Mobile Heroes Uncensored

It’s the last dance. For the last time on Mobile Heroes Uncensored, John & Peggy are chatting about mobile growth, mobile success, and mobile challenges.

In this episode, we chat about our favorite episodes, a few of our favorite guests — there’s no way we could talk about all of them — and the places they come from, and the topics they shared.

It’s been 76 shows.

Thank you all for the ride, and see you around social media and on many other podcasts that both Peggy and I still on.

Apologies, but we liked Brazil so much we stayed (virtually, of course). In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we chat with Guilherme Braz, Acquisition Senior Director at Mercado Libre, an e-commerce and fintech leader in Latin America.

While he’s got great experience in mobile -- having worked at Wildlife Studios previously -- in another life he was a Bain consultant. And Gui, as he likes to be called, brings the kind of intellectual rigor you might expect from Bain to his marketing.

We discuss Brazil, mobile marketing today, incrementality and media mix modeling, App Tracking Transparency, and so … much … more!

Timestamps

0:00 Guilherme Braz, acquisition at Mercado Libre

7:15 Start with the problem

9:50 Brazil and super apps

13:15 Re-engagement in mobile apps

14:45 Incrementality

19:45 Attribution and incrementality

26:00 Least censored opinion about mobile marketing

If the US Postal Service says “neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,” we add appendicitis! While one of our guests was having emergency surgery (and is now much better!) We soldiered on with ROAD TRIP BRAZIL.

In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we chat with Christian Gaitan, formerly Performance Lead of Lemon about entering the Brazilian mobile market.

Christian chats about market demographics and psychographics, as well as the most significant features and challenges of marketing mobile apps in Brazil

Timestamps

0:00 Christian Gaitan from Lemon

3:30 The Brazilian mobile market

9:20 Soccer (or football) and marketing in Brazil

12:30 Best ad channels in Brazil

18:10 Trust and marketing for crypto apps

20:20 Creative optimization in Brazil

22:30 Mobile ad targeting

25:00 Least censored opinion about mobile and marketing

How will massive global trends in advertising impact mobile apps and games? In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we chat with GroupM global director Kate Scott-Dawkins.

This is not like other MHU sessions. In addition to being a former member of the United States Archery Team, Kate is a big thinker with access to huge amounts of data. She’s currently tracking 62 markets: 31 downgraded, 21 upgraded, and 10 stayed the same. But as the global economic outlook suffers, the digital advertising ecosystem is being impacted, she says.

The good news: it’s still growing. The bad news: it’s not growing quite as fast.

We chat about retail media, ad spend, mobile economies, and how marketers and app publishers should think about changing opportunities in 2023.

Timestamps

0:00 Kate Scott-Dawkins

3:15 Multiple iOS app stores

5:40 6.5% global advertising growth in 2023

8:15 Mobile and CTV are outperforming

10:00 Biggest ad opportunities

13:20 $111 billion in retail media

19:00 TikTok

24:00 Least censored opinion about mobile

How big will streaming TV be for mobile user acquisition in 2023? In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we chat with M&C Saatchi Performance managing partner Jonathan Yantz. Our focus: will streaming TV, connected TV, smart TV be a great place to run ads in 2023?

CTV is one of the fastest growing ad markets. But it’s fragmented into multiple platforms and multiple services on each platform. How do you address it? How do you measure it? How do you design for it?

We chat about this and many more questions as hosts John Koetsier and Peggy Anne Salz dive into CTV with Jonathan Yantz.

Timestamps

0:00 Jonathan Yantz, M&C Saatchi Performance 

3:01 Streaming TV and advertising

4:50 Targeting and CTV

9:30 Strategies for a fragmented market

15:05 Adapting ads for streaming media

20:50 CTV to mobile app ads

25:50 Least censored opinion about CTV advertising

Does reverse psychology work in ads? Sure, sometimes. And sometimes, just plain old psychology.

In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we chat with Philippa Layburn, UA manager for Trailmix, the games studio that makes games snackable … yet somehow nourishing. Philippa tells hosts John Koetsier and Peggy Anne Salz about her background in psychology and how that impacts her marketing and advertising, as well as her focus on science and math.

We chat about creative winners and losers, Super Bowl ads, A/B testing, and how to come up with truly creative ideas for new ad campaigns.

Timestamps

0:00 Philippa Layburn, UA manager for Trailmix

3:30 Merge games

4:45 Art and science in advertising

10:30 Quirky ads: yes or no?

13:00 Hook rate

15:30 Winning vs losing ads

26:00 Least censored opinion about mobile marketing

Mobile marketing intelligence can tell you which are the top apps in a category, where your competitors advertise, how they monetize, what ads are working, and which apps that you’re competing with have the highest LTV. It can also reveal emerging trends.

In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored hosts Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier chat with Stan Minasov, VP of Product for AppMagic.

We ask Stan what trend he found first, what trends people have discovered on his platform, and how to use mobile intelligence tools to get an edge on the competition. And, how to avoid what he calls “trap markets.”

We also chat about the emerging trend of fake ads. Yes, literally fake ads.

Timestamps

0:00 Mobile marketing intelligence

2:00 Stan Minasov, from AppMagic

4:15 Best insight and trap markets

8:40 Ad creative trends

15:20 When you need mobile marketing intelligence

20:15 Fake ads

27:00 Least censored opinion about mobile marketing

28:00 Top three tips for mobile marketers

In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we chat with Gessica Bicego, the CMO of Paired, an app that helps couples feel more connected. We chat about influencer marketing, about hitting singles and the occasional home run, and about whether you can engineer virality or not.

We also talk about diversification of ad spend, and how Bicego ensures that she is always able to take advantage of opportunities to go viral. We chat about metrics that she uses to keep on track, and we also talk about taking time out — in her case to have a child — and then coming back stronger than ever.

