Business of Apps Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Ok. A quick recap of the app marketing industry history. There was a time, circa 2008 - 2016, when all marketers were going out of their way to acquire as much installs for their apps as possible. Pretty much everyone was playing that game. Then came the moment when marketers realized that if they don’t retain their users as they acquire them, they can not build a sustainable app business. Right, it’s no brainer for you now but back than it took time for people to shift their mentality.

Ever since we’ve been hearing about mobile app users churn and how to deal with it, LTV (I’m sure you know it stands for Live Time Value) became a really important metric.

But if I ask you today “What is TTV?” No, I don’t mean Twitch TV. Ok, today Jeremiah will help us to expand your marketing vocabulary.

• Jeremiah's background
• About Sandbox
• Effective strategies to streamline onboarding and quick engagement
• Measuring and optimization of the time it takes for a user to realize the value of an app
• Tactics to transform first-time users to repeat customers
• Android or iOS?
• Leaving his smartphone at home, what features would Jeremiah miss most?
• What features he would like to see added to his smartphone?

• Jeremiah Runser on LinkedIn
• Sandbox
• Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry

"The reason why that's so important is we capture them right at that moment that's the most pivotal for them. They can sign up and they can send a notification free of charge to the service member, to their family members about the opportunity to use Sandbox to write letters while they are there. So because of that, can sort of insert ourselves into a process that already happens, which helps us optimize that. And the real value is that supporter gets to see those weekly updates."

"The way we primarily measure this is TTV  (time to value). We really did a lot of testing early last year and how do we optimize for first purchase, which we would consider time to value. And how do we do that in the least amount of time? And really that's kind of by optimizing the onboarding process, getting all the information that we need for somebody before they ever even sign up for the app."

Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry since 2012

This is one of our special episodes, when we share either one of our webinars or in-person panels from the App Promotion Summit.

This time we have a webinar with the fascinating topic on the table - running a successful privacy-first mobile campaign. Experts from DataSeat, Kachava, and Wavemaker discuss the challenges of privacy-first mobile advertising, including overcoming attribution hurdles such as privacy thresholds, crowd anonymity, and delayed postback data.

They also dive into optimization strategies, the future of mobile ad attribution and measurement, and the adoption of SCAD Network among publishers and advertisers. The conversation concludes with insights into the potential of re-engagement tracking and upcoming innovations in privacy-compliant user acquisition.

• Apple, privacy and the switch to AdAttributionKit;
• Overcoming crowd anonymity and driving success with SKAN and AdAttributionKit;
• The future of AdAttributionKit and iOS attribution;
• Questions and answers.

• Mark Menery from Dataseat (part of Verve)
• Grant Simmons from Kochava
• Zach Gryphon from Wavemaker
• And Alexandra Klimashevich from Verve

Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry since 2012

I’m sure you’ve heard this adage “Data is the new blood of the economy”. When you operate on a big market with lots of competitors you better make sure you make decisions about your business based on hard data.

App marketing is one of the brightest examples where this adage and it is so close to home. When the number of users of your product is in thousands, tens of thousands or millions informing your app marketing decisions with reliable data isn’t a question of should or shouldn’t but must.

In this episode, Summer will help us to learn about leveraging mobile ad data, competitive analysis tools, as well as share her advice for marketers who are just getting started in the app marketing space.

• Summer's background
• What is SocialPeta
• Leveraging app performance and ad creatives data effectively
• Staying competitive in a crowded app marketplace
• Upcoming features in the SocialPeta pipeline to benefit app marketers
• What Summer would like to change about digital marketing the most
• Android or iOS?
• Leaving her smartphone at home, what features would Summer miss most?
• What features she would like to see added to her smartphone?

• Summer Liu on LinkedIn
• SocialPeta
• Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry

" If we talk about mobile ad intelligence tools, I think I can boast that there is no better platform that can be as friendly as SocialPeta. We dived in the mobile advertising business for over 8 years. We grew together with those top global publishers. We evolve our product from time to time. In the new era of AI technology, SocialPeta will firmly develop towards this direction on aspects like Ai recognition and analysis. We will draw the digital market picture in a much more intelligent way."

Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry since 2012

Ok, a quick experiment - try to recall apps on your smartphone, that you’ve been using since the inception of the App Store?

And now, I am not talking about the native iOS apps, no-no, apps developed not by Apple. Can you think of any? If you do have some, at least one, it means the app hasn’t lost your trust and the trust of so many other people. It just works for you all and that’s why to this day it is still on the market.

Today, we’ll be talking about one of the apps from the early days of Apple’s App Store, that is still out there and has more than 2 million people using it regularly.

• Erin's background is in the biotech company in Boston and was involved in a wearable product development
• 7 ingredient recipe to stay afloat for years and years and grow your app's user base to millions of users
• Ingredient #1 - Maintain an Effective Product
• Ingredient #2 - Prioritise User Experience
• Ingredient #3 - Active Free USer Base
• Ingredient #4 - Empower & Encourage
• Ingredient #5 - Key Promotion Times
• Ingredient #6 - Data-Driven Decision-Making Process
• Ingredient #7 - Stay Selective & Nimble
• Android or iOS? iOS
• Erin's first mobile phone. Pink Nokia Razor
• What features would Erin miss most? Spotify
• What’s missing from mobile app technology? Software and hardware feature to adapt the smartphone to different use case, based on the time of the day and location.

• Erin Webster-Shaller's LinkedIn profile
• Erin Webster-Shaller's Twitter handler.
• Lose it! website.

”Since then the company has grown sustainably, we've remained really small and nimble, which really differentiate us in the fitness app space."

"We have over 50 million people downloaded the product, collectively they've lost over 120 million pounds."

"When you look at the competitive landscape of companies that we've been competing with for the last 14 years, we all have taken very different approaches for the free versus paid landscape. Where do you draw that line? And for Loose it! I think the early team saw the value of  having a really robust free product."

• App industry marketplace
• Insights
• App Growth videos
• App Data
• App Events

By this time you’ve heard about TikTok countless times, on some occasions, you heard about it from your children, and on others when tech pundits were arguing that TikTok is the first solid rival for Instagram & YouTube & Snapchat video market empires.

But you may get this impression “well, this is not for me, it won’t work for my business, because I have no clue what to do with it”.

Well, in this episode we will do our best to change your mind.

• Mike's career spans sports, trading, and now being CEO of the leading home design app with 2 million users
• TikTok's competitive advantage
• How TikTok is different from other platforms conceptually
• TikTok content creation best practices
• How to approach the right Influencers and Creators
• What Mike didn't like about TikTok
• Android or iOS? Actually both iOS and Android
• Mike's first mobile phone. Motorola Razor
• What features would Mike miss most? Audible / Spotify / Google Maps
• What’s missing from mobile app technology? Suggest what you get for dinner.

• Mike Cimmarrusti LinkedIn profile
• Mike Cimmarrusti's email address.
• Realize website

Mike used these channels to reach out to influencers and creators to run an ad campaign for his app:

• LinkedIn Post
• Open Source Creator List

”That when I realize that I want to spend the rest of my life helping people communicate visually."

"We landed on TikTok because it was really easy to create. We spent some time on it ourselves obviously to use the platform and realized this is really to consume and really easy to create."

"What I realized it was way less work and more likely to get viral if you just copy what is on the platform and tweak it toward you message"

• App industry marketplace
• Insights
• App Growth videos
• App Data
• App Events

How do you get your app users’ attention and communicate something to them?

Well, if you could just be next to them, if you could just live in their neighborhood that would be easy to do. But you can’t live next to tens of thousands, even millions of people who use your app at the same time, right?

So what do you do? You use digital communication channels like email, in-app messages, and yes-push notifications. The latter is the topic of my today’s conversation with Nicole.

