Business of Apps Podcast

#126: Consumer Subscription Apps: opportunities & challenges with Eric Crowley, Partner at GP Bullhound

On this podcast, we had app marketers, developers, advertisers, and experts in various areas of the app industry. All these people shared their expertise, gave their take on challenging questions, and shared their dreams and hopes for the industry.
Today, I want to give you a perspective from somebody who is, in my opinion, in the best position to give us a bird-view of the app industry and talk about where are and where we’re going.
Eric will cover multiple bases, giving us the highlights from the Consumer Subscription Software report, issued by GP Bullhound investment bank recently.
Today’s Topics Include:
The current state of the app market
The most dynamic and promising app categories of today
Obstacles and roadblocks for the app industry today
How Eric assesses the app's potential, what KPIs are considered
One-time customers vs loyal ones, tourists vs locals
App Subscription Renewal rates
New app user acquisition channels
What app owners need to prepare to sell their apps or fundraise
Android or iOS? iOS
Eric's  first mobile phone was a Cingular Wireless Touchphone
What features would Jennie miss most? WhatsApp and iMessage
What’s missing from mobile app technology? Software, hardware, or magic that allow people to isolate themselves from their phones for several hours a day.
Links and Resources:
Eric Crowley on LinkedIn
BP Bullhound
Consumer Subscription Software 2022 - The Evolution of CSS
Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry
Quotes from Eric Crowley:
“There are great prices being paid for great companies at any time, even if there is a recession. If it's a great business someone will pay the price.”
“The biggest thing is App Tracking Transparency (ATT) rolled out. There is no way to put it differently - it was a huge hit to the space.”
“TikTok - it's easy to get a lot of views, it's really hard to get retention and engagement.”
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A message from App Promotion Summit
Discounted ticket prices are currently available on all of our 2024 summits
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London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024

#125: A 30-day App Customer Retention challenge with Jennie Lewis, Senior Manager, Customer Insights at Airship

Imagine you have your bakery shop. I’m sorry if you’re listening to this episode before your lunch but it will help me to make the point :-) Anyway, you see people coming through the door every day and some of their faces are familiar to you - they’ve become your recurrent customers.
Now, as much as you like to see familiar faces and possibly become pals with these people, it’s not the end of the story. Your recurrent customers make your business financially stable and predictable. Now, switching to mobile apps, each day you’re selling your “donuts” in hundreds and, given how much you’re investing in attracting new users, you really need to have recurrent customers.
Acquiring a new app user can be five times as expensive as retaining an existing one.
And in this episode, we have Jennie to tell us about app retention.
Today’s Topics Include:
30-day app user retention definition
the average Retention rate for iOS and Android
how brands can increase the Retention rate
Android or iOS? iOS on iPhone 13 Pro
Jennie's first mobile phone was a car phone with an external antenna attached to the car
What features would Jennie miss most? Express pay on transit
What’s missing from mobile app technology? Better Bluetooth connectivity between the iPhone and headphones
Links and Resources:
Jennie Lewis on LinkedIn
Airship
Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry
Quotes from Jennie Lewis:
“Only 8% are coming back to the app after a 30-day of download, which is a huge cliff.”
“The year average for a customer in North America [Cost Per User] is $5.28”
“The data shows that the worst cliff is within the first two days.”
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Discounted ticket prices are currently available on all of our 2024 summits
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London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024

#124: Getting your mobile app to greater heights with Dr. J. Gonzalo, VP, Consumer Mobile Services, Europe & P. Gauden, Head of WEU Ecosystem Marketin...

On one hand, you know how deep mobile has penetrated our lives, how universal it is, so you realize the potential of your app project. On the other, the same reasoning drives so many competitors and you know how hard it is to win people’s attention and grow your app business.
So, today Dr. Gonzalo and Peter will tell you about services and tools that can help app marketers to grow their app businesses more efficiently.
Today’s Topics Include:
How having more touchpoints help developers to monetize, grow, and drive business results
What services should app developers take advantage of to improve their offering and reach even wider audiences.
What tools and solutions are available to help them on this quest?
What exciting and promising are coming up on a mobile tech frontier?
Links and Resources:
Dr. Jaime Gonzalo on LinkedIn
Peter Gauden on LinkedIn
HUAWEI
Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry
Quotes from Dr. Jaime Gonzalo:
“The DNA of HUAWEI has three dimensions - the customer's centricity, the collaboration and technological innovation.”
“The smartphone industry has topped out, it topped out 6 years ago, which means there is no growth in the mobile app user base. But in a meantime, there are 6 thousand apps released every day, this means that even if a normal user would have maybe 100 apps on their phone, there are 3 million apps out there. It creates a bottleneck.”
“Innovations are clearly at the core of the HUAWEI's system.”
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A message from App Promotion Summit
Discounted ticket prices are currently available on all of our 2024 summits
https://apppromotionsummit.com/
 