Timestamps

0:00 Gessica Bicego, CMO of Paired

5:45 3 ways to 4X revenue

7:30 User-generated content in ads

11:25 Finding influencers

13:55 How to hit home run ads

16:30 Blended metrics for modern UA

19:20 Taking a year off

24:15 Gimmicky creatives in ads

27:55 Brand marketing for performance marketers

32:00 Most uncensored opinion about mobile marketing

Bootstrapping is great. Especially when you’re getting a suitcase full of awards for your app. In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we’re chatting with the founder of Rootd (pronounced “rooted”), Ania Wyshocka.

Rootd is an app for people who suffer from anxiety, stress, and panic attacks, and in a classic entrepreneur story, Ania built a product based on her own experiences. In the process, she’s earned a Developer Spotlight by Apple, a “30 Under 30” win, and a selection to "Canadian Woman in Tech you Should Know."

Now of course, inevitably, she’s looking to paid acquisition to take her app to the next level. Hosts John Koetsier and Peggy Anne Salz chat with Ania about her journey, her choices, her revenue model, and her approach to personalization and segmentation.

Timestamps

0:00 Meet Ania Wyshocka

2:55 The Rootd app

4:45 Bootstrapping to 2M users

10:50 Revenue model: subscription

15:30 Prioritizing features

17:15 Personalizing your app

21:50 Moving to paid acquisition

25:40 Least censored opinion about mobile

What mobile game literally has a tombstone in one of its promo images? A super-successful one, actually: BitLife, which has tens of millions of installs and millions of reviews.

In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we chat with BitLife maker Candywriter. Specifically, with VP Gabby Bradford Pigott. Our focus: mashup games: what drives success, and what works best for ad-based monetization.

We also chat about ad partners, managing waterfalls, and balancing user experience and monetization.

Timestamps

0:00 Sim games

2:05 Gabby Bradford, VP at Candywriter

3:55 BitLife

9:00 What would you change?

10:05 Balancing UX and monetization

14:45 Rewarded video ads

18:20 Good old fashioned banner ads

22:20 Tips for picking ad networks

24:00 Waterfall optimization

If segmentation sparks joy in your life you might need to get fitted for a straitjacket. Or maybe you’re just super passionate about mobile marketing, engagement, monetization, and retention.

We think the latter applies to Geoff Hladik, who leads revenue and growth at FlipaClip. At least we hope so, because this is the second time we’ve chatted with him and we’re almost related now.

In this episode, hosts Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier chat with Geoff about:

• Becoming a Mobile Hero
• Audience segmentation (shocking, I know, given the title)
• New paths for revenue and user growth
• Engaging and activating creators
• Flaws in measurement models
• And more …

Timestamps

0:00 Who is Geoff Hladik

2:01 An eternity in mobile marketing

6:07 Audience segmentation

9:27 Understanding your users

14:05 Tweaking user journeys

16:40 Putting revenue and growth together

19:35 Improving user experience

22:45 Least censored opinion

Every mobile marketer needs good ASO. The last thing you want is to acquire users, have them hit your App Store or Google Play listing, and say … nah, maybe not. So getting your app store optimization right is critical.

In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we chat with AppTweak’s head of ASO Simon Thillay. He chats with hosts John Koetsier and Peggy Anne Salz about custom product pages, in-app events — the kind that people participate in, not the kind you track for KPIs — and how he sees ASO evolving.

Check this episode out to make sure no marketing dollar gets wasted at the very last step in the funnel. And why endurance skating and mobile marketing are similar!

Timestamps

0:00 App Store Optimization

3:30 Custom product pages

7:35 In-app events and live ops

9:30 AppTweak head of ASO Simon Thillay

13:05 ASO trends

19:30 Galaxies of apps

22:10 The most frustrating thing about ASO

25:01 Least censored opinion about mobile marketing

It’s never been tougher to make it in user acquisition and growth, but Huuuge Games director of marketing creatives Misha Syrotiuk makes it work in two diverging ways: more automation, and more human connection.

In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we chat with Misha about the amount of automation needed to remove some of the drudgery and grunt work from creative creation and campaign optimization. But we also chat about the advice he’d give his younger self: investing in the human relationships that make business run and enable needed growth.

In addition, hosts Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier discuss how Misha feels about Android vs iOS, creative testing, AI-enabled art workflows, and the best career advice he can offer.

Timestamps

0:00 Huuuge Games

1:45 Misha Syrotiuk

5:55 Innovation in mobile games

8:15 Structuring mobile growth teams

11:10 Challenge: manual operational work

14:00 Android is my favorite playground

18:05 Top tip for personal growth

20:05 AI art creation tools

23:15 Advice to my younger self

25:20 Least censored mobile marketing opinion

Blockchain and gaming? Check

IDFA, ATT, and Privacy Sandbox on Android? Check

Influencer advertising on TikTok? Check

Today is agency day on Mobile Heroes Uncensored, and we’re chatting with three all-stars. Jonathan Yantz at M&C Saatchi Performance, Dave Riggs from Apex Growth (used to be Customer Acquisition), and Eddie Yoon at NP Digital (yeah, that’s Neil Patel’s company) join Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier to talk about all the hot stuff.

From multi-million dollar monthly budgets to startups just beginning to scale, there’s something for everyone. And … we get each mobile hero's hot take on their most uncensored opinion in mobile marketing.

Timestamps

0:00 Super special MHU day

3:15 Ad performance in the age of privacy

12:55 Blockchain in gaming

16:15 Privacy Sandbox on Android

19:01 Why you need a higher converting app

20:50 Influencer marketing on TikTok

23:50 Video ad micro KPIs

33:01 Least censored opinions on mobile marketing

Is data-driven marketing actually impossible today? Do we have too much data … so much we have to shift to AI-driven marketing?