• Nicole’s 10-year journey spans telecom, real estate, and today it’s media & publishing
• How push notifications stack up against other digital marketing channels
• How many push notifications do people get on a daily basis and their attitude toward them
• From what kind of apps people don’t mind getting push notifications
• Types of push notifications
• Challenges app developers and brands face when it comes to pushes
• Nicole’s wishes for what to change in push notifications tech
• Android or iOS? iOS
• What features would Nicole miss most? Google Maps
• What’s missing from mobile app technology? The tech will allow the balance between using your smartphone for so many things and yet not being addicted to it.

• Nicole J. Castillo  LinkedIn profile
• News Corp
• Business Of Apps – connecting the app industry

”I think it’s obvious for push notifications as the way to leverage the economy of scale. You have push notifications, people are aware how they work. Anybody who has a phone for any number of years they know how to turn them off when they become annoying. But there has been a lot of rise in opt-in and opt-out options, Focus Time and the newest stuff with Apple’s lock screen.”

What we’re seeing is that one average we’re talking about 46 push notifications a day, like almost 50 a day and probably more depending on your type of apps”

I’m really interested to see the evolution, so I’m not necessary interesting in seeing a new standard, I really want to see where push notifications can evolve to.”

• App industry marketplace
• Insights
• App Growth videos
• App Data
• App Events

Every app marketer would love for their app marketing campaign to go viral. Spending less by getting your potential users’ attention to spread the message about your app is pure gold.

Today’s guest is Jonathan Maxim, CEO at HeyPal and former marketing strategist. He talks about how to make your social media campaign go viral.

• What is HeyPal? Social language learning platform (no affiliation to PayPal)
• Countries: HeyPal’s biggest blessing and downfall is supporting them all 
• What is growth hacking? Where organic and paid campaign meet to play nice together 
• KPIs: Measure click-through rate, downloads, cost per install, and retention
• Going Viral: Cost per acquisition drops exponentially; growth is used to gauge success 
• Common Mistakes: Are you going for reach, downloads, sales, or spread a message?
• TikTok: How valuable are dance videos to society? Very powerful, free, relevant content
• Android or iOS? iOS - Jonathan is an Apple fan, but admits Android is getting better
• What features would Jonathan miss most? Voice notes feature
• What’s missing from mobile app technology? Delegate and trust, not micromanage

• Jonathan Maxim  LinkedIn profile.
• Jonathan Maxim on Instagram
• HeyPal website.

”We just crossed the million downloads mark, and it’s been an awesome ride. We had some viral moments with HeyPal, no doubt.">

"It makes it really easy to speak with somebody from another country if you’re trying to learn a language. The whole idea is to build a gap between curriculum learning and practice."

"It’s really the social glue on the language learning space."

"Social media is one component of the marketing strategy to make things go viral."

"The ads that have an influencer or a real human in them, they convert better. They have better click-through rate, better conversion rate, even though they cost less and the production quality is lower.”

• App industry marketplace
• Insights
• App Growth videos
• App Data
• App Events

Every person on this planet who needs to get up on a Monday morning to tune in his brain to work and, basically, it never stops till Friday evening, would agree that it is tough.

Now, if you are an app marketer, there are several questions that are floating in your mind all the time - who are my app users? Do I know all kinds of app users that may need my app? How should I approach all these people? Where? What marketing channels should I use?

All these questions push app marketer over and over to brainstorm new ideas with a mind mapping app or just drawing diagrams on a paper, peering into data points on her or his laptop. Day in. Day out.

So on this episode we will try to address all those questions and make her or his life easier.

• Ankit's has 15+ years experience being in the IT industry under his belt, his background spans across companies like Microsoft and Oracle and many others.
• The changes in AdTech for the last decade
• Challenges in the industry
• Helping advertiser to navigate the convoluted maze of the Adtech
• MAAS platform capabilities
• Android or iOS? One+ running Android
• What was Ankit’s first mobile phone? Nokia 3100
• What features would Ankit miss the most leaving his smartphone at home? Audio content to listen to on the go
• What’s missing from mobile app technology? Advances on the VR and AR frontiers

• Ankit Rawal  LinkedIn profile.
• MAAS powered by Affle website.
• MAAS powered by Affle profile on Business Of apps.