London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024

#123: Leveraging mobile games ad tech for non-gaming apps with Andrey Kazakov, Vice President of Demand at AppLovin

You know, quite often in marketing a strategy that was proven to be really effective in one area, finds its second application with the other.
Usually, it happens when you take a holistic approach and all of sudden you can see that your calculation of why certain ad creatives or targeting work with one audience, should absolutely work with others.
From the inception of both Apple’s App Store and Google Play market, the app market is being divided between games and non-games. Analytics have been busy comparing revenues both sectors generate, number of downloads each gets, retention, and more.
In this episode, we want to show you how ad tech that has been powering mobile games’ growth in fact capable to do the same for non-games.
Today’s Topics Include:
For the last decade Andrey's career span across multiple companies, including Acquired.IO, which he launched in 2017, Adjust, where he served as COO, President and Chairman and now AppLovin, where he is VP of Demand
Mobile game categories that have been enjoying the growth the most
What ad tech that are proven to be really effective for mobile games can be applied to non-gaming apps advertisting
Non-gaming app market trends
What the future holds for non-games app promotion
Links and Resources:
Andrey Kazakov on LinkedIn
AppLovin
Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry
Quotes from Andrey Kazakov:
“Gaming definitely paved the way”
“The full stack matters how you think about the data, analytics, creative, and the flow to creative ideation that is efficient and to produce it at scale and data science that powers your LTV thinking.”
“Folks who approach their UA with a proper strategy and planning, and do it with the right partner, succeed.”
“While the environment is challenging, there are certain players that are actually approaching their user acquisition in a more aggressive fashion and growing.”
Brought to you by Business Of Apps
App industry marketplace
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App Growth videos
App Data
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A message from App Promotion Summit
Discounted ticket prices are currently available on all of our 2024 summits
https://apppromotionsummit.com/
 
London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024
 

#122: App Marketing for Black Friday & Cyber Monday with Jason Smith, VP of Sales (UK & Europe) at MoEngage

When you are a mobile app marketer, holidays mean a bit more than just the days to spend more time with friends and family and have a chance to escape thoughts about work.
In fact, I’m sorry to say, but for the thoughts, it’s the opposite - every app marketer, and marketer in general for that matter, knows that the holidays are the time when you can get more traction for your app, more traffic, and more sales.
In this episode, we have Jason give us hints and tricks for Black Friday and Cyber Monday we’re all moving in time and will get there on November 25th and 28th respectively.
Today’s Topics Include:
Jason's path in tech is from a data software engineer to VP of Sales in MoEngage - the leading insights-led engagement platform
What are seasonal promotions
What app marketers and brands need to know about app marketing on Black Friday
How Cyber Monday can fit into your app marketing strategy
Good examples of successful ad campaigns on Black Friday and Cyber Monday
Mistakes made by brands on these two holidays
Takeaways
Links and Resources:
Jason Smith on LinkedIn
MoEngage
Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry
Quotes from Jason Smith:
“You need to be sensitive to many cultures, many religions, and also different types of customers. It's not one size fits all.”
“Building a plan can never be too soon. So it's also building a channel strategy, as well as a communication strategy.”
“Don't push to somebody who just bought it a month before for price.”
“I think what many people like to do is rewarding most loyal customers.”
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A message from App Promotion Summit
Discounted ticket prices are currently available on all of our 2024 summits
https://apppromotionsummit.com/
 
London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024

#121: Untapping app growth with great ad creatives with Dan Greenberg, Chief Design Officer at ironSource