In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored we chat with Agustin Ochoa, a former Googler and now Performance Senior Manager at Winclap, a growth marketing consulting partner. Ochoa chats with hosts John Koetsier and Peggy Anne Salz about events to pay attention too — hint: far more than most do now — and how AI is better than humans at certain things like that.

We also chat about when sacrificing marketing efficiency for growth makes sense, the “event stack” he evangelizes, and the kinds of data you need to be collecting for optimal effectiveness.

Timestamps

0:00 Meet Agustin Ochoa

5:50 From data driven marketing to AI driven marketing

11:00 What app events to pay attention to

17:30 Omnichannel and focusing on your user

21:30 3 trends challenging mobile performance advertisers

24:30 Best advice for mobile marketers

3 billion app downloads is no small feat. Wildlife Studios, however, has achieved that and has very quietly become a top 10 games studio on the planet, beginning from Brazil and expanding across the globe.

In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we chat with Carolina Guimarães, Senior Director of Performance Marketing, and Anel Ceman, VP of Ad Monetization, about the twin challenges of UA and monetization.

1. Get more quality users as cheaply as possible
2. Monetize them without destroying the game experience

And … we get both Carolina’s and Anel’s uncensored opinions about ATT and privacy, as well as their biggest hacks for automating the more annoying and mundane aspects of user acquisition and monetization. We also get Anel’s take on what to measure in a mobile game – pretty much everything – and Carolina’s identification of the single most important KPI.

Timestamps

0:00 Success has a thousand fathers

3:30 Wildlife Studios

6:50 Performance marketing vs product

9:40 UA vs ad monetization

13:30 The biggest challenge

14:30 Automation save times

15:35 KPIs to measure in mobile games

17:30 One metric to rule them all

19:10 Ad partners

22:40 Superheroes of mobile

26:40 Carolina’s nightmare

Apple’s app tracking transparency was great … if you were primarily monetizing via ads on Android. In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored hosts John Koetsier and Peggy Anne Salz chat with long-time SmartNews marketing leader Fabien-Pierre Nicolas, now an advisor.

We chat about ad monetization, using old-fashioned linear TV for mobile user acquisition ads, and automating hyperlocal organic and paid reach on Facebook. And, of course, as always, much, much more!

Timestamps

0:00 Unicorn apps

2:30 19 different jobs on LinkedIn

5:35 The TikTok of learning

9:00 SmartNews user acquisition strategy

13:30 Consumer-driven growth

15:30 Borrowing from big tech

18:40 No good ad campaign survives contact with the enemy

20:20 Top 3 tips for mobile marketers

What can 250M users and 30 billion games played reveal about mobile games, winning IP, and monetization?

In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored we chat with Amy Huang, the CEO of Mattel163. She’s led the company to take iconic games like UNO and Skip-Bo mobile, leading to a quarter of a billion users and 30 billion games played. If that’s not enough, she’s also an accomplished rock climber.

Hosts Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier chat with Amy about focus, growth, hybrid monetization models, and going global via localization.

Timestamps

0:00 250 million users

2:46 Mattel163

5:35 CEO Amy Huang

7:00 Big IP for mobile games

9:30 Mobile app launches

12:00 Mobile monetization: IAP, IAA

15:43 UNO and eSports?

19:54 Globalization is localization

Apple’s SKAdNetwork has accelerated 10 years worth of CPM growth in just a year, according to our guest, Giulia Porter, VP of Marketing at RoboKiller.

In this episode, we dig into what that means, how marketing a utility is different from marketing a game, and a new approach to both channels and attribution in the age of privacy. Plus, hosts John Koetsier and Peggy Anne Salz chat with Giulia about the TikTok video on her app that got 20 million views, kickstarted a huge number of app installs, and that they didn’t even know about until they saw the avalanche of new users.

Timestamps

0:00 Voice spam utility

2:40 Marketing a utility vs a game or fintech app

4:45 Growth tactics in the age of SKAN

8:55 A mobile approach to more traditional methods of advertising

12:54 Uncomplicating mobile attribution

17:32 Going viral on TikTok

23:34 Focus on first party data

24:59 Least censored opinion about mobile marketing

How do you get to 8 million monthly average users with $0 in marketing spend? That’s the core question we ask Geoff Hladik, Head of Revenue & Growth at Visual Blasters. Part of the answer: product-led growth.

Hosts John Koetsier and Peggy Anne Salz also chat about getting featured by Apple, the pros and cons of building an app for kids, and when Hladik plans to turn the paid user acquisition on.

Timestamps

0:00 8M MAU with no spend?

2:00 Visual Blasters

2:40 Organic growth

5:25 App for kids

10:33 Product-led growth

14:50 K Factor and virality

19:34 When to start paid acquisition

21:25 Kick off in-app subscriptions

24:10 Segmenting your app users

Can you make better games by understanding player psychology? By knowing what people’s primary (and secondary) motivations are in mobile games? According to GameRefinery’s Joel Julkunen, absolutely. And understanding these motivations has led, he says, to multiple hit games over the past few years.

In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored we chat with Julkunen. He’s played over 500 games, and that’s a core part of his work, believe it or not. From that and a huge amount of data from thousands of games, he’s found 12 key player motivations that determine what kinds of games we like and which we don’t.

And that can help game marketers and designers build and market the right games to the right people.

Timestamps

0:00 Playing games for a living

2:44 Player motivation framework

4:57 The 12 core mobile game player motivations

10:23 Matching motivations to personas

13:18 Crossover games

17:16 Predicting the next big mobile games hit

21:47 Be bold and brave

Why stick with a potential audience of millions if you could have billions?

It’s not the right move for every app, but for apps that don’t rely on geographical boots-on-the-ground in terms of inventory, warehouses, or fulfillment, going global can unlock runaway growth. But there are a few things to keep in mind, says Bessie Byeon, Senior Director of Global Marketing at Liftoff.

