Begum Irkdas

Leading rider acquisition and trip experience to drive Uber rider and gross booking growth in Turkey as well as scaling the successful pilot projects to EMEA and global regions that are tackling with similar kind of problems. Collaborating with global PMs and vertical teams; localizing Uber strategy and identifying unique opportunities in Turkey to inform new product, service and growth levers. In less than 6 months since joining;

- Delivered Turkey taxi strategy and project plan and proposal for other growth opportunities with different products other than taxi (within the mobility business) to help boost revenue and profit in the market as part of my onboarding, which also helped on prioritizing new city launches (35 cities launched so far) & new products to be launched in Q3 2025.

• Identified key rider characteristics and use cases for Uber; accordingly launched 5 new acquisition partnerships tapping into 25Mn audience, ~13K incremental rider first trip per month with ~9 more local & global partnerships in the pipeline.

• Analyzed key cancellation reasons and launched 4 experiments that supported decreasing terminal cancellations along with global PMs;

- Changed driver induced rider cancellation detection thresholds based on local driver and rider behavior; -4% decrease in terminal cancellations.

- Analyzed cancellation reasons of Turkish riders and post cancellation re-booking dispatch times. Launched cancellation nudge in the product experience; -3% decrease in terminal cancellations.

- Along with global PMs, launched gamification to tackle with long spin cancellations; ongoing adaptation to the Turkish riders.

• Analyzed local fraud and payment type behavior as well as their further impact on the long term retention, launched a incentive driven arrear recall experiment with global PMs, ongoing.

• Identified local app consumption and channels to target these apps to acquire local riders in Turkey; unlocked ~4-6K incremental RFT per month.

- Conducted market research for launching monetization product for ads in Turkey, ongoing go-to-market strategy support for global.

- Designed a framework to localize and enable Uber for Business despite regulatory and ecosystem constraints.

- Supporting TikTok regional and international user growth strategy;

Led regional growth strategy and operations for METAPSA region (Turkey, MENA, Subsaharan Africa, Pakistan, EEU, South Asia) while supporting global, overseeing the market prioritization and go-to-market, paid and organic growth channel optimization and development, retention and recall strategies, partnerships, content initiatives and product localization. While delivering the responsibilities hands on due to my hybrid skill set and big region/small team ratio, managed a team including junior specialists, product managers, in-house creative teams, agencies and cross-functional collaborators across multiple countries and regions. Forecasted and took ownership of DNU, DAU targets and revenue-driving product feature growth such as LIVE stream, achieving over 90% app penetration in high monetization regions and delivering annual growth rates of +70% to +116% in key regions and app versions.

- Conducting product research, analytics & delivering product and channel optimization strategy across local & global regions:

• Acted as a key Point of Contact (POC) during two research trips to Sub-Saharan Africa, spanning across five countries over several weeks. Collaborated with research agencies to develop interview questions, conducted hands-on focus groups, street interviews, and in-home visits. Managed recap sessions with multiple product, research and development (RD), and cross-functional team members. Cross-validated research findings with product analytics and external fact-checking sources. Utilized the insights gathered to develop channel, communication, and product strategies, resulting in the creation of Product Requirement Documents (PRDs) for product feature optimization as well as contributing to enhancing channel and communication strategies and identifying new growth channels. Presented research findings to various cross-functional teams, aiding in defining their priorities and identifying collaboration opportunities with user growth and product teams;

- Through user research driven insights, we re-launched and optimized a new version of TikTok called TikTok Lite and onboarded unique features and unlocked region specific growth channels. Achieved 116% annual growth vs optimized product version and growth strategy vs 68% non-optimized.

• Engaged in similar responsibilities during the global user research for TikTok product team across global regions while specifically focusing on MENA & EU and Japan TikTok Coin App research in 2023. The primary objectives included identifying achieving better product market fit and go-to-market, solving product-related issues, enhancing user, feed and login experiences, and devising a successful launch strategy for incentive growth programs.

• Planned an executed focus groups in Dubai with diverse participants across MENA, South Asia, Turkey & Africa to support validating quick hypotheses for annual planning.