You’ve seen these great videos from Apple they tend to start with the WWDC event every summer, right?
Both indie app developers and big app powerhouses get a chance to share a bit of their experience of building an app business.
Do you know what’s in common for such a broad spectrum of app developers? In one word - growth. The scale can be very different but the necessity to grow their user base is always there.
It’s 2022 - pandemic, recession, wars, iOS 14.5, a huge competition, how do you grow your mobile app in this environment? Ad creatives are one of the answers, it may sound trivial to you but that’s only when your ads do work when they do generate sales and revenue. When they don’t - I bet you don’t think it’s trivial that a good ad can bring you sales.
In this episode, we’ve got Dan to tell us about the role of quality ad creatives in mobile app growth.
Today’s Topics Include:
Born in Tel-Aviv, graduated as a graphic designer, and joined ironSource pretty much from day one to grow to its Chief Graphic Designer
What is in today's app marketer's toolbox
What makes an ad creative, pun intended, to click with people
What makes a mobile app's UI cool for Dan
Android or iOS? iOS on iPhone X
What features would Dan miss most? Easy - WhatsApp :-)
What’s missing from mobile app technology? More advances for AR and VR
Links and Resources:
Dan Greenberg on LinkedIn
ironSource
Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry
Quotes from Dan Greenberg:
“4 years ago when apps and games were doing user acquisition, most of the creatives would imply investing a lot of money to create a kickass like the trailer but that would be just one creative. ”
“In the end, creative, and you can say for some extent marketing, is something that we are always trying to quantify and turn into something that is machine-lead. ”
“There are a lot of ads that take it to 11, meaning everything is exaggerated. If it's a game, for example, it would be something that looks epic and could be way more than the actual game.”
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A message from App Promotion Summit
Discounted ticket prices are currently available on all of our 2024 summits
https://apppromotionsummit.com/
 
London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024
 

#120: 2022 Mobile App Experiences Gap Survey with Corey Gault, Senior Director of Corporate Communications at Airship

Think about it, from the time you wake up in the morning to the moment you fall asleep at night you use tools. Please, don’t picture necessarily a hammer or a screwdriver as a tool, I mean tools in a broader sense - means that help you to do tasks, small and big - create a reminder, set a timer, calculate something, get up in time, and so on. And, of course, a big part of the toolbox you take your tools from are mobile apps.
Now, your experience of using those apps is a function of how much energy and brainstorming was put into the apps by their developers. In this episode, Corey will be talking about Airship’s brand new survey that talks about how much effort goes - or should go - into a mobile app experience development.
Today’s Topics Include:
Corey's career spans 25 years in public relations with being Senior Director of Corporate Communications at Airship now
General findings of the 2022 Mobile App Experiences Gap Survey
Gap #1 - ASO
Gap #2 - Release Cadence
Gap #3 - Onboarding
Gap #4 - Preference Centers
Gap #5 - Customer Surveys
Gap #6 - Experience Optimization
Gap #7 - Team Communications
Android or iOS? iOS on iPhone X
What features would Corey miss most? A bunch of apps, hard to pinpoint any specific one
What’s missing from mobile app technology?
Links and Resources:
Corey Gault on LinkedIn
AirShip
2022 Mobile App Experiences Gap Survey
Business Of Apps
Quotes from Corey Gault:
“We've seen a lot of industry research, lots of companies earning reports, showing the exponential value that apps deliver for their business.”
“If you really think about ASO, it's the first step in any app's success. People need to be able to find the app.”
“In fact, the survey found that 97% of marketers that feature walkthroughs, permission prompts, these types of onboarding experiences have a significant impact on user behavior.”
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A message from App Promotion Summit
Discounted ticket prices are currently available on all of our 2024 summits
https://apppromotionsummit.com/
 
London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024

#119: LTV in Mobile with Levi Matkins, CEO of LifeStreet

At the heart of any sustainable business is knowing how much money you actually make with each client. When you launch a mobile app project, your hope is to sustain this business for years to come, not just months or weeks, right? This is a header level 1 Google said it’s going to extend billing choices for users of its Play Store to India, Australia, Indonesia, Japan and Europe.
Google said it’s going to extend billing choices for users of its Play Store to India, Australia, Indonesia, Japan and Europe. How do you achieve that? For starters, you absolutely need to know what revenue each of your app users generates for you. Here comes the notion we’re going to spend on the next half an hour or so - Live Time Value, aka LTV. Today’s guest is Levi Matkins, CEO of LifeStreet—a programmatic marketing platform for app developers. He talks about lifetime value (LTV) in mobile, which is a measurement of how much money a user will generate.
Today’s Topics Include:
Levi's career spans 20 years in digital advertising, half of which he's spent in mobile. From founding a company with his brother while he was still in college to the leading mobile marketing platform.
What is LTV and how it is different from ROAS
The significance of LTV
How to acquire app users with a higher LTV
How to increase LTV
App categories it's hard or impossible to measure LTV
Moving forward, does LTV become harder or easier to measure?
Android or iOS? Android only
What features would Levi miss most? Google Maps to get around everywhere
What’s missing from mobile app technology? Pretty much all good, perhaps except a holdable display would be nice
Links and Resources:
Levi Matkins on LinkedIn
LifeStreet
Business Of Apps
Quotes from Levi Matkins:
“Generally speaking, it's a measurement how much money the user will generate for an app at given amount of time.” “Having a good LTV in an app is the difference between success and a failure.” “You can't impove what you don't measure. It's critical to track and measure LTV.” “LifeStreet’s belief is that return on ad spend is the most important thing to optimize for in a successful campaign. By paying the right price for a user, allows a campaign to scale more effectively.”
Brought to you by Business Of Apps
App industry marketplace
Insights
App Growth videos
App Data
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A message from App Promotion Summit
Discounted ticket prices are currently available on all of our 2024 summits
https://apppromotionsummit.com/
 