In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we chat about her recent guide to scaling mobile apps overseas.

Timestamps

0:00 Why not go global?

4:05 The first criteria

5:10 What app marketers need to know about their apps

9:35 Localizing apps

14:40 Puzzling creatives

17:30 Predicting the future

23:05 Elements of success

From crazy success to favorite flops, we chat with veteran DoubleDown Interactive marketer Faith Price. Price tells us about soft launches, MVPs, app store featuring, and advice for a younger self, and talks about how getting the “grand tour” in marketing gigs was the perfect set-up for what she’s doing now … and maybe our privacy-safe future.

Hosts Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier also quiz Price on one of her favorite success stories in mobile marketing: a declining game turned around by smart product development and smart marketing.

Timestamps

0:00 Gaming at the forefront

2:40 The grand tour of tech

6:20 Origin story

8:50 Advice for a younger you

10:20 Favorite success story in mobile

13:40 Favorite flop in mobile marketing

17:50 Soft launches

20:20 App store featuring

22:40 Different strategies in soft launches

26:50 MVPs for soft launches

Scaling ad spend seems easy: boost buys, increase bids, add partners. But it’s really easy to lose massive amounts of efficiency and instead of driving results, simply increase ad blindness.

In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored we chat with mobile growth marketer and consultant Alper Taner, who has worked with over 50 apps in 10 verticals and helped brands scale users 5X to 50X.

We chat about:

• How to scale quickly
• When to add new channels
• Which channels work best
• Typical scaling mistakes
• What marketers underestimate about scaling
• Creative optimization
• Creative fatigue
• And much more …

Timestamps

0:00 Scaling ad spend to 8 digits

2:05 What brands want

3:15 Making the right decisions when scaling ad spend

6:05 Do you always lose efficiency when scaling?

10:50 The best ad channels

13:14 Biggest surprise in scaling ad spend?

15:40 Biggest mistakes in scaling ad spend?

20:10 Creatives and ad fatigue

25:10 Creatives and personas

28:30 SKAN 4 is “great”

32:15 Top tip for mobile marketers who are looking to scale ad spend

More granularity! More data over time! But … still plenty of uncertainty over timing, transition, implementation, and so much more.

Apple’s announced SKAN 4, and in this Mobile Heroes Uncensored we dive deep into it with mobile growth expert and consultant Thomas Petit, who participates while being down with Covid (!!!). We chat about what we know and what we don’t know, and especially about the new areas of complexity that, he says, are great job security for consultants :-)

We also discuss:

• Creative optimization in SKAN 4
• Multiple postbacks and subscription apps
• Using SKAN 4’s coarse conversion values
• Whether SKAN 4 privileges high-volume advertisers
• Fraud in SKAN 4
• And much more …

Timestamps

0:00 SKAN 4

2:05 Best parts of the new SKAN 4

3:35 Worst parts of the new SKAN 4

5:20 The SKAN 4 transition is going to be tough

9:20 From 1 postback to 3

9:20 From Campaign ID to Source ID

10:20 Creative optimization in SKAN 4

13:45 Cohorts (sorta) but no customer journey

15:30 SKAN 4 and subscription apps

17:45 Coarse and fine values in SKAN 4

24:05 Fraud and SKAN 4

25:35 SKAN 4 and web

30:30 SKAN 4 launch date

Can you run user acquisition at scale without app store optimization? Probably not without wasting a lot of money, according to Taha Karsli from MobileAction.

In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we chat with Karsli about key ranking factors on Google Play and the App Store, reviews, fitting ASO into an overall mobile growth strategy, and how frequently you should update your app listings.

We also get insight into

• The most misunderstood thing about ASA
• The least utilized tactic that could be big
• The most common mistake
• And the biggest opportunities

Timestamps

0:00 App store optimization

3:15 ASO and paid user acquisition

5:15 How much differentiation good ASO makes

7:45 Key ASO ranking factors

10:45 Key ASO ranking factors for Google Play

14:20 App reviews and ASO

19:20 App images and screenshots

21:45 5 quick ASO questions

26:10 Merging organic and paid datasets

Does your creative drive targeting? Does your creative answer questions? Do you offer video ads like cinematic trailers for the CTR and gameplay videos for the retention?

In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored we chat with Activision’s senior manager of growth strategy Thanasi Chalkiadakis, who shares how he drives growth for one of the most iconic game franchises of all time, Call of Duty.

With hosts John Koetsier and Peggy Anne Salz, we dive into:

• Mobile growth at Activision
• Working on Call of Duty
• Lifecycle marketing
• Creative strategy
• Targeting in an age of privacy
• Top tips for growing games in 2022

Timestamps

0:00 What UA pros need to know

1:01 Mobile growth from 1979

5:45 From Greece to Call of Duty

7:40 What working in a restaurant teaches you about UA

9:30 Lifecycle marketing in mobile

11:05 UA and product

14:55 Ad creative: 2 kinds

20:20 How creative drives targeting

24:05 Getting a job in user acquisition

26:40 Create ads that answer questions

Have you ever been review-bombed by an unscrupulous competitor?

In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored we chat with Natalie Drozd, User Acquisition Lead at Fabulous. She’s an app store optimization expert as well as a user acquisition expert, and she chats about good ASO, bad ASO, and toxic ASO.

We also chat about being featured by Apple as an Editor’s Choice app, learning from Reforge, winning in the wellness, fitness, and health categories, and the biggest challenges to achieving and sustaining organic growth.

Timestamps

0:00 From the trenches to Everest

2:05 Getting featured by Apple

6:01 What I learned from Reforge

9:20 Winning in fitness and health

12:55 Dan Ariely and Predictably Irrational

16:57 Holistic mobile marketing

20:30 Achieving and sustaining organic growth

22:15 App Store Optimization

27:25 Black Hat ASO

30:05 3 tips for mobile marketers in fitness

Can it be possible that 99% of ads for midcore games fail to address one of the most important factors in drawing new players in?

