This is the potpourri episode: the everything everywhere all at once of growth marketing podcasts.

Growth Masterminds host John Koetsier sits down with industry expert Marcus Burke, who brings over 12 years of experience in user acquisition and growth marketing with companies like InnoGames and Blankist, and is now a UA consultant.

We dive into the effectiveness of free trials in subscription apps, targeting strategies on major platforms like Meta and LinkedIn, the unexpected power of static ads in digital campaigns, the complexities of ad performance measurement, including Apple's SKAdNetwork, and much more.

We also learn tips for optimizing your tech setup for superior campaign results, setting up retargeting strategies, making attribution models work, and creating compelling web funnels to drive engagement and conversions.

00:00 Introduction to Growth Masterminds

00:43 Meet Marcus Burke

04:49 The Impact of Free Trials on Business

10:03 Understanding Meta's Multiple Channels

15:09 The Role of Static Images in Advertising

17:19 The Rise of Web Apps

18:47 Innovative MarTech Solutions

19:33 Web vs. App Onboarding

20:11 Effective Web Funnel Strategies

24:18 Challenges in Attribution and Measurement

30:03 The Future of Attribution

37:31 Optimizing Signal for Better Performance

40:27 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Can you boost mobile ad performance 30% or more with the right end card?

The answer is a definite maybe.

:-)

In this episode of Growth Masterminds, host John Koetsier discusses the effectiveness of end cards in mobile advertising with Avi Cohen, a creative lead at Bigabid.

They explore the challenges of determining the optimal length and format for mobile ads, shifting industry trends toward longer ads, and the importance of end cards in ad performance.

Avi shares insights from his experience, emphasizing the significance of testing and creativity in developing end cards. The episode reveals the complexity of creative testing and the potential impact of unique end cards on advertising success.

Tune in to discover strategies for leveraging end cards to maximize conversion rates and user engagement.

00:00 Introduction to Effective End Cards

02:03 Diving into End Card Formats

03:02 The Psychology Behind End Cards

03:36 The Evolution of Mobile Ad Lengths

06:09 Testing and Best Practices

09:03 The Importance of End Cards

13:40 Real-World Examples and Success Stories

21:54 Encouraging Creativity and Breaking Rules

24:34 Final Thoughts and Key Takeaways

Fintech funding and valuations are down, but growth is still hot at 21% CAGR. In this episode of Growth Masterminds, host John Koetsier chats with Self Financial's growth marketing lead Paul Kovalski. Paul shares insights on the challenges and opportunities of multi-platform acquisitions, measurement complexities, and effective bidding and optimization strategies. They delve into the significant differences between marketing for finance and mobile games, targeting high-demand audiences, and the role of compliance in advertising. Paul also explores the advantages of humor in ads and the potential of generative AI in creating ad copy. 00:00 Introduction to Multi-Platform Acquisition 01:14 The Rollercoaster Ride of FinTech 02:51 Key Differences in FinTech User Acquisition 04:08 Challenges and Strategies in Multi-Channel Marketing 06:13 Understanding Customer Behavior in FinTech 14:16 Navigating Legalities and Compliance 26:39 The Future of FinTech Marketing 29:01 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

In this special episode of Growth Masterminds, Singular CEO Gadi Eliashiv and John Koetsier connect for an in-depth discussion on Google’s Android Privacy Sandbox announcement. What we cover:

✅ A breakdown of what exactly Google announced
✅ Details of how mobile attribution will work with Privacy Sandbox
✅ Predictions on the future impact on the ecosystem and app marketers

Topics include:

 - the biggest change
- how this ranks next to Apple's ATT
- is the sky falling?
- attribution under Privacy Sandbox
- SDK Runtime
- Google Referrer
- Lack of user consent
- Topics and Fledge
- and ... the future of mobile marketing measurement

Why does a game publisher buy an ad network? What does it bring them? And what is behind this current frenzy of mergers and acquisitions that we're seeing in mobile adtech?

Good questions!

So I asked Zynga and Chartboost. Our conversation happened to be a couple of weeks before the news broke that Take-Two Interactive was buying (errr, acqui-merging) Zynga, and the answers are even more relevant now that that's happened. In this Growth Masterminds we chat with  Zynga Chief Product Officer Scott Koenigsberg and Chartboost CEO Rich Izzo.

Your host, of course, is John Koetsier.

Mobile marketers can live with many of the deficiencies of SKAdNetwork: lack of granularity, lack of immediacy, lack of data richness. But they can't live without predictability. Predictability enables confidence in campaigns and massive capital deployment.

BUT ...