London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024

#118: What an app and the Black Mirror movie have in common? with Emily Tate, Managing Director at Mind the Product

At this very moment, somewhere on the planet app development teams are working on new mobile apps. Some of them are thinking through features of those apps, others are ready to launch them on an app store, yet other teams are already marketing their apps to acquire users. It’s non-stop and you bet all those teams believe their apps are only capable of bringing good to this world. Let's try AppTweak. Now, did you watch the “Black Mirror” TV series on Netflix? Can you guess the connection between this movie and the app development process? Well, patience - on this episode - among many things - you’ll get the answer :-)
Today’s Topics Include:
Emily started her career managing software solutions for airlines before taking her experience to the traveler’s side of the journey as the product manager for a leading travel management app, TripCase. She spent 5 years working on TripCase, where her first major project was to redesign the mobile app from the ground up. Then as the app grew, she worked on wearables, including a launch app for the Apple Watch and two different Samsung Gear watches.
The app project Emily loved the most
Challenges of working on apps for wearables
Mobile apps versus web apps
Optimism, negligence, and short-sightedness in app development
What do you do when your app has externalities you didn't anticipate?
How do you break through on the app market?
Android or iOS? iOS
What features would Emily miss most? City Mapper app to navigate and Apple Pay to pay everywhere
Links and Resources:
Emily Tate on LinkedIn Mind The Product
Quotes from Emily Tate: 
“It's one of those fun things where you can have a problem that looks similar and the tactic you used to solve it the time before will not work this time.” “Where was one of the launch app for the Apple Watch when it came out.  And it was a really fun project, both from the perspective of obviously getting to play with new shining technology. But really starting from the ground level of figuring out what is the use case for a smartwatch in the context of travel. ” “Admitting that you've made a mistake is step one. And I think we're so hesitant to do that, you see it all the time.”
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A message from App Promotion Summit
Discounted ticket prices are currently available on all of our 2024 summits
https://apppromotionsummit.com/
 
London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024

#117: App Subscriptions Best Practices with Tobias Boerner, Co-Founder at Admiral Studio

It’s been a while since we talked on this podcast about App Subscriptions - the latest business model for mobile apps that powers revenue generation for so many apps today.
It all started with video and audio streaming services such as Netflix and Spotify but then….it turned out that the model actually works for so many other apps.
But popularity doesn’t necessarily mean that app brands actually know how to make the most of it. In this episode, we have Tobias Boerner, Co-Founder at Admiral Studio talking about the best practices for App Subscriptions.
Today’s Topics Include:
What is Admiral Media/Studio all about? Connecting Web3 world with NFT space
NFT: Non-fungible token concept is out of this world and over the heads of most
App Businesses: Rely on three models—app ads, purchases, and subscriptions
Switch to subscriptions? Tobias recommends adding not switching revenue streams
App Subscription Mistakes: Not enough or no A/B testing in place for conversion rates
App Subscription Successes: Duolingo uses a world-class gamification approach
Pay Subscription Plans: When 1 revenue stream doesn’t meet financial needs to grow
Future of App Subscription Model: More flexibility and creativity for app businesses
Android or iOS? iOS
What features would Tobias miss most? To be connected
What’s missing from mobile app technology? AR and VR: Connect with the real world
Links and Resources:
Tobias Boerner on LinkedIn
Admiral Media
Quotes from Tobias Boerner:
“To be very good in things, it’s very important to have a very deep understanding of how this world is working.”
“We believe here, in the studio, that very soon in the near future, a lot of companies need help with marketing approaches and make that happen. We will very soon release a lot of new activities in Web3 space.”
“Apps, they monetize through ads, only start along the journey of thinking, ‘Oh, how can we implement subscription or how is it possible to switch to subscription?”
“I’m a very big fan of subscriptions, but I would not recommend to switch the model. I think it’s an additional revenue stream.”
Brought to you by Business Of Apps
App industry marketplace
Insights
App Growth videos
App Data
App Events
A message from App Promotion Summit
Discounted ticket prices are currently available on all of our 2024 summits
https://apppromotionsummit.com/
 
London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024