Executive Interview: Jeremy Wacksman, Vice President of Consumer Marketing & Mobile at Zillow

Jeremy Wacksman is the Vice President of Consumer Marketing & Mobile at Zillow. Jeremy oversees Zillow's mobile product development and marketing strategy for the company's 24 mobile apps. As the mobile leader in real estate, he can share the company's challenges and successes with app development, discovery, and advertising and provide an engaging discussion on where the overall mobile industry and mobile ad market are heading. Droid Report recently interviewed Jeremy Wacksman about his current role at Zillow, taking a further look at mobile and the real estate industry and Jeremy’s consumer marketing and mobile initiatives for FY 2014.

Jeremy Wacksman

Droid Report: Hello Jeremy, as Vice President of Consumer Marketing & Mobile at Zillow you are in charge of overseeing the mobile product development and marketing strategy for the company's 27 mobile apps. Could you tell us more about your current role and your initiatives for 2014?

Jeremy Wacksman: I lead marketing and communications for the company, and I also oversee product strategy for Zillow Mobile. In my mobile role, I help guide the team in developing and refining our suite of apps, and creating products that will help home owners at any stage in home shopping process, including renting, finding a home, a mortgage or renovating their existing home.

For 2014, we are really focused on personalization & continuing to build a multi-platform Zillow. As an Internet company that completely re-invented itself as a mobile-first business, Zillow is simply better on the go, and across multiple devices. Letting you take your shopping preferences with you from device to device, personalizing the app around your search, and partnering with Google to power proactive real estate results for their Google Now service are all recent examples.

That phone in your pocket is much more powerful, always on, and more personalized than the computer on your desk a few years ago. We are excited for the potential that creates in building a better Zillow.

Droid Report: Mobile has been driving a wave with both disruption and innovations within the real estate industry. What are some challenges you see with these factors and competition in the market?

Jeremy Wacksman: We see that disruption and innovation as an opportunity.  Zillow got its start innovating in the real estate category, creating an unparalleled level of transparency to empower consumers to make smarter decisions about homes.  The smartphone and tablet ecosystems create additional opportunities for innovation, as they raise the bar of consumer expectations. We want our apps to be fast, smart, personalized.  Before the smartphone, Zillow was a reactive search engine. Come to the front door, enter a search term, and then we provide value.  Today, the Zillow app is centered around you (your location, your preferences / search history, favorites) to proactively help you find your home.

Droid Report: With 27 mobile apps, how did you come about envisioning mobile apps develop in your strategy?

Jeremy Wacksman: Our suite of 27 apps are built to help consumers at all stages of the home lifecycle – renting, buying, refinancing, and improving/designing – and we offer a set of apps to help professionals connect with those consumers. Each line of apps is unique, and intuitively designed to have things that meet specific consumer needs, depending on what their end goal is – whether that’s quickly answering what they can afford to buy with our mortgage calculator, sitting on the couch browsing home design inspiration with Zillow Digs, or actively shopping for a home to buy with our real estate app.

Droid Report: Zillow’s apps are also available at Google Play. What excites you about the future with Google apps?

Jeremy Wacksman: Google continues to push innovation in both the smartphone and tablet world – and a great example of that is Google Now. They are turning the smartphone into an intelligent personal assistant, connecting directly to apps with intent, predicting what people need when they need it, and doing it across multiple devices. A few years from now, I can’t even imagine what opening an “app” on “Android” will be, given their ability to evolve the platform and change the way we interact with technology.

Droid Report: Is there anything else you feel Android users and the Android market should know?

Jeremy Wacksman: We’re definitely in the midst of a device explosion on mobile – and while we’ve been using smartphones & tablets for a few years now, it’s exciting to remember we are just getting started.  The Internet of things is going to show up in more places & more form factors, and that creates fantastic opportunities to create & innovate.

We would like to thank Jeremy Wacksman for this discussion and Zillow.