Mobile growth experts have had major challenges making SKAN predictable. As many as 90% of mobile marketers can't get what they need out of SKAdNetwork.

In this episode of Growth Masterminds, we chat with Singular CTO Eran Friedman, who has worked with many massive clients on SKAN and iOS campaigns, on how to achieve predictability with SKAdNetwork.

There's been a ton of change in adtech in 2021. I'm not even sure we know precisely what an ad network is anymore, but we're certainly seeing the rise of a set of new titans of adtech in mobile, companies like Liftoff+Vungle, ironSource, Unity, Applovin, Digital Turbine, and InMobi.

What's driving the growth?

Is it good for mobile marketers?

And, what should we expect from mobile adtech companies in 2022?

To dig into all these questions, we chat with the CEO of Liftoff, Mark Ellis. Of course, since the merger with Vungle, he's now the CEO of Liftoff+Vungle, or whatever they're going to call the new company, Mark's not just the CEO, he's also the founder, and has a deep history in adtech and mobile.

NOTE:

This episode of Growth Masterminds is cross-posted from another podcast: TechFirst by John Koetsier.

If you’re doing mobile marketing on iOS, you pretty much have to use Apple’s SKAdNetwork. But SKAN has serious issues, including privacy-focused censorship thresholds: You don’t get all the data, so you can’t determine device-level granular marketing performance.

That means you can’t get great ROAS and ROI data ... and that makes optimizing advertising hard.

Now, there might be a solution using data science and machine learning to model the missing conversions and re-surface the missing data.

To check it out, we’re chatting with Singular product manager Evyatar Ram.

What can we learn about the future of mobile from China?

The Chinese mobile market is the largest on the planet, and has uniquely Chinese characteristics: super apps, social livestream shopping, key opinion leaders and fan economies, and more.

In this episode of Growth Masterminds, we chat with Moonie Zhu, co-founder of ETOC (E-commerce to China) about the Chinese market, how to enter it, what's different, what we can learn from it, and more ...

We chat with InMobi CEO Abhay Singhal on Epic vs Apple, IDFA and iOS 14.5, and especially the company's new InMobi Telco on-device platform.

"There are over 800 telcos in the world and each one, if you talk to them today, has an ambition of becoming a large media company," Singhal says.

We're seeing on-device ad platforms achieve significant success, with companies like ironSource Aura, AppNext, and Digital Turbine scoring very high on the 2021 Singular ROI Index. Most of them include on-device app discovery via a persistent experience on new devices and a set-up wizard upon activation. They can tie into the home and/or lock screens, and offer live updates on new apps to try.

We also chat about IDFA and iOS 14.5, the Epic Games vs Apple legal settlement impacting third-party payment options on iOS, and much more ...

0:00 On-device app discovery

3:10 Lock screen and home screen ads

5:09 Telcos as media companies

8:11 Custom version of Android?

9:32 iOS 14 and IDFA

14:40 Apple vs Epic Games

Monetization and retention can seem like the opposite ends of a continuum ... a zero-sum game where focusing on monetization kills retention.

Not necessarily, says AppLike CEO Jonas Thiemann. AdJoe, one of their brands, has a unique ad placement that earns players money for installing and playing games they're interested in ... including the game they saw the ad in.

He says it's the perfect balancing of incentives between users, publishers, and advertisers, and that's why 80 out of the top 100 grossing apps on Android are using AdJoe, users are making $20-20 a month, and some publishers are taking home six-figure paydays daily.

First-party data? Content fortresses? Incrementality?

2020 was crazy for everyone. 2021 is crazier for mobile marketers, who are facing complete disruption in how they keep score, measure success, and report on growth.

Attribution's not gone, but it is changing. You still get some last-click data in iOS with SKAdNetwork, and of course on Android, but it's less clear, less direct, and -- for Android -- probably not long-lived. What other data do you have to measure the impact of your marketing?

That exactly what we chat about with Tinuiti's Liz Emery ... possibly the smartest agency-based marketer. We chat about iOS 14.5, Android 12, Facebook AMM (advanced mobile measurement) deprecation, opportunities, media mix modeling, incrementality, first-party data, mergers & acquisitions, and much, much more.

We end with this: what will remain true in marketing ... regardless of technology, data, and regulation changes?

0:00 Everything is broken

1:49 Attribution + more data

5:04 In-app analytics for marketers

6:28 Historical data for marketers

8:28 Flight to Android?

10:39 Facebook Advanced Mobile Measurement (AMM)

14:02 Android app set ID and more

16:19 First party data

18:12 Mergers & acquisitions & content fortresses

22:06 Owned media, lifecycle marketing, social

23:52 Agencies and mobile marketing

27:37 Liz rocks

We’ve had more billion-dollar adtech acquisitions in the first quarter of 2021than in the previous several years combined, according to LUMA.

