Business of Apps Podcast

#103: Driving app installs with TikTok Ads with Ryan Thorpe, CMO at Reflectly

Alright, so you’re looking at the number of daily and monthly active users for your app and wonder “is there a new app marketing channel I am missing?” You’ve heard about TikTok, you know that there is an advertising platform from TikTok - TikTok Ads. But you’re not quite sure that how to use it and if it’s actually capable to help you to grow your app’s user base.
In this episode we want to help you out. We’ve got Ryan to walk you through driving app installs with TikTok Ads.
Today’s Topics Include:
What is Reflectly
Creating TikTok Ads campaign
How to create an effective video content for TikTok Ads
How similar or different TikTok Ads from Facebook Ads
KPIs to focus on
Hype about TikTok
What Ryan believes can be improved with the TikTok Ads platform
Android or iOS? iOS
What was Andy’s first mobile phone? Nokia
What features would Andy miss most leaving his smartphone at home? Slack for work, messaging apps for communication with friends and family
What’s missing from mobile app technology? Adding Time Tree app features to the iOS native calendar app
Links and Resources:
Ryan Thorpe  LinkedIn profile
Reflectly’s website.
Quotes from Ryan Thorpe:
"The hype around TikTok at the moment is that it is easy to go viral. I don’t think it is easy to go viral. However there is a math to go viral.
People think that after 5 or 10 videos that should hit of winning creative style but what you need to do is to create 30, 40,50 videos at TikTok to really understand  why there is hype about things going viral.
The question you are trying to ask yourself is this creative going viral”
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London - 25 Apr 2024
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#102: The Mobile Growth Stack 2022 with Andy Carvell, Partner at Phiture

No matter what it’s about, if you are serious about building something, like building a house / car / space ship or your mobile app product, you need a plan or what we call in IT - a stack.
I’m sure you see where I’m going with it, I have Andy Carvell on the episode and I’ve just mentioned a stack… Right - on this episode we’re to talk about The Mobile Growth Stack to be precise, 2022 edition. I bet for many of you this situation may look familiar - either you are at the beginning of your app project or its well underway, you wonder what are my ALL options to build and launch a successful app business?
As it happens quite often with many concepts or ideas that go viral, the Mobile Growth Stack was conceived by Andy out of necessity when he needed to put together all his ideas for an app project, working at SoundCloud.
Now, to be clear, do not think of this stack as your ultimate To Do list. It service a different function of being a depiction, if you will, of the entire landscape of possible activities you may be involved with, working on your app project, including such stages as app user acquisition & retention, app engagement, monetization, tech solutions to use and more.
Today’s Topics Include:
Andy’s background - from a software engineer at Nokia, Marketing Lead at SoundCloud to Partner & Co-Founder at Phiture - Berlin-based 100+ strong mobile growth consultancy
Mobile Growth Stack: definition and its genesis
The Acquisition section of the stack
The Engagement & Retention section of the stack
The Monetization section of the stack
The Tech section of the stack
The Strategic Management section of the stack
The Analytics & Insights section of the stack
The Management Insights section of the stack
Android or iOS? Actually both :-), to be up-to-date with what’s happening on both platforms
What was Andy’s first mobile phone? Nokia 7110
What features would Andy miss most leaving his smartphone at home? Google Maps :-)
What’s missing from mobile app technology? Even better Night Mode on an iPhone.
Links and Resources:
Andy Carvell  LinkedIn profile
Mobile Growth Stack 2022
Phiture website.
Quotes from Andy Carvell:
"Than I ended up joining SoundCloud, who were a growing platform at that point, I think I joined at 29, I was employee number 89, I think.
That’s one of the major misconception, actually, about the Mobile Growth Stack. There is lots of stuff in it, if  you’ve seen it you can see at mobilegrowhstack.com, it’s a quite a busy page, there is a lot of information on there. And I think one of the things that people often think is that they have to do all of these things in order to succeed and it’s absolutely not the case.
I really do believe that app analytics and insights should be the foundation on which you’re building your whole growth efforts on.”
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London - 25 Apr 2024
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#101: The year of Cross Promo with Cameron Thom, Directory of Sales at Adikteev & Matej Lancaric, Marketing Consultant