• Planned and executed user research initiatives in Turkey and Egypt, leveraging volunteer recruitment and collaboration with on-the-ground teams, all achieved at zero cost.

- Managing METAPSA (Turkey, MENA, Subsaharan Africa, Pakistan, EEU, South Asia) user growth programs & expanding into global regions (EU, US/CA, LATAM, Asia markets);

Organic Growth:

• App Store Optimization (ASO) (METAPSA Region and Global)

Developed an experimentation, campaign management and measurement strategy, content and oversaw the workflow and implementation of TikTok Main/Lite Google Play experiments and managed in-app TikTok/TikTok LIVE campaigns to scale Daily Active Users (DAU) and Daily New Users (DNU) in key Turkey, MENA, EEU, Subsaharan Africa, and South Asia countries, at no additional cost;

- ~99.7K incremental DNU, ~18.9Mn incremental DAU with zero cost.

- Delivered ~40-50% of the global quarterly incremental ASO contributions from my core region

As a result, more my regional role at METAPSA was expanded to globally covering all TikTok countries;

- Since taking over the global responsibility, I grew global ASO driven incremental DNU by 104%, DAU by 105%.

• Influencer Affiliate Marketing/Creator Onboarding and Content Creation Fund/Share Optimization

Initiated influencer affiliate, creator bonus, share, and virality based projects to drive incremental DNU and DAU as well as strengthening the growth flywheel through managing the content supply/demand through close creator, publisher, community, agency and cross functional team collaborations in METAPSA region. After launching and scaling the pilots in my region, also applied these initiatives in relevant global countries and or optimized existing global country processes;

Established Influencer Affiliate, Creator Bonus and Growth Hacking programs as sustainable user and content supply growth channels based on zero-cost contribution or strict CPA and CPVV targets to drive new user acquisition and content pool expansion.

Conducted in-depth analysis of TikTok share panel penetration and behavior, formulating localization and optimization strategies to enhance sharing and increase Daily New Users (DNU).

- +33% significant share uplift based on the product/engagement strategy implementation

- +11K incremental DNU during ~6 weeks total duration of pilot influencer affiliate campaigns with zero to minimal cost

- +15 Mn shares during ~2 weeks seasonal share pilot campaigns

- ~262Mn external TikTok video views via growth hacking channel pilots via various placements

• SEO/Web

Pioneered publisher partnerships to enhance embeds and external link building, delivering pilot results and streamlining measurement frameworks in priority METAPSA countries. This project informed the global embed strategy and embed product experience optimization based on publisher feedback. Worked on scaling the mission further by automating the education of publishers and creators on successful content strategy and embeds via tutorials produced in collaboration with in-house teams and creators.

Supported TikTok Web's in-house SEO strategies, developed the topic pages to attract higher volumes of search engine traffic. Worked on page curation, automation and insights to identify different content types searched and used in and out-app as well as identifying the top performing keywords. Also onboarding and managing external SEO agency, worked on product requests to optimize meta-description of video pages and creator profiles as well as external backlinks. Conducting analysis on the web to app drop off points, delivered hypotheses for web to app conversion optimization and worked with product manager for A/B test implementation.

-During ~2 weeks embed pilot project, delivered 1.2Mn embed views with zero cost with higher embed views per website compared to control; 128K vs. 269.

- ~+33.2% uplift on creator search engine visibility post creator profile optimization project

- +~5-25% uplift in clicks post video page meta-optimization

- Delivered ~240 incremental quarterly backlinks

- +27% incremental clicks driven by pilot topic pages

B2B Growth Partnerships & Incentive Growth:

• Preloads & Preload Partnerships;

Collaborated directly with Telco & OEMs / smartphone manufacturers to identify methods for optimizing preload open rates through incentives and content marketing partnerships. Successfully unlocked new preload volume opportunities.

