The Mobile User Acquisition Show

Is there a secret to achieving better retention? Marketers and app developers are often asked the same question - how can we improve retention? Unfortunately, while there is no magic formula for this, in today’s episode, we’re sharing one strategy that helped us improve retention rates which further rippled into better monetization. This could be something worth trying if you are working on improv...

Danika Wilkinson is a product marketer at Social Point, where she is responsible for the overall, high level marketing strategy of one of their games. She strategises all aspects of game marketing, and guides UA specialists in performance analysis and optimisations. Today’s conversation is an update on a topic that we discussed with Danika the last time we spoke with her on the Mobile User Acquisi...

LTV: a metric that is central to marketing decisioning. While it is an important metric to decide further budget allocations, it’s important to understand that there is no one single objective way to define this.  In this short episode, we outline the different ways in which LTV can be defined - there is no one single correct way, and why it’s important to be clear about exactly what definition we...

In today’s episode, we’re in conversation with Jerome Turnbull. Jerome is Vice President of Growth at AppLovin where he helps fuel user acquisition and ad monetization for the games made by AppLovin's partner studios. Jerome played a key role during the launch of Project Makeover- a game that topped the charts in just 4 days of launching with over 5 million downloads.  Today, we deconstruct h...

App Store Optimization is often discussed as a key component in app scaling strategies. In this episode, we see why this isn’t really the best way to grow an app. Shamanth also highlights that the difference in search behaviours on Google vs. an app store is what led to ASO taking a backseat in his methods. ** Note: As you may have seen, the second cohort of our workshop series, Mobile Growth Lab...

Today’s guest Aurora Kl æ boe Berg is the COO of Medal.tv. Medal.tv is the largest platform for recording and sharing short gaming clips among friends. She was previously the co-founder and CEO of Megacool, which was acquired by Medal.tv in 2019. Before starting Megacool she held the position as VP of Business and Marketing at Dirtybit, the Norwegian indie game studio sensation behind the successf...

Today's episode is a reading of an article I wrote for our friends at Liftoff in 2019. While mobile and marketing have come a LONG way since then - with platform and algo changes, and of course Apple's privacy policy changes, this article is a useful reminder that many of the fundamentals and principles underlying scaling haven't changed all that much - and there are some principles...

In one of our previous episodes, we discussed how media mix modelling might not be the best bet post-IDFA. However, some of you have reached out to say that it isnt quite as black and white - and that media mix models could be more widely applicable than what we’d outlined.  To throw some more light on this, we have Brian Krebs, founder and CEO of MetricWorks, who has seen first-hand the success o...

Today’s episode is a recording of a webinar hosted by Singular and moderated by John Koetsier. We were joined by Eran Friedman from Singular, Pedro Ponce de Leon from Liftoff, and Ben Holmes from Adcolony. This episode (and webinar) gives you the low down on everything that’s happening and working across the iOS ecosystem a few months after the introduction of ATT. We talk about how extended proba...

A big change that’s coming to SKAdNetwork with iOS 15 is one that’s under-the-hood - and it’s significant because it addresses a big shortcoming of SKAdNetwork right now by allowing apples-to-apples comparison between all networks - including Facebook, Google and other SANs. In today’s episode we explain the mechanics of how things work now, how they’ve shifted from the way they used to - and why...

The landscape of Apple Search Ads has changed, but unlike the changes in SKAdNetwork that have impacted most mobile channels, these changes have been far more subtle and nuanced - and yet are very critical. Today we unpack these changes in the Apple Search Ads landscape with one of the best in the business - Thomas Petit. Thomas is an independent mobile growth consultant working primarily with non...

Media mix modeling is being touted as one of the ways forward in the post-IDFA world, as advertisers reel and reevaluate their spend allocation models entirely. However, there are inherent requirements for media mix to not only work and generate useful results, but also be implemented in the first place. In this episode, we talk about those challenges, why they are challenges in the first place, a...

Today we’ll talk about big changes that have just come to AAA campaigns on Facebook - which should alleviate many of the concerns about AAA that we had shared earlier on this podcast. These could be a big deal, especially on iOS with the recent privacy changes. Highlights: 💨 While AAA can be hugely powerful, they also have had some critical limitations. ⚙️ Facebook is changing AAA to give more co...