What’s going on?

Could it be … all the talk of third-party cookie deprecation? The reality of the IDFA apocalypse? New levels of competition? Changing marketing channels and opportunities? Or … a new emphasis on platform services and first-party data?

We’re going to find out.

Vungle is part of this acquisition frenzy. Vungle has acquired no fewer than 4 companies in the past 9 months, including, most recently, JefFuel, an influencer marketing platform. Today we’re chatting with Vungle’s SVP of Revenue, Scott Silverman, about why.

How do you sell your mobile app?

Sometimes you're just not the right person or company to take your app to the next level. You need more cash, or you need marketing expertise that you don't have.

Well, then you might need to sell your app to another publisher, studio, investor, or app aggregator.

Welcome to Growth Masterminds! In this episode, host John Koetsier chats with app sales expert Charlie Ryan, founder of AppFlip. They chat about why publishers might want to sell their apps, who is looking to buy them, and how to value an app.

With insights on evergreen app categories, the shift to subscription models, and the complexities of app acquisition, this episode is a goldmine for anyone interested in selling -- or buying -- a mobile app.

00:00 Introduction to App Aggregators

01:17 Why Publishers Sell Their Apps

02:46 Who Buys Apps and Why

07:07 Valuing Mobile Apps

13:21 Popular App Categories and Trends

19:38 Advice for Small Publishing Houses

22:41 Common Oversights When Buying Apps

24:24 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Many mobile marketers are less than happy with Apple's new iOS 14.5 and SKAdNetwork, Apple's privacy-safe mobile advertising attribution framework. 

But developers and publishers of kids' apps are not among them.

In fact, SKAdNetwork might just be the best thing that's happened to kids' apps. Now, as Kidoz co-CEO Eldad Ben Tora says, marketers can actually do user acquisition at scale for kids' apps. And publishers can monetize safely via ads.

In this podcast ...

0:00 Intro

0:44 Kids' apps market size

5:17 What is Kidoz?

11:38 User acquisition for kids apps

15:01 Marketing to kids vs parents

17:38 Monetization of kids' apps

23:06 Integration with Singular

25:00 Why focus on kids?

Now.gg is launching a new cloud gaming service. And while there are dozens of startups and giant tech companies doing the same, Now.gg is from Bluestacks, which has over 500 million users play Android games on the web.

Now gaming is moving to the cloud.

And that means huge changes for marketers and user acquisition specialists. While it's early days, being able to market a game by sharing a link that someone can start playing a game with instantly is an entirely different ball game than marketing an Android or iOS app.

In this episode of Growth Masterminds (check out the audio podcast!) I chat with Ben Armstrong, a Bluestacks and Now.gg VP, about the new service, about what it means for mobile, and about how marketers can take advantage of it.

Check the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXJmxzOOaFk

Check the story here: https://www.singular.net/blog/cloud-gaming-user-acquisition/

The list of Western apps that have made it big in China is not long. There are some great games on that list, including ones from major studios Supercell and Riot Games. Games like Cut the Rope and Fruit Ninja made the cut, and Subway Surfers and PUBG are big globally as well as in China.

But as Josh Burns explains, it’s probably easier to list the apps that failed.

He has a lot of experience with apps in general and China in particular. 

As a former exec at 6waves and EA and founder of DigitalDevConnect, Burns has helped launch games for Kabam, Nexon, and Atari. He’s managed games with IP from Disney, Starz, Eminem, and the BBC. Now, among a few other things, Burns helps top grossing mobile games enter the China market.

I chatted with him recently, and along with a lot of advice about what NOT to do, he shared 12 keys to success in bringing mobile apps to China. 

Here’s his best insight about taking apps and games from the west and bringing them east. If you'd prefer to read this than watch this, the 12 keys are available on the Singular blog:

https://www.singular.net/blog/mobile-app-success-in-china/

What is happening in the mobile adtech ecosystem?

Is it the rise of platforms? The need for size to fight the heavyweight contenders of mobile advertising? Consolidation to accumulate and stockpile more first-party data in an era of increasingly scarce second and third party information? Or just a need to acquire revenue on the path to going public?

Whatever it is, we are seeing a massive acceleration in mergers and acquisitions in the mobile marketing and adtech ecosystems. Applovin bought Adjust, Vungle bought GameRefinery, Verve bought Nexstar. District M and Sharethrough. Magnite (formerly Rubicon) bought SpotX just a few months ago … and, of course, the ink has barely dried on the $400 million Digital Turbine acquisition of AdColony.

