on AI and when to dig deeper. From resisting reactive habits and instead grounding decisions in real signals, shared goals, and honest dialogue across teams. In a space where velocity is often mistaken for progress, her approach champions rigor, alignment, and curiosity.

For a deeper look at how other growth marketers are navigating the same challenges, download the 2025 State of Mobile App Growth Survey. You’ll find benchmarks on creative iteration, retention investment, fraud prevention, and more—plus real-world data to inform your own strategic choices. Get the report today.

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