Ok, what are your options today when it comes to marketing your app?
I can tell you from a point of view of a guy who was in app marketing back in 2010-2015 time frame, the portfolio of app marketing tools has grown significantly. Today when you’re tasked to grow an app’s user base, you have App Store Optimization, paid UA, ads in podcasts, on TV, on radio, PR, social media marketing, influencer marketing, content marketing.
And there is one more app marketing tool, which isn’t always applicable but once you’ve got a number of apps in your portfolio, you can turn your attention to cross-promotion and this is what we’re gonna talk about today with Cameron and Matej.
Today’s Topics Include:
Cameron and Matej’s background in mobile
What is cross promo for apps
What it takes to promote mobile apps via cross promotion
What mobile games are compatible to be paired for a cross-promotion campaign
Parting words for app marketers to make cross-promotion work for their apps
Android or iOS?
What was Cameron and Matej’s first mobile phone?
What features would Cameron and Matej miss most leaving his smartphone at home?
What’s missing from mobile app technology?
Links and Resources:
Cameron Thom LinkedIn profile
Matej Lančarič LinkedIn profile
Adikteev website.
Quotes from Cameron and Matej:
"It’s always a tough job to run a cross-promotion, other from a valuation standpoint or just from a point of talking to the game team.
You can cross-promote players across different games and can be successful. It’s about trying to identify user segments and trying to find sweet spots where they might churn.
I was always a big fan of cross-promotion, it’s been thought to evolve it properly."
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London - 25 Apr 2024
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#100: 60 shades of App Growth with Gessica Bicego, CMO at Paired

This week is a special one - the Business Of Apps podcast has reached episode #100.
For this special occasion we’ve invited Gessica Bicego, one of the most well-known mobile app marketers, with years and years of experience in app growth, and talk about what we call “The 60 shades of App Growth”. During the conversation, we cover what it takes to increase a mobile app user base and, of course, the revenue it generates. Every app marketer and every brand that launches a mobile app is focused or should be, on its growth. A brand new app brings a bunch of challenges to an app marketing team, a well-established app has its own challenges that somewhat overlap with the former but for the most part, are unique.
Today’s Topics Include:
Gessica’s background
What is Paired app
Growing well-established app versus a brand new one
What app marketing channels Gessica considers the most effective
TikTok Ads
The impact of Apple’s ATT and Google’s Privacy Sandbox on app marketing
Gessica’s parting word for app marketing newbies
What features would Gessica miss most leaving his smartphone at home? Google Maps, Instagram
Links and Resources:
Gessica Bicego LinkedIn profile
Gessica’s podcast - Mobile Growth Nightmares.
Paired’s website.
Quotes from Gessica Bicego:
"I would say that there is no such thing that is like the best app marketing channel. I think it really depends on the product you are advertising.
I have this passion of working for mobile products that are building something new. And so the issue is that people are not really looking for what you do.
TikTok for me is like this question mark platform, I open it once a month - I get lost in it. I watch like a thousand videos about dogs and I close it again and I forget about it."
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London - 25 Apr 2024
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#99: Are we living through the App-ocalypse? with Brett Orlanski, SVP Product and Sales at Bango

In every industry there are periods of slow gradual changes and very rapid ones, when companies have to adopt quickly and deal with the consequences of those changes to keep their business afloat.
Last April, Apple finally released its ATT framework, ATT stands for App Tracking Transparency that implies for app marketers to be able to track app users' actions across multiple apps they need to ask for permission first.
This February, Google introduced its Privacy Sandbox for Android with a similar function. All in all, today we’ve got two major mobile platforms that have drastically changed the app tracking and this is the topic for my conversation today with Brett.
Today’s Topics Include:
Brett’s background
How privacy changes hurting app marketers today
How we got into this trouble
What app marketers need to do to move forward in the post-IDFA world
What side of the Android & iOS duopoly Brett is? iOS
What features would Brett miss most leaving his smartphone at home? Google Maps
What’s missing from mobile app technology? Overall smartphone performance speed
Links and Resources:
Brett Orlanski LinkedIn profile.
Bango’s website.
Quotes from Brett Orlanski: 
"Very few places that offer product that actually allows to define payers.
It’s a double-edge sword, I think we can say it’s for end user in a sense it gives more privacy and control of your own data. It’s bad for mobile marketers that use these signals to send you really good ads you maybe interested in.
The best way of thinking about is people always worry about is my phone listening to me or Facebook is listening to me. Sometimes I get an ad so early on point…"
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London - 25 Apr 2024
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#98: The State of Mobile 2022 with Lexi Sydow, Head of Insights at Data.ai