In this episode of Growth Masterminds, we chat with Offer Yehudai, president at Fyber, and Matt Tubergen, EVP corporate development and strategy at Digital Turbine about their deal ... and the wider implications in the ecosystem.

SKAdNetwork-compatible mobile ad inventory is hard to come by these days. Fortunately, Snap is ready, and Singular and Snap are announcing a joint solution for SKAdNetwork campaign measurement. 

For all the details, we check in with Singular product marketing manager Saadi Muslu in this episode of Growth Masterminds.

Perhaps even more interesting?

Like Facebook but unlike Google, Snap has decided to show the App Tracking Transparency prompt. And the results, according to our recent IDFA survey data, could be extremely important for the ecosystem as a whole.

All the details in the episode, or here in the blog post:

https://www.singular.net/blog/snapchat-skadnetwork/

Facebook automated app ads are smart and useful ads that take elements of creative you supply, mix and match them according to Facebook’s secret alchemy of advertising success, and automate the process of targeting, delivery, customization, and even — if you wish — setting budgets.

There’s one small problem.

You can’t analyze everything you might want to. 

In this brief episode of Growth Masterminds, we chat with Singular product manager Evyatar Ram about how you actually can analyze Facebook AAA ads by country and creative assets simultaneously.

We are down to the short strokes now: Apple’s iOS 14.5 will roar in next week or soon after, changing mobile marketing on iPhone and iPad forever. But is the mobile advertising ecosystem ready? Is there SKAdNetwork-ready ad supply from mobile publishers? And how will MMPs, mobile web customer journeys, and deep links work?

In short: there are still a lot of questions.

I spent some time with Jonathan Chen, who leads Singular’s attribution product and manages integration with top partners, to answer these questions.

Can you fingerprint users in iOS 14? Or, in other words, use probabilistic attribution?

There’s been a ton of questions about this. Some vendors have said yes, and in fact there are some circumstances where fingerprinting is OK. But Apple has said fingerprinting is not OK in cases where people have not granted tracking permission.

So what’s OK, and what’s not?

We’re chatting with Eran Friedman, CTO of Singular, who’s been working with SKAdNetwork for the past six to nine months

What is App Tracking Transparency? When do you need to use it? Can you measure marketing effectiveness without it? How can you ensure you are ATT compliant?

Welcome to Growth Masterminds, with John Koetsier

There are a ton of questions about iOS 14 and Apple’s new IDFA rules, and ATT is at the heart of them. Today we are going to ask Singular CTO Eran Friedman all of them :-)

If you’re a marketer who is wondering how to navigate the new privacy-safe reality in Apple environments, Mixtiles is a good company to look to for insight:

 - Super-fast growth over the past few years

 - Hot D2C (direct to consumer) category

 - Heavily focused on iOS

 - Overwhelmingly multi-channel and multi-platform user journeys

 - Not dependent on IDFA

In this episode of Growth Masterminds, we chat with Mixtiles co-founder Eytan Levit, who shares his insight on mobile marketing now.

How do you achieve a 9-figure exit in mobile gaming? In this episode of Growth Masterminds, host John Koetsier chats with Daniel Stammler, co-founder of Kolibri Games, known for the Idle Tycoon series. Daniel shares his journey from dropping out of university in 2016 to selling his game studio to Ubisoft for a nine-figure sum. They discuss the appeal of idle games, the challenges faced entering a crowded mobile game market, and key strategies that led to their success, including rigorous research and an agile development process. Daniel also offers insights on the current mobile gaming landscape, investible opportunities, and the importance of balancing commercial sense with creative passion. 00:00 Introduction: Is It Too Late for Mobile Gaming? 00:54 The Appeal of Idle Games 02:15 Starting a Game Studio in 2016 03:39 Keys to Success: Luck and Strategy 06:02 Building and Launching the First Game 09:25 The Importance of Agile Development 13:18 Current Mobile Gaming Landscape 20:46 Investing in Mobile Games 26:21 Challenges and Future of Mobile Gaming 33:11 Conclusion: Insights and Final Thoughts

Singular CTO Eran Friedman talks about challenges with SKAdNetwork: getting enough supply side data, and ensuring you hit privacy thresholds to get data not just in number of total instals, but also total installs for each of several key parameters ...

In other words ... it’s about much more than getting, or not getting, the IDFA.

How do you get from Hello World to Clash of Clans?

Marketing analytics help you grow, but there’s different needs at different stages of development ... from just starting out ... to having a global big-money winner.

To dive into how those needs change over time, we’re chatting with Claire Rozain.