In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored we dive into Liftoff’s creative index report. Based on analysis of 805 billion ad impressions -- yes you got that number right -- the report highlights what works and doesn’t work in mobile advertising.

Our guests:

• James Haslam, Senior Marketing Insights Manager, Liftoff
• Justin Nield, Associate Manager, Brand Creative, Liftoff

What we learn: far too many ads ignore key user motivations, one very old and much-maligned ad unit is actually an all-star, what hooks new users in fintech, and much, much more …

Timestamps

0:00 What 99% of mobile ads miss

2:30 805 billion ad impressions

4:40 Banner ads don’t suck

5:35 Most surprising insight

8:00 Banner ads actually rock

12:07 Creative strategy in 2022

14:30 12 user motivations for gamers

22:42 E-commerce creatives

24:00 The makeup-applying robot

25:00 Top tips for ad creative

Is it possible to have privacy that doesn’t suck for marketers? While SKAdNetwork and iOS 14.5 might not fit that billing, Privacy Sandbox on Android just might.

What does it include? What will change? What will get worse, and what will get better. In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we interview three experts to get their insights:

• Gadi Eliashiv, CEO of Singular
• Sergio Serra, head of product at InMobi
• Matt Ellinwood, director of product management at Liftoff

They tell us what Privacy Sandboxes’ most pleasant surprises are, what the biggest concerns about losing GAID are, and whether Topics API is robust enough for accurate targeting. All that and more …

Timestamps

0:00 Privacy Sandbox on Android

4:01 Best surprise about Privacy Sandbox

8:30 Multi-touch attribution?

13:10 Losing GAID

17:50 Topics API and targeting

24:00 How does this change ad networks?

27:55 How does this change marketing?

34:50 Campaign optimization

38:50 Top tips for marketers

This may come as a shock but not every massive, successful, money-making app is in gaming, fintech, ride-hailing, or the metaverse. Today we chat with the CMO of a very different type of app: one that builds a digital layer to connect a pre-existing community and offers tools and commerce that make what they do better.

What is it?

Fishbrain connects 14 million fishers across the planet with tools, maps, social features, recommendations, and shopping. We chat with Lisa Kennelly, the CMO, who is building something amazing in a nontraditional (for mobile!) space.

Lisa talks about acquisition channels, what’s delivering uplift, how Fishbrain keeps its marketing and ads fresh, and how they engage their users. Plus, we also get into Fishbrains expansion into commerce.

Timestamps

0:00 Fish on the brain?

3:20 Growing a massive mobile community

4:40 Top channels for mobile growth

7:40 Adding social to your app

10:45 Mobile user retention

12:50 Adding mobile commerce to your app

18:20 Managing global growth from the USA

20:10 Cross-cultural growth teams

22:00 Top 3 tips for marketers in unconventional verticals

Why has Zynga bought no fewer than 5 Turkish game companies? Why are there so many significant success stories coming out of the Turkish game community?

In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored, Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier talk to 2 leading experts in Turkey’s emerging mobile gaming ecosystem. Batuhan Avucan, Founder & Managing Director at Mobidictum and Utku Altunkiran, User Acquisition Manager at Kidly talk about what’s happening, why Turkey’s gaming space is growing, and what publishers need to know about the Turkish scene.

We also chat about moving from hyper-casual games to a subscription model, influencer marketing, monetization, AR/VR, and creative strategies that deliver big upside.

Timestamps

0:00 Turkey … the new Silicon Valley of gaming?

5:20 Reasons for gaming growth

6:40 Demographics and dynamics in Turkey

14:10 From hypercasual games to subscriptions

18:45 Virtual influencers

23:45 Top 3 tips for mobile marketers in Turkey

Are people predictably irrational? Pretty much, and some game marketers have learned exactly how and used that knowledge to grow. One, with over 1.4 billion game installs, is our guest Mert Ersöz, Head of Marketing at MagicLab Game Technologies.

Mert started his career in -- you guessed it -- behavior economics, and has been growing hit games like Fidget Trading, Text and Drive, Run Race 3D, and more over the past few years.

We ask him:

• How have you had a string of top-ranked games?
• What tactics made the biggest difference to your performance?
• What growth hacks can you share?
• How are you boosting retention?

We also learn more about how MagicLab is transitioning from hyper-casual to casual games, and how their marketing is changing too …

Timestamps

0:00 Predictably irrational?

2:30 From behavioral economics to marketing

3:30 Growing top-ranked games

7:30 Acquisition is great; retention is essential

9:45 From hyper-casual to mid-core mobile games

13:15 Growth in the age of privacy

16:45 Balancing self-publishing and working with studios

20:40 Top 3 tips for mobile marketers

Times Internet is a global behemoth with over 550 million users. Now the company is extending its reach globally from its home base in India.

In this episode, we chat with Machine Zone alum Vivek Girotra, who is building a fintech app for the Indian diaspora: tens of millions who live in the U.S., in Europe, in Asia, and elsewhere around the world. He gets deep into psychographics and demographics as well as the nuts and bolts of mobile growth.

We chat about:

• Growing fintech apps
• Understanding your users
• Filling the funnel
• Understanding when you have a winner
• Using content to grow
• Top 3 tips for fintech marketers

Timestamps

0:00 550 million users

2:54 What is Times Internet?

4:05 Diversifying into fintech

6:34 Psychographics for mobile growth

12:10 From gaming to fintech

15:25 Understanding your app users

18:20 Best predictor of future success

21:30 Educating mobile app users

23:54 Top 3 tips for mobile marketers in FinTech

Is it happy days for location-based apps again? We’re getting back to some kind of normal and apps for places, travel, restaurants, hikes, flights, hotels, beaches, and bookshops are back in action.