Earlier on this year, data.ai, perhaps you still better know them as App Annie, published the State of Mobile 2022 report which is the ultimate bird-view on the app industry. Take any field, any market - being able to have a holistic view is what allows you to see a complete picture and compete with other players on the market. The app industry is one of the brightest examples for this approach.
In this episode, to talk about what app categories are the most popular today, how much money people spend on mobile apps, what are app trends in different countries and more we have Lexi, she’s been on the show couple times before and is always welcome back.
Today’s Topics Include:
The story behind App Annie’s rebrand to data.ai
The snapshot of the report - major data points
Waking hours benchmark
Consumer spend on apps
App categories people spend on the most
Number of new apps released in 2021
App blockbusters
App categories by generations - Gen Z, Millennials, Baby Boomers
Links and Resources:
Lexi Sydow LinkedIn profile.
The State of Mobile 2022 report.
Data.ai website.
Quotes from Lexi Sydow: 
"We are spending around a third of our waking day on mobile."
"We are spending around seven of every 10 minutes in a combination of either social, communication or photo and video apps, so very heavily media-oriented".
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London - 25 Apr 2024
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#97: TikTok: the impact on ad business and influencers with Sheyda D, Co-Founder and CTO at ViralMoment

On one hand, ask your teenage daughter how her girlfriends spend time, quite often including school time, and she will tell you “well, they are fooling around with TikTok”.
On the other hand, ask any brand marketer about TikTok and she or he will tell you whether they already use its advertising platform, try to go with it natively, or consider using it. So for the latter case wouldn’t be great if there was an analytical tool to tell you what’s trending on TikTok?
Well, lo and behold there is one and it’s ViralMoment and we have Sheyda to tell us all about it.
Today’s Topics Include:
Being a software engineer by training and liking to tackle hard problems, in early 2021 Sheyda was introduced to the idea to develop an analytical tool to measure video virality on TikTok subjectively, outside of the silos that the platform creates for individual users
What is ViralMoment
Does TikTok replace other ad platforms or compliment them for brands?
How does TikTok influence consumer behavior?
What is TikTok's impact on Influencers?
How ViralMoment can help to mitigate TikTok's externalities?
Sheyda's overall assessment of TikTok's impact on society
What side of the Android & iOS duopoly Jason is? iOS
First mobile phone owned by Sheyda - Nokia mobile phone with everyone's favorite Snake game on it :-)
What features would Jason miss most leaving his smartphone at home? Not being able to get in touch with people, it's not about a specific app but the function
What new app technologies is Jason most excited about? More tech that would regulate smartphone usage (Think Siri telling you you should spend more time off your smartphone)
Links and Resources:
Sheyda D LinkedIn profile.
ViralMoment website.
Quotes from Sheyda D: 
"Back in January 2021, my co-founder Chelsey came to me with the idea for ViralMoment. She's been working in the Social Listening industry for a while and noticed that there was really no solution for visual-based social media."
"We also work with non-profit organizations and we are also currently working with a research group out of Carnegie Mellon centered on identifying hate speech on TikTok."
"If you are trying to buy a pair of shoes and I see a billboard for Nike - that is an advertising and once my friend tells me I have this pair of shoes, these are great! Which ones am I'm gonna left with? I'm gonna buy the ones my friend told me to. It's the same on TikTok - you're looking at these people as a part of your community that is telling you about what they are using."
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#96: What your consumers want: their expectations and preferences with Jason Smith, VP of Sales (UK & Europe) at MoEngage

There is a good, very well-established principle in marketing - know your customers. Whatever app you need to market, your first priority needs to be to get to know people you’ll be marketing your app to. It is how you will be able to find places online where to approach them, what ad creatives to use, and what tone of your ad should be to speak their language.
You need to answer the following question for yourself - what do your customers want?
Well, this is the question that is at the basis of the MoEngage, the leading customer engagement platform, recent research, built on the survey data gathered from 1,000 consumers in the United States, Canada, UK, and Germany.
Today’s Topics Include:
Being a true tech geek in heart, Jason went a long way from being a software engineer in times when mainframe computers were a thing to  becoming VP of Sales in a leading mobile engagement platform
The major unexpected insight that came off the report is that people want both don't want to be tracked online and yet ads they see are personalized
The key figure from the report: 21% of consumers from North America and Europe have adopted mobile apps for shopping, 33% of North American and European consumers prefer email for communication.
What frustrates customers and how it varies between women and men
Kind of messages that help solidify brands' relationships with customers
Most popular value-added services
Top 3 preferred communication channels
How shopping behavior has changed since COVID-19 hit the world in 2020
New communication channel(s) adopted by consumers
What side of the Android & iOS duopoly Jason is? iOS
First mobile phone owned by Jason - the early Panasonic model available in 1988
What features would Jason miss most leaving his smartphone at home? A constant buzzing in his pocket caused by a stream of notifications
What new app technologies is Jason most excited about? Nothing really, everything is cool as it is.
Links and Resources:
Jason Smith's LinkedIn profile.
MoEngage website.
MoEngage Personalization Pulse Check Report 2021.
Quotes from Jason Smith: 
"What was really interesting in this particular research is how tuned in is consumers are when it comes to their data and how it's best used for personalization. And the expectation is that it's still 50% of customers or consumers that were surveyed still expect their message to be personalized based on their interests or behavior.
Inconsisent messaging really annoyes people, when men being targeted with female messaging and vise versa.
If you look at North America and Europe, 21% now have adopted a mobile app and email as new digital communication channels."
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#95: Mobile App Onboarding: how to get it right with Marissa Hsu, Senior Designer at Phiture