Apple is finally set to introduce A/B testing to its app store, and it has come not a minute too soon. Mobile marketers have used alternative ways to get these results, and they have not been the best solutions for many reasons. With this new release imminent, in this episode, we set expectations of what is and isn’t possible. Key highlights ⛏️ No more hacky A/B testing workarounds 🏄 What to expe...

Seems organic, but is paid. Long user funnel, with high CTR. In this episode, with our guest, Violeta Pirnog, Senior Performance Marketing Manager at Blinkist,  we are unpacking the bundle of seeming contradictions that are native ads on Facebook.  Right from user flows to testing parameters, Violeta takes us meticulously through the art of the soft sell. We are used to attention-grabbing creative...

Among the big changes that are coming with iOS 15 are custom product pages, which offer the ability to customize app store pages for different audiences.   In this episode we review some use cases for custom product pages, discuss implications for analytics and tracking. We are excited to try out custom product pages, and explore the added opportunity to design end-to-end user flows from ad to app...

We are excited today to welcome Nahir Garcia, head of user acquisition at Etermax, creators of the successful series of games Trivia Crack. [Note: this is the English version of the Spanish episode that we released a few weeks ago]. In today’s episode, Nahir tells us about the types of influencers out there, how to evaluate their fit with a game, how to give guidelines, how to schedule campaigns,...

Apple’s privacy thresholds in SKAdNetwork have been obfuscating conversion values - and preventing advertisers from getting an accurate read on performance, especially on Facebook. Facebook recommended ensuring that you hit at least 128 installs a day per campaign so you can overcome Apple's privacy thresholds. Will hitting the 128 install daily threshold solve your problems? How does this pr...

We’re 2 months into ATT - and more of the dust has settled. Many advertisers are continuing to see challenges with their performance right now as the actual impact of traffic without user-level data is becoming increasingly visible. Yet, there are some strategies and opportunities available still. Based on our review of 15+ accounts across verticals and different budget levels, we see some element...

Our guest today is Sophie Vo, studio and game lead at Voodoo, and founder of Rise and Play, a knowledge sharing platform for leaders in the gaming industry. In our conversation today, we talk about Sophie’s experience building a new gaming studio focused on producing casual games within Voodoo, a company better known in the hyper casual space. In today’s conversation, Sophie tells us about how she...

Este es nuestro segundo episodio del Mobile User Acquisition Show en Español. (An English version of this episode will follow shortly!). Estamos emocionados de dar la bienvenida a Nahir Garcia, la jefa de adquisición de usuarios en Etermax, los creadores de la exitosa serie de juegos Trivia Crack. Hoy hablaremos sobre un tema en que Nahir tiene una perspectiva única - como trabajar con influencers...

This episode was inspired by a discussion I’ve had online recently. I’ve seen this stated at times - that developers should diversify their user acquisition channel mix. Investing is given as an analogy - the argument is made that a diversified portfolio is safer than one that isn't. BUT this is BAD advice for any app or product that isnt at massive scale(or ~$100k/month) - I say more in this...

“If multiple app stores do the same thing(as Apple did with ATT), I see this as a disruption to business.” Now that the IDFA rug has well and truly been pulled from advertisers’ feet, there has been a scramble to refactor strategies and create new protocols. But, as Jayne Peressini points out, Apple iOS is just one platform. What happens if other platforms follow suit, and also pull the plug on ex...

Last week, we talked about what’s up with Facebook - and this week we’re taking a look at what’s happening with Google post iOS 14.5/ATT. What is changing, what is working with creatives, reporting and day to day ops - and what is a big hot mess right now? It’s been just over a month since Apple pulled the trigger on iOS 14.5 - and in this episode we wanted to highlight the key changes that we are...

What’s happening with Facebook? What is changing, what is working with creatives, reporting and day to day ops - and what is a big hot mess right now?  It’s just under a month since ATT and iOS 14.5 - and we have a clear early read of what is happening. In today’s episode we survey the landscape of Facebook ads post ATT - and speak about the key challenges and opportunities we see. ** By the way,...