”As the penetration of smart phone increased with both iOS & Android growing App stores were launched… It for the first time developers can build software in one part have easy distribution thanks to global appstores across the world. You could develop locally & sell globally… Hence it became a wild west advertisers were focusing largely on growth and volumes. .. with incent traffic, burst campaigns.. 

Unfortunately our Ad industry is notorious which I should also take blame for is the 3 letter acronyms CPM, CPI, DMP, DSP, MMP, CDP & what have you… which makes anyone outside it wonder Huh?? App is a conduit to any activity a user wants to accomplish be it shop, play, get entertained, study & more.”

• App industry marketplace
• Insights
• App Growth videos
• App Data
• App Events

So it’s Monday morning, you’re sitting at your desk, taking a sip from your coffee mug and go like “Ok, I know my app’s user base isn’t growing as I planned. That’s obvious. I need to try another channel. Hm….”

Let me interrupt your thinking at this point, that thing you’re looking for right now is Influencer marketing. This is how you can reach out more people that need your app and get them excited about it.

To unpack Influencer Marketing for you, I’ve got a today Nadia to talk about types of apps it fits the best, how to reach out the right Influencers, what to expect and more.

• What types of apps do fit for an Influencer marketing campaign
• Examples of apps for those Influencer marketing campaigns were ran
• In-house vs. hiring an influencer marketing agency
• KPIs to assess an influencer marketing campaign efficiency
• How Influencer marketing helps apps to go international
• Influencer marketing trends for 2023
• Android or iOS? iOS
• What was Nadia’s first mobile phone? Motorola Razr
• What features would Nadia miss the most leaving his smartphone at home? Apple Pay
• What’s missing from mobile app technology? More features for the Health app

• Nadia Bubennikova  LinkedIn profile
• BuzzGuru website.

”Basically on this platform we have coaches from different spheres that teach end-users on the platform how to get a specific skill, like how to play a guitar, learn a specific language, basically anything you can image. Seems pretty easy, like a nice feet for the Influencer marketing but there is a catch. That catch is that, in this case, our goal was not to drive not a general audience and the end user of the product that would learn some skills, but to recruit coaches of some very specific skills.

That would sound strange but for me the most awful would be disconnected from the campaigns, from the work because Influencer marketing never stops.”

• App industry marketplace
• Insights
• App Growth videos
• App Data
• App Events

Let’s make a quick mental experiment. When I say brand, what pops up in your mind? Apple? Nike? Tesla? That’s right - all those are brands, in fact if you think about it you can easily count like a dozen of brands around you.

And there is more - you can think of some of the mobile apps on your phone as brands as well. Today, Charlie will help you to get a better grasp on how to apply a brand concept to your app.

• Charlie has been working with a variety of the startups across of multiple sectors like sport, property, language learning and now food.
• What is brand
• What role brand plays for a newbie app startup
• How different generations, like Millennials and Gen Z, perceive brands
• Common mistakes people do applying a brand concept to a mobile app
• Android or iOS? Android, never dabbled into the iPhone stuff
• What was Charlie’s first mobile phone? Nokia 3310
• What features would Charlie miss the most leaving his smartphone at home? Spotify to listen podcasts everywhere all the time
• What’s missing from mobile app technology? Features to decrease distractions the smartphone brings into our life.

• Charlie Cooke  LinkedIn profile
• Sorted Food website.

"For me it’s really fundamental thing. A lot my thinking around it starts with, and maybe for lots of people, the Simon Sinek  “Start with Why”  book. It’s around why the company exists, like how we communicate our ideas clearly, build relationships with customers, it’s actually a starting point for a company.

I’ve started to see some research that there is that shift towards cause marketing, activism where where they kind of expect a brand to have a purpose.”

• App industry marketplace
• Insights
• App Growth videos
• App Data
• App Events