She leads UA at Product Madness, and has been at Match, Mappy, and multiple other brands before. And she's managed marketing from bare-bones in-the-garage all the way up to the biggest brands and the largest scale.

ROAS is perhaps the most foundational KPI in mobile marketing. The big question for 2021 is: can you still calculate ROAS in iOS 14?

“First and foremost, I think we should recognize that there is still … IDFA, because users might opt-in,” says Singular VP of product Alon Nafta. “But if we go to SKAdNetwork — which let’s assume is the common case — it’s not like you don’t have anything. The SKAdNetwork framework does give you a few elements that if used correctly ... advertisers can expect to get something sensible.”

Short version: yes.

Slightly longer version: there are some challenges.

True ROI calculation requires complete data. You've got data on your In-app purchase, of course. But most mobile publishers also have ad monetization data. The question is: how do you get all of it together … match it up … and figure out true ROI based on your actual cost of user acquisition?

To get more details, we’re chatting with Lisi Gardiner, Senior Product Manager for Analytics for Singular. And we'd better be fast: we're keeping her from weekend pizza and wine.

Every marketer would love to have a single source of truth. With iOS 14, SKAdNetwork is yet another source of marketing data to add to the long list.

In this episode of Growth Masterminds, we chat with Singular's director of product marketing Saadi Muslu, who shares what Singular is doing to integrate this new data source with all the others.

One of the things Saadi mentions is the Mobile Attribution Privacy Group, a Slack group dedicated to plotting a privacy-safe path through all the new mobile attribution minefields. She also invites all listeners to join it.

Here's the link:
https://join.slack.com/t/mapworkinggroup/shared_invite/zt-9vlvhtzn-bqUVQ1zn3o1UorDNIodvZg

What does fraud look like in iOS 14 with SK ad network?

In this episode of Growth Masterminds we chat with Yonatan Komornik, the head of fraud prevention at Singular. You might think that since Apple cryptographically signs every install that is attributed via SKAdNetwork that iOS 14 could be fraud-free, but there are at least 3 ways fraudsters can still cheat app install advertisers.

We chat about each one, and then how to solve them ...

How do you manage, monitor, and optimize conversions in iOS 14 with SKAdNetwork?

Welcome to a special version of Growth Masterminds. Today, we're chatting with Ron Koenigsberg, the chief architect at Singular 

Our topic: customized conversions in iOS 14. In brief, we're talking about how to optimize for growth with SKAdNetwork by implementing Singular's smart conversion management.

We chat with Singular CTO Eran Friedman about SKAN, Singular's open-source framework for SKAdNetwork.

The key goals: 

 - identify the top challenges

 - maximize use of your 100 campaign IDs

 - manage the data from SKAdNetwork and bring it all together

 - reduce fraud

 - simplify conversion management ... and optimize conversion methodologies on the fly

 - combine SKAdNetwork data with IDFA data and data from other sources

 - and more!

How do pink cows, purple velvet shoes, and stone pillows help you beat the competition?

Well, they probably don't. But creativity will.

In this episode of Growth Masterminds, we chat with Lee Eisenhuth, who leads design at PeopleFun. They make games like Wordscapes. We also chat with Alice Guillaume, the Senior Director of Marketing at Applovin. She left a Wall Street job with Morgan Stanley to do something much more interesting: mobile marketing.

We chat about:

 - magic in marketing

 - process

 - A/B testing

 - luck

 - what ads work for clicks, and what ads work for conversions, and why they're different

 ... and much more!

Lomit Patel leads growth at IMVU. Before that, he led performance and digital marketing for Roku. He also ran customer acquisition at Texture, which Apple acquired and turned into Apple News+

At IMVU, Lomit cut customer acquisition cost by a factor of three. And, he's now recouping the cost of advertising 3X faster than before.

How?

Artificial intelligence, intelligently applied.

In this podcast episode, we'll chat with Lomit to learn what he did, how he did it, and what the results are. 

What data will you get when Google unleashes Privacy Sandbox for Android? And how will you need to set up your conversion models? Privacy Sandbox isn't fully here yet, but you can already check how you'll want to set up campaigns and what events or revenue you'd like to track. How? Using Singular's new simulator for Privacy Sandbox. As Google Ad ID phases out, the discussion focuses on how marketers can adapt and what data they can expect. In this Growth Masterminds, Singular's CTO Eran Friedman introduces the Privacy Sandbox Simulator tool that helps simulate potential scenarios and optimize data strategy. He and host John Koetsier cover various APIs within Privacy Sandbox, the customizability of data points, and the challenges of balancing data precision with noise. This episode is a must-watch for marketers seeking to understand and navigate the future of marketing analytics in a privacy-first world. 00:00 Introduction to Privacy Sandbox 01:13 Overview of Privacy Sandbox Features 02:40 Deep Dive into Attribution Reporting API 06:25 Exploring the Privacy Sandbox Simulator 10:55 Customizing Your Privacy Sandbox Setup 15:42 Practical Scenarios and Simulations 27:11 Conclusion and Next Steps

You've heard of walking softly and carrying a big stick? Allison Schiff talks softly and carries a massive stick ... with a great sense of humor. 