- Secured incentives ~300-400K preloaded devices per month with zero cost through barter partnerships involving XFN collaboration

- Increased open rates with various promotion & engagement strategies by 33%

- Unlocked ~40K incremental preload deal monthly volume per country

• Telco and Other B2B Strategical Collaborations;

Designed and launched multiple growth partnerships & zero rating/data bundles with Telcos (35+ bundle partnerships across multiple countries), worked on additional partnership models for Telco bundle co-promotion, data gifting, Telco store promotion partnerships that requires marketing & RD team integrations, worked carrier store integrations & go-to-market promotion as well as other innovative ways of partnering with Telcos in METAPSA region. These pilots also informed the Telco collaborations in other emerging and mature global regions.

Also worked with key businesses, apps, gaming, entertainment, and music companies. Developed go-to-market strategies based on resource exchange with zero cost, overseeing the entire process from pitching to implementation and reporting.

• Incentive Growth/Referral & Reward Partnerships;

Conducted diagnostic analysis and user research to identify areas for improvement, focusing on referral optimization to enhance user experience and localization issues in Egypt, Turkey, South Africa. Launched localization initiatives with various gameplay themes and gamification across multiple markets, testing different referral promotion strategies in collaboration with product managers and cross-functional teams. Implemented a referral-based and TikTok LIVE re-engagement approach to encourage login behavior and enhance new user retention;

- +30-65% on referral DNU conversion uplift

- +145K incremental quarterly new users from referral promotion (in addition to referral DNU)

- +20% significant uplift on new user retention & login

- Built the go-to-market strategy & and secured quarterly ~185K USD worth of coupons with zero cost through XFN collaboration & contributed to ad revenue

Paid Growth:

• Paid Performance Ads;

Developed ROI strategies and optimized performance across various paid growth marketing channels in mid to high revenue METAPSA regions. Set and achieved hard CPA targets, managing variable costs, and assessing LTV based on different LT spans through audience and creative strategy and new inventories;

Spearheaded the onboarding of new mobile networks and channels, with a focus on detailed revenue analysis by users, creators, and advertising revenue across EMEA region.

Created a new audience segmentation and content prioritization model for paid ads combining vertical based DAU penetration and growth room which is adopted as the main segmentation method by global regions.

Regularly performing clustering analysis and building the taste cluster of different in-app audiences, delivered the viral content for paid ads use across key clusters to grow taste communities. Produced & supplied innovative, locally produced and AI driven creatives and defined the experimentation strategy. Collaborated with cross functional teams, creators and external stakeholders to come up with amplifiable tentpole & IP content.

- Delivered 30% of the gap DNU

- Decreased cost per install by 79%.

Product and Insights Driven Growth:

• Data Governance, Analytics & Insights:

As part of my growth management role, I undertook regional data analyst responsibilities at TikTok, I conducted regular penetration analyses across countries and target groups to optimize acquisition strategies, monitored retention, and recall metrics, analyzed product events and user interactions in order to deliver mitigation and enhancements. I also performed content analysis, evaluated feed performance, and addressed retention and content supply issues to enhance user engagement and optimize content strategy.

In addition to analysis and insights generation, I also improved data governance by localizing different dashboards and data warehouses as well as delivering an analytics repository for key stakeholders.

• CRM and Engagement:

Operated user growth CRM channels for numerous push A/B testing experiments in order to increase new user retention, longer term retention, recall rates, login rates, share metrics and LIVE session penetration through personalization. Also worked on onboarding and building innovative engagement and recall methods such as WhatsApp/Telegram bots;

-+20% uplift on new user retention

- Up to ~5% uplift on login

-+33% uplift on shares

-+32% uplift on publish rates

Managed digital performance, demand generation, analytics and transformation services for clients spanning from global automotive, financial services, telco & digital exhibitions;

Global Automotive (managing 11 Markets: MENAT & EEU):

• Managed day-to-day analysis and digital insights generation on BigQuery datasets to optimize web/app analytics and advertising performance.
• Utilized Market Mix Modeling and Digital Attribution to identify top-performing media channels.
• Led DMP and audience activation for lead acquisition and retargeting.
• Orchestrated Salesforce lead integration, tracking standardization, and enrichment for CRM enhancement. Implemented tag management and measurement for multiple websites and apps.
• Automated ETL processes across 30+ data sources via Google Cloud Platform for unified reporting and insights.
• Collaborated with Adobe Magento team on e-commerce integration and defined user journey tracking.