Today we chat with a super-interesting location-based app called Bimble, which is “counter-mapping” the planet … finding all the cool places that aren’t big on Google Maps and highlighting the small wonders of the world. In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored we chat with Julia Mallaby and Fatima Zaidi of Bimble. They launched 3 weeks before lockdown … but survived COVID! And now they’re doing better than ever.

We chat about:

• Building the ‘Spotify of Travel’
• Filling the upper funnel of app users
• Engaging existing users
• Building buzz via TikTok influencers
• Creating emotional connection that drives retention
• Building real community

Enjoy!

Timestamps

0:00 Happy days for location-based apps?

2:30 Sharing the places you love

3:50 Starting a location app during Covid

5:30 Post-Covid growth

7:57 Sharing playlists of places

9:36 Brand ambassadors via TikTok influencers

12:00 Two classes of users

14:30 Connecting to influencers

17:04 Attracting creators to your app

18:30 ‘Counter-mapping’ the world … via Ukraine

23:30 Growth via emotional connection

Scaling to 220 million users is a pretty massive achievement. Helping over 30 million women get pregnant: also massive. And driving growth via content and curation is a pretty unique way to do it.

In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored, hosts John Koetsier and Peggy Anne Salz chat with Aurelie Genet, who is VP Product and Engagement Marketing at Flo, the app that’s all about periods, ovulation, and pregnancy on the surface … but even more about wellness, health, and being your best self.

Genet shares the gold on how product, user acquisition, and retention need to align and collaborate to win, how customer experience determines success, and how Flo uses content as both a competitive differentiator and community creator.

In addition, we chat metrics (always fun), her biggest accomplishment, and Genet’s top three tips for mobile marketers in the health & wellness space.

Timestamps

0:00 Scaling apps for hypergrowth

2:30 The growth triangle: product, acquisition, retention

4:40 Bringing marketing and product together

9:15 Customer app experience and growth

12:45 Content, community, and mobile marketing

20:30 Metrics that matter

23:50 Personal accomplishments

26:10 Top 3 tips for mobile marketers in health and wellness apps

It sounds insane but one of the top ad monetization specialists in the world is confident that ad monetization is not dead … and that a blast-from-the-past ad unit with super-high CPIs is one of the ways to make it happen.

In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored we chat with Kelly Kang, currently a senior director at Pixel United (think Product Madness, Big Fish, and Plarium) and has held roles at both Zynga and Glu. She tells co-hosts Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier how ad monetization is far from dead and how monetization pros can still get a great return from app users … even without ad identifiers like IDFA or GAID.

Plus, Kang gives us her top tips in monetization and the one thing she’d change about her career if she could go back in time.

Timestamps

0:00 Post-IDFA advertising

1:10 Kelly Kang from Pixel United

3:40 A career on a computer!

5:50 What would you tell your younger self?

7:40 Making ad monetization work without ad identifiers

12:30 Mobile app ad monetization and product

15:25 Segmenting users via AI

18:00 Finding the best mobile ad network

23:10 The most important things admon pros need to know

How do you get ads that outperform native content? There’s only one way today’s guest has achieved that, and it’s via influencer marketing on social platforms.

“The best thing about TikTok is that you can get massive algorithmic distribution on ads, which I haven't been able to achieve in the same way on other platforms,” says today’s guest Aidan Quest. “So we'll have ads that will perform better than an influencer's content sometimes if the ad is interesting enough.”

Quest leads JetFuel’s creator operations and business development. He spent 30 minutes with John Koetsier and Peggy Anne Salz chatting about what’s new in influencer marketing, what’s changing, and how to make influencer marketing a steady-state growth engine for new mobile app users.

And: why influencer marketing is still the only channel where you can actually get on-platform algorithmic distribution IF your ad is good enough.

The funny thing about good enough? Often it’s the opposite of what you’d expect. Get all the details in this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored.

Timestamps

0:00 Sustainable influencer marketing campaigns

2:01 Recent growth in influencer marketing

3:40 Scaling influencer marketing

7:20 Kicking off influencer campaigns

9:50 Winning TikTok ads

12:40 Going viral on TikTok

16:00 Influencer marketing in the age of privacy

17:50 Working with influencers

20:10 What’s working on TikTok now

21:50 3 top tips for TikTok advertising

March is women’s history month and includes International Women’s Day, so of course we’re chatting with two incredible leaders in mobile growth and user acquisition who just happen to be women.

One is currently a user acquisition manager at Voodoo and has led growth at other top games studios like Jam City. She’s Radostina Zhekova, and she tells us what she’s learned and how she’s grown in a traditionally male-dominated space. The other leads product at Drest, “the world’s first interactive luxury styling game.” She’s Johanna Vuorela, and she’s led growth, built games studios, co-founded companies, and built dream teams.

In this episode we get their best advice, top tips, and opinions about how to grow in the game of growth.

Timestamps

0:00 Women in mobile

3:00 50% of mobile gamers are women

4:50 Fish out of water?

7:10 Mentors in mobile

11:15 Best career advice?

16:00 Interview red flags

18:15 Stereotypes and challenges for women in mobile

21:15 Overcoming imposter syndrome

27:05 Advice for women starting out in mobile

Games with insects are super-hot right now. So are fashion games. And so are games with 2D cartoony graphics. So maybe it’s time to make a game about fashion choices for beetles in 2D?

If you want to grab a place on the Top Grossing charts for games, it pays to pay attention to Sensor Tower’s data on what’s working and what’s hot. In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we chat with Sensor Tower mobile insights strategist Craig Chapple. Chapple, who used to play games for a living at PocketGamer, shares what’s working, what’s hot, what’s new, and what’s trending in mobile game subjects, styles, and genres.