In this episode of Growth Masterminds, we take a peek behind the martech and adtech curtain with a reporter who's covering all the biggest stories in the space.

What we talk about:

 - You have a very broad view of the martech and adtech ecosystem, and what’s happening in it. It really feels like an era of major change right now with lots up in the air … the death of cookies, the threat to IDFA, increased legislation and demand for privacy … what are the major changes happening right now in your opinion?

- I want to chat about the ROI Index Singular just released. I’ll mention the name of a platform … you tell me what comes to mind ...
- TikTok
- Facebook & Google
- Apple Search Ads
- Amazon
- Twitter, Snap
- AdColony … Vungle … Liftoff … Applovin
- Unity

 - Sometimes you get to see behind the curtain of some major marketing platforms or ad networks. Tell us something we don’t know …

 - We’ve seen plenty of startups worshipping the goddess of growth-at-all-costs in the super-funded startups of the last few years, perhaps thanks to a cash-as-a-strategy effort by Softbank and others pouring money into a leading contender in the space. That seems to be changing now .. how do you think that will impact advertising and marketing?

 - What kind of advertising do you personally like? What works on you?

 - How do you see the marketing world changing in the next few years? And how do you want it to change?

Show notes and a transcript will be available at Singular's blog shortly.

Jayne Peressini started her career with Glu Mobile in London, then worked for Cisco, Razorfish, Reddit, and Machine Zone. She is now the senior director of growth marketing for DraftKings.

We talk about:

The state of adtech ... what's changing, what’s working, and what’s broken.

Fraud

Scaling ad spend

Safe ways to grow fast

Measurement and privacy

Attribution and incrementality

Metrics that matter

And ... her best advice for growth marketers … on messaging, advertising campaigns, building a team, when to scale, and how to scale.

We talk to mobile growth expert Thomas Petit on ASO, conversion optimization, the duopoly, how indies can still succeed, getting featured by Google and Apple, and much, much, much more!

Thomas Petit is a mobile growth consultant for Deezer, Lingokids, Playspace, AppAgent, and many more companies. He's spoken at App Growth Summit, App Promotion Summit, Mobile Growth Europe, ASO Conference, and that's just the first part of the list. And he's a frequent contributor to MobileDevMemo.

We talk to Lauren Clinnick and Christina Chen of Lumi Interactive, a small games studio in Melbourne Australia about how they got the apps featured by Apple and Google six times ... and what that did for their business.

We also talk about growing a small studio, being a woman in tech and in games, and how to know when it's time to scale your app.

Eric worked for Skype. He was VP of user acquisition for Rovio. He was head of platform for N3TWORK. He built Agamemnon and runs Mobile Dev Memo. In this episode, we talk about: the biggest changes in mobile the elimination of the IDFA the impact of GDPR and CCPA scaling marketing beyond the initial easy wins the increasingly important role of creative in advertising the problems with programmatic the triumvirate is the new duopoly: Google, Facebook, and Amazon the rise of Amazon incrementality is everything and much more!

Do you need a Google-specific creative strategy? In this episode of Growth Masterminds, we chat with a former googler, now UA consultant, about why the answer is ... YES. Her name is Ashley Black, and host John Koetsier chats with her to unravel the complexities of Google's ad platform. Ashley, who spent nearly a decade at Google, discusses the critical importance of having a Google-specific creative strategy, the intricacies of different ad formats on YouTube, and tips for optimizing Google ad campaigns. They also delve into the challenges and strategies related to ad performance, data insights, and new developments like Apple's Ad Attribution Kit. Watch or listen to this episode to learn how to maximize your ad spend on the world's largest ad platform and get insider tips on succeeding with Google Ads. 00:00 Introduction to Google Ads and Creative Strategy 01:19 Transitioning from Google to Running a Growth Agency 04:25 Insights on Apple's Ad Attribution Kit 07:16 Understanding Google's Ad Placements and Creative Strategy 12:48 Optimizing Google Ads: Tips and Tricks 18:21 Optimizing Google Ads Campaigns 18:58 Challenges with iOS and Android 20:21 The Role of Trust in User Tracking 21:27 Comparing Google and Meta Platforms 23:48 Privacy Sandbox and Ad Tech 30:24 Final Thoughts and Tips for Google Ads