Telcos:

• Conducted journey analytics, ecommerce funnel monitoring, and CRO audits, led workshops to understand conversion issues and drop-off reasons, and designed A/B testing experiments to drive conversion uplift.
• Developed a data monetization strategy leveraging real-time tracking and insights across digital signage, smart messaging, WiFi analytics, and app push notifications to enhance revenue streams.

Business Development & Others:

• In Accenture Interactive, I managed business development alongside project delivery, specializing in crafting digital and growth solutions to address diverse client needs, achieving 80% closure rate on signed businesses.
• Designed KPI frameworks for web and social analytics, enhanced tag management, and integrated digital analytics for multiple industry partners/clients.
• Performed digital product & performance audits, including social listening, sentiment analysis, and competitor intelligence for marketing and content strategy for multiple industry partners/clients.

Managed full funnel and 360 marketing campaign planning and channel activation strategy & execution especially specialized in performance campaigns, app installs, lead generation and app growth go-to-market strategy development;

Digital Only Banking App:

• Launched a pioneering digital-only banking app in the region, achieving market breakthrough through scalable account openings via mobile networks, Universal App Install, and social media campaigns.
• Managed and optimized data-driven marketing and performance campaigns across all B2C and B2B digital products.
• Implemented mobile tracking, deep linking, and attribution for acquisition tracking, fraud detection, and audience retargeting segmentation.
• Adopted cost per acquisition model instead of installs; designing and optimizing account registration journey & conversion event based campaign optimization.
• Designed marketing performance dashboards for live campaign reporting and optimization.
• Managed customer retention and implemented app re-engagement through personalization strategies.
• Designed gamification strategy to increase app usage, shareability, and monthly active users.
• Pioneered affiliate program to drive app installs through mobile affiliate networks.
• Designed and executed ad experiments for target conversion optimization.

Core Banking Product:

• Managed & optimized data-driven marketing campaigns across banking products for lead acquisition and CPL efficiency through programmatic, Google Ads, and paid social media.
• Designed and optimized web & web form experience to implement pre-lead qualification and adopt effective cost per qualified lead model.
• Managed direct digital lead integration to CRM and lead enrichment for effective CPL optimization.
• Analyzed high-value banking customers and activated lookalike audiences through dynamic creative optimization to acquire higher quality customers and optimize conversions and LTV.
• Implemented media and audience tags for campaign performance and conversion tracking/optimization.
• Managed data and contextualization partnerships with 3rd party databases to increase campaign relevancy.
• Designed and executed ad experiments for target conversion optimization.

Monetization Product & Others:

• Managed & optimized awareness and performance marketing activities across various industries like Food & Beverages, Fashion e-commerce, Beauty, Electronics.
• Drove performance data plug & play reporting automation solution that unlocked additional revenue stream to the company

• Collaborated with a pioneer Food Delivery App to develop data-driven creative products and gamification strategies. Created use cases for personalized in-app communications (e.g., weather, traffic) through external API integration and tailored product/offers based on personalization insights. Designed food connoisseur and leaderboard gamification based reward programs by neighborhood, leveraging order insights and loyalty data.
• Contributed to an e-Commerce loyalty app's personalization and recommendation engine initiative. Segmented users and implemented product clustering to drive personalized in-app, direct, and in-store iBeacon communications based on the user signals.
• Developed an internal social listening tool by scraping local Turkish social media platforms to create insights dashboards through topic modeling. Utilized these insights for targeted creative strategies, later monetized as a service for clients.

Various Cognitive Science Labs -

• Worked in diverse local and international labs, conducting qualitative, quantitative, and lab research using methodologies like surveys, multivariate testing, psychophysics, and fMRI. Secured research funds and scholarships, developed hypotheses, designed experiments, collected samples, and conducted statistical data analysis. Focused on human perceptual learning, decision-making in digital and audiovisual environments, and cultural impacts.
• Additionally, served as a teaching assistant for Statistics in Behavioral Sciences courses, supporting undergraduate students with statistical concepts and analysis in both introductory and advanced level