We also chat about paying players, profitability, and the controversial new part of so many games: NFTs and crypto.

Timestamps

0:00 Winning with data

1:45 Journalism to analyzing game data

4:50 Key drivers of mobile game success now

7:25 A taxonomy of mobile games

10:50 Games > Animal > Insect

12:45 Art styles that are hot in mobile games right now

15:50 Neon bug games, with zombies

16:45 Winners and losers in mobile games now

20:15 Hypercasual games ARE NOT DEAD YET

25:10 Top 3 tips for mobile gaming marketers in 2022

In-app bidding, waterfall, privacy, ATT … maximizing in-app ad monetization has probably never been harder. In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored we chat with GSN Games (Scopely) VP Brian Truman about boosting admon and scaling revenue without negatively impacting user experience.

In this episode:

• ATT and ads: how to still get top dollar
• Waterfall to in-app bidding: why and how
• Biggest factors impacting ad monetization performance
• The massive problem with test culture that no-one’s talking about
• Understanding and segmenting users
• The biggest mistake apps make in monetization
• 3 top tips to maximizing ad-based mobile monetization

Hosts John Koetsier and Peggy Anne Salz chat with Brian about how he got his start in mobile marketing (by knowing the right Excel shortcuts, of all things), ads that cause app crashes, and how hands-on experience makes a massive difference.

Timestamps

0:00 Ads and privacy

1:40 Excel shortcuts to a job offer

3:50 ATT and ad monetization

6:45 Privacy Sandbox for Android

9:45 Boosting ad-based app revenue

12:20 From waterfall to in-app bidding

15:45 Most important factors in boosting ad performance

16:45 Re-testing old assumptions

20:40 Google Firebase

23:30 Ads that cause app crashes

27:25 What would you tell your younger self?

29:45 Most common mistake in mobile monetization

32:45 Top 3 tips to maximize mobile ad monetization

Dating apps are huge. 40% of couples are now finding each other via digital dating services, and dating apps are forecast to be an $8.4 billion opportunity by 2024.

But how do you beat the competition?

First of all, by defining your niche like, perhaps, the Thursday dating app … which only works on Thursdays. Or the dating app that’s only for people with beards. Or another only for music lovers.

But most importantly, you have to understand your users and locale. In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we chat with James Haslam and Mikael Orpana, who have analyzed the top dating apps, millions of installs, and billions of ad impressions to identify what works well and how the top apps win.

Timestamps

0:00 Love is in the air: dating apps

2:45 The top dating apps (and the challengers)

4:35 UA costs in dating apps

7:05 iOS vs Android: costs for users

10:25 Targeting men vs women

13:45 Best ad creative for dating apps

17:50 Top 3 tips for mobile marketers in the dating space

20:30 Localization of dating apps

You gotta do your data homework, you have to look under the hood of all those fancy shiny marketing platforms, and you have to find channels that your competitors overlook.

Those are just a few of the massive number of tips and insights for increasing sales in your retail app from Nico Winkelhaus, the Director of Digital Marketing at PAYBACK, Germany’s top loyalty program. (Little secret here: they see literally 5% of the entire nation’s commerce. Insane!)

In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored, hosts Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier chat with Nico about achieving sustained growth, learning from gaming apps, beating nightmare competitors, and evolving through changes in consumer behavior due to Covid.

Plus, we also chat about weaving service through web and mobile app channels, and Nico’s unconventional advice about why you should grow your app at the expense of other channels.

Timestamps

0:00 Sustained growth in retail apps

1:05 Nico Winkelhaus from Payback

4:15 From gaming to retail

6:45 What retail apps can learn from mobile games

8:45 The evolution of retail during Covid

12:05 The power of personalized offers

13:30 Getting your data homework done

15:50 Unsexy but effective marketing channels

18:15 Prioritizing your app over other channels

20:02 Creating relevant creative

22:10 Top 3 tips for retail app marketers

There are not many retention-first mobile user acquisition specialists on the planet. While retention is important -- ok, essential -- most UA experts focus, naturally, on the acquisition of users. While retention matters, it’s more the product and DevOps teams responsibility.

Not Miray Alanlar, Senior Product Marketing Manager at FOX Bet & PokerStars.

She focuses first on retention, because getting a new user doesn’t even matter if that user is just going to churn out in a few hours or days. That means targeting is critical, onboarding is critical, engagement is critical, and user experience is critical.

In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored, Miray chats with hosts John Koetsier and Peggy Anne Salz about acquisition, retention, capitalizing on big events like the Super Bowl or Olympics, and maintaining momentum between those natural growth points.

Plus, she even chats about something new we’re calling the “mobile retention stack.”

Timestamps

0:00 Retention growth marketing

2:01 The Super Bowl and betting apps

5:25 What is a retention growth marketer?

9:05 Starting at the bottom of the marketing funnel

12:45 Marketing a suite of mobile apps

15:51 Stalking the competition

20:15 Billion-dollar idea for free

21:25 Mobile retention stack

25:39 Top 3 tips for mobile marketers in sports and betting apps

Imagine competing with Apple, or Google, or Amazon, or Spotify. Better yet, imagine competing with all of them at the very same time.

Sounds insane?

Not for Audiomack, which has been streaming music from creators to fans for over a decade. In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we dive deep into senior VP of revenue Dave Edwards’ story: how Audiomack wins, how it monetizes, and how it’s become super-successful doing things that everyone else thinks are crazy.