How do you pick an offer wall for your mobile app? There are dozens of tools and services ... how do you decide which one is best for you? In this episode of Growth Masterminds, we dive into the world of offer walls and their impact on app monetization and user acquisition. Join us as we chat with Alex Hrankin, CEO of Scrambly, and Massimo Caroli, founder of MAF, to uncover the best strategies for integrating offer walls into your app. Growth Masterminds host John Koetsier asked Alex and Massimo about the benefits, pitfalls, and important considerations when choosing the right offer wall for your audience ... including how and when offer walls could be bad for your app. Discover how to balance monetization without compromising user experience, why the loyalty and offer wall space is booming, and how to create engaging user journeys that drive retention and revenue. Tune in for expert insights on leveraging offer walls for sustainable app growth. 00:00 Introduction to Offer Walls 01:02 Understanding Offer Walls: Basics and Benefits 02:44 Monetization Strategies with Offer Walls 05:53 Challenges and Pitfalls of Offer Walls 09:46 Designing Effective Offer Walls 11:35 Choosing the Right Offer Wall for Your App 15:55 The Growing Popularity of Loyalty Apps and Offer Walls 19:00 Historical Context and Evolution of Offer Walls 24:23 Current Trends and Future Outlook 26:45 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

What are the 5 things you need to know to succeed in influencer marketing in 2024? In this episode of Growth Masterminds, host John Koetsier discusses the ever-evolving landscape of influencer marketing with Kristina Nikeenko, the Influencer Marketing Director at Zorka. They cover everything from the projected $24 billion market value in 2024 to platform-specific strategies, the importance of data-driven decisions, AI integration, and building long-term partnerships with influencers. Also, you'll learn the five key strategies you need to know to succeed in influencer marketing in 2024 and stay ahead of the game. 00:00 Introduction to Influencer Marketing in 2024 01:09 The State of the Influencer Marketing Industry 04:38 YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok 10:56 Top 5 Tips for Influencer Marketing in 2024 13:33 Long-Term Partnerships and Post-Campaign Analysis 18:50 Conclusion

What is happening in mobile gaming in 2024? Apparently old people game more than young, casual’s growing everywhere. The market as a whole is growing, and daily engagement jumped back up after a decline last year. I recently saw that Adjoe put out a Mobile Games Index 2024 and I wanted to know more, so in this episode of Growth Masterminds, we discuss the latest trends in mobile gaming with Carly Ostasiewski, director of growth at Adjoe. The find unexpected insights from the 2024 Mobile Games Index report, including older demographics outpacing younger ones in mobile game engagement and the rise of casual gaming across various age groups. Key points include the transition from traditional console gaming to mobile, a surge in adventure and action game popularity among kids, and a significant increase in gaming app monetization through integrated ads. Additionally, the report shows that European players lead in daily app usage and explores the growing role of women in gaming. We also touch on the potential integration of gaming with everyday app usage, hinting at a future where gaming becomes a central component of consumer experiences across platforms. 00:00 Introduction and Surprising Gaming Trends 01:19 Demographics and Gaming Preferences 02:37 Kids and Mobile Gaming: The Reality 04:12 Roblox and the Younger Demographic 06:12 Gaming Industry Trends and Monetization 14:51 Regional Gaming Trends 17:05 Future of Gaming: Integration with Everyday Apps 19:22 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Goodbye SKAdNetwork, hello AdAttributionKit. Or AAK, or AdKit.

In this special episode of Growth Masterminds, we dive into Apple's new ad attribution kit, announced at WWDC. We discuss the nuances of the new version, not exactly SKAN 5, and its support for third-party app stores and reengagement campaigns.

The episode features in-depth insights from Singular CEO Gadi Eliashiv and CTO Eran Friedman, emphasizing the changes, improvements, and expectations for adoption in the ecosystem. Additionally, they touch upon the future of measurement on iOS, the interplay with Privacy Sandbox on Android, and what it means for app developers and advertisers.

00:00 Welcome to Growth Masterminds

01:09 Understanding AdAttributionKit

02:58 Reengagement and Debugging Enhancements

05:46 Backward Compatibility and Postback Formats

10:03 Deep Dive into Retargeting

17:12 Creative Types and Engagement Types

23:20 Exploring SKOverlay and Its Implications

25:19 Understanding SK interaction Types and Attribution Windows

25:47 Custom Click Ads and Alternative App Stores

28:16 Adoption Challenges and Future Predictions

35:47 The Future of Measurement on iOS

39:34 Privacy Sandbox and Android

41:20 Q&A and Final Thoughts

WWDC kicked off today and SKAdNetwork is nowhere to be found. Instead, we have App AdAttributionKit and Web AdAttributionKit (say that 3X fast, we dare you!) and not much detail about where SKAN is going.

