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:
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.
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