We chat about:

• “David” marketing strategies for fighting “Goliath”
• Maximizing ads-based monetization
• New audio formats, including shake-to-click
• Communicating unique brand stories with almost no budget
• Making short attention spans your friend
• Video ads versus audio ads
• Getting 60% opt-in rates on ATT
• Monetization programmatically vs direct
• Dave Edwards’ top 3 tips for maximizing monetization

Timestamps

0:00 David beating Goliath

3:15 Communicating brand promise

8:22 Monetizing apps with interactive ads

10:37 Getting 60% opt-in rates on ATT

11:52 Ads monetization: programmatic vs direct

13:45 Interactive audio ads: shake to click

17:38 Stumbling into mobile marketing

21:00 Top 3 tips for mobile monetization

What do you need to know about competitive apps? In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored we chat with Apptopia CEO Jonathan Kay, who shares the three super-simple but uber-important pieces of data you need on competitors.

(Apptopia, by the way, collects 4 billion data points daily on over 1 million apps.)

Plus hosts Peggy and John ask Jonathan about app trends for 2022, finding new opportunities in data, knowing when to get excited about spikes in downloads and when not to, and Jonathan's 3 top tips for mobile marketers.

We also learn why Dunkin Donuts is super successful with its Apple Carplay app, why Sam’s Club gained on Costco in mobile, and why there’s an endless runner game with minions in it.

Timestamps

0:00 Eye of Sauron and mobile data

2:22 4 billion data points daily

3:45 Big drivers of mobile advertising change in 2021

6:20 Mobile app trends for 2022

11:05 Competitive data to focus on in mobile app marketing

14:25 Using market data to find new app niches

19:35 Success: when it’s fleeting vs when it lasts

20:45 ASO: ranking for other brands’ apps

23:15 Top 3 tips for mobile marketers in 2022

26:35 Old marketing, bell bottoms, and crypto apps

90 million writers and readers connect on global storytelling platform Wattpad. Daniel Kenny-Godoy, Wattpad’s director for ad-ops and programmatic, boosted revenue substantially.

But how?

In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored Origin Story, hosts John Koetsier and Peggy Anne Salz chat with Daniel about ad operations' biggest challenges and opportunities, how to scale ad revenue while maintaining a great user experience, and the increasingly important topic of contextual vs behavioral targeting.

Plus, we get his top 3 tips for ad monetization in 2022.

Timestamps

0:00 Buyers and sellers

0:40 Idiots and geniuses

3:00 Starting out in mobile ad monetization

4:40 Defining ad ops

6:10 Direct sales vs programmatic

8:01 Biggest challenges of ad ops

11:00 Biggest changes in programmatic

12:15 Behavior vs contextual targeting

16:30 Ad versus user experience

20:01 Boosting programmatic ad revenue substantially

22:15 Most important factors in scaling ad ops

27:10 Ad ops on Reddit

30:20 Top 3 tips for ad monetization

Is incrementality the answer to mobile marketing measurement’s crisis?

Let’s be honest: mobile marketers exist on last-touch attribution, whether they’re using GAID, SKAdNetwork, or probabilistic methodologies. But declining signal on iOS has led some to suggest that incrementality is the answer. And there is a place for it.

Today’s guest Moshi Blum of Beach Bum (owned by Voodoo) has been there and done that, and he has the scars to prove it. Armed with hard-won knowledge gained from leading user acquisition at Viber and being a country general manager for Adjust, Blum shares what he’s learned about incrementality and measurement with hosts Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier.

Plus, Blum gives us his three tips for mobile marketing success in 2022.

And we see the youngest mobile hero ever: Golan, who’s 4 months old!

Timestamps

0:00 Cheat codes for growing mobile apps

2:45 Growth to measurement back to growth

5:15 Challenges of 2021 for growth marketing

7:35 Opportunities for mobile marketers in 2022

9:21 Incrementality to measure user acquisition

13:30 Why incrementality is hard

18:25 The baby cries

19:10 What incrementality cannot do

20:45 How to try to accomplish incrementality

23:57 Last touch attribution

24:48 Favorite game: Brawl Stars by Supercell

26:37 Top 3 tips for mobile marketing in 2022

Everyone wants to grow. Today we’re learning from an expert, Vishal Korlipara.

Vishal leads growth at Future, the fitness startup, and has held roles at Morgan Stanley, Credit Karma, and Intuit. He’s essentially not just a growth expert, but an expert at ending jobs successfully, transitioning to new roles successfully, and initiating new stages in his career.

Hosts John Koetsier and Peggy Anne Salz chat with Vishal about ending well, when to switch jobs, how to start well, and Vishal’s unconventional but clearly effective top three tips for advancing your career in growth marketing in the coming year.

Timestamps

0:00 Growing your marketing career

0:55 Vishal Korlipara

1:50 Personal growth

2:25 Downside to career change

3:20 Relationship building

6:10 How to start a new job well

9:20 Doing your research

12:30 When NOT to switch jobs

15:30 Enterprise jobs vs startup life

22:29 Growth at Future

25:25 Top 3 tips for growing your career in 2022

We have had a year. In some ways an awful, horrific, challenging year. In other ways a crazy, wacky, but growth-filled year. What happened? What did it mean? And, more importantly, how will mobile marketers achieve massive growth next year in 2022?

In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored, hosts John Koetsier & Peggy Anne Salz chat with Shamanth Rao, who has lead growth for games leading to acquisitions by GSN Games, Zynga, and GameLoft (!!!). He now runs Rocketship HQ and might just possibly have a podcast that maybe potentially a few people might listen too. (It may or may not be called the Mobile User Acquisition Show.)

We rant and rave about the highlights and lowlights of 2021, then get Shamanth’s top 3 tips on how to win in 2022.

Timestamps

0:00 2021 yays and boos

0:51 Shamanth Rao

2:26 Feeling bad for Android

3:24 Apple vs Google

4:21 Adtech consolidation

9:21 Mobile games and ATT

13:39 Ad network winners and losers

15:52 Peggy dances on a toilet

16:37 Content fortresses: Reddit vs TikTok

18:07 What will be big in 2022

21:47 Top 3 tips for mobile marketers in 2022