Out guest today, however, thinks that there' won't be a SKAN 5 or a SKAN 6, and that there will just be new AdAttributionKit releases from time to time. And that all the juicy new tech promised for future SKAN versions is actually here ...

So ...

Join host John Koetsier in this episode of Growth Masterminds as he explores the future of ad attribution and privacy compliance post-WWDC with guest David Phillipson, CEO of DataSeat.

They discuss the potential end of SKAdNetwork, the introduction of Apple's App AdAttributionKit and Web AdAttributionKit, and the challenges and implications for the ad tech industry. They delve into the reliability of modeled attribution data from media giants like Google, Meta, and TikTok, and the evolving modeling strategies used to overcome privacy blind spots.

Also, David shares his personal journey into ad tech (which is interesting!), lessons from successful entrepreneurs, and the importance of unified measurement in a privacy-focused world.

If you're looking to understand the impacts of Apple's recent announcements and the future of ad attribution, this episode is a must-watch (and you know this is absolutely 100% true because ChatGPT wrote this part of the show notes ... but not this sarcastic little note.)

00:00 Introduction and Opening Thoughts

00:16 The Reliability of Ad Attribution Data

00:45 WWDC and Apple's New Releases

01:05 Introducing the Guest: David Phillipson

04:45 Discussion on SKAN and Ad Attribution

07:34 Challenges and Adoption of SKAN

12:49 Future of Ad Attribution and Privacy

18:51 Unified Measurement and Market Trends

29:30 Final Thoughts and Predictions

32:53 Closing Remarks

What will Unity focus on under its new CEO, Matt Bromberg? In this episode of Growth Masterminds, host John Koetsier talks with Unity's new CEO, Matt Bromberg, about the company's recent developments and future goals. They discuss Unity's controversial pricing model change, the importance of Unity in the gaming industry, and the challenges of profitability. Bromberg shares insights on Unity's role in mobile game development, AI integration, data-driven advertising strategies, and the company's unique position in the gaming and broader app economy. The conversation emphasizes focus, innovation, and the potential for growth within the competitive landscape of mobile advertising. 00:00 Introduction to Growth Masterminds 01:14 Unity's Role in Gaming 04:05 Monetization Strategies and Ad Network Potential 10:49 AI and the Future of Game Development 17:31 AI in Advertising and Final Thoughts

How do you achieve insane mobile app retention rates? One way is magic. Another is pure accident. The third is by applying smart frameworks to science (and magic) your way to better retention. In this episode of Growth Mastermind, host John Koetsier speaks with mobile growth expert Jacob Rushfinn about achieving high app retention rates. They discuss four frameworks for tackling retention: Darius Contractor's Psych Framework, RICE Prioritization (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort), Eisenhower's prioritization matrix, and Elena Verna’s Conversion Rate Decline Diagnostic. Jacob shares insights from his diverse experience at companies like Balance, Level Up, Amwell, and Automattic. The conversation covers the practical application of these frameworks, the value of early user engagement, and the impact of better retention metrics on long-term success. 00:00 Introduction to Killer App Retention 01:15 The Journey into Retention 04:27 Understanding Frameworks for Retention 07:26 The Psych Framework Explained 14:16 Framework Number Two: RICE Prioritization 20:06 Balancing Quick Wins and Big Bets 21:14 The RICE Approach to Prioritization 21:49 Eisenhower's Prioritization Matrix 25:48 Elena Verna's Conversion Rate Decline Diagnostic 33:58 The Impact of Better Retention 38:32 Final Thoughts and Resources

Should you stop A/B testing creative right now? In this episode of Growth Masterminds, host John Koetsier chats with Ellad Matarasso, Director of Growth at Alison.ai. They discuss the limitations of traditional A/B testing in growth marketing and how Google and Meta do essentially massively multivariate simultaneous testing. Matarasso shares insights on how AI can analyze creative elements frame by frame and correlate them with performance data, thereby recommending the best combinations to maximize ad campaigns. They also chat about the importance of creative in advertising, common mistakes marketers make, and emerging trends such as generative AI in creative production. 00:00 Stop A/B Testing? 00:31 The Evolution of A/B Testing 01:54 How Allison.ai Tests 07:12 How Important is Creative? 12:59 Human Creativity vs. AI 15:51 Trends in Creative Optimization 17:04 Challenges with Major Platforms 19:11 Conclusion and Final Thoughts