Alright, if you ever traveled somewhere by plane you’ve got a chance to hear this announcement “Boarding complete”. If you were lucky to buy a ticket on a cruise ship, that long process of staying in the queue and getting yourself and your stuff on the ship is called onboarding.
Where else do you have a chance to encounter this notion? Well - mobile apps! To explain what exactly do we mean by that we’ve got Marissa from the mobile growth consultancy Phiture. Mobile app onboarding is one of the must-have components of every app marketing strategy. Today, with a rare exception, brands need to think through the entire interaction experience their users have with the app, otherwise, mobile app churn will ruin that app project.
Today’s Topics Include:
With a background in graphic design and social media marketing, three years ago Marissa moved to the one and only Berlin to do e-commerce and B2B
What is onboarding
The best practices for mobile app onboarding
No-nos for app onboarding
The shortest and longest app onboarding
The key message to app marketers
What side of the Android & iOS duopoly Marissa is? iOS
What features would Marissa miss most leaving his smartphone at home? Google Maps
What’s missing from mobile app technology? More apps to tackle big challenges our civilization has been facing.
Links and Resources:
Marissa LinkedIn profile.
Phiture website.
Quotes from Marissa Hsu:
"Onboarding is your users first impression. The purpose is to guide the user activation, which is essentially the user's experience of the value of the app for the first time.
I think just framing copy in terms of ways that it benefits the user, like not saying necessary look at this feature but saying this is how this feature can benefit you.
I'm more excited to see technology kind of blossoming in ways that add clear value to our lives. "
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#94: In-App Purchases: are they here to stay? with Jens-Fabian Goetzmann, Head of Product at RevenueCat

Ok, here is the thing -  even if you aren’t into tech, you can see Apple Incorporated being mentioned in the news pretty much on a daily basis. These days, a big chunk of this coverage is dedicated to the situation around Apple’s monopoly with its App Store. And one of the central figures in that story is in-app purchases.
A quick recap of how app developers have been making money with apps over the years.
Well, it all started back in 2008 when app developers were being paid for each copy of their apps or they could provide it for free but display the app users' ads and make money that way. Later on in-app purchases came along as the way for app developers to make money on extra features inside the apps or provide an option to turn off advertising inside those apps for a small fee.
And of course, later on the App Subscriptions became a big part of the app monetization options app developers could choose from.
Now, when Apple introduced its App Store, a big appeal for app developers was that Apple said that they will be charging only 30% of each app’s copy being sold. At that point, if you were in the software business and you wanted, let’s say, to release a game on a console you would have to pay way more than that 30% Apple was asking for. For a while, everybody thought it was a fair deal and developers were happy.
Fast forward to the present days - years later of struggling to achieve visibility for their apps and actually making money, many app developers aren’t that optimistic anymore. And especially if your app business is the size of the Epic Games studio.
To give you a comprehensive picture of what’s going on and what are implications for you we have Jens.
Today’s Topics Include:
Jens got into the app industry a bit late in 2017, being hooked on apps as a consumer, working in tech, he first joined 8fit fitness app and than in 2021 he joined RevenueCat team.
Recent updates around Apple's App Store and in-app purchases
Implications from the recent changes with in-app purchases and other aspects of how the App Store operates
Web payments - pros and cons
What's coming for in-app purchases
What side of the Android & iOS duopoly Jens is? iOS
What features would Jens miss most leaving his smartphone at home? Messaging apps and Twitter
What’s missing from mobile app technology? Having a direct connection between his brain and a smartphone (think Neuralink)
Links and Resources:
div>Jens-Fabian Goetzmann LinkedIn profile.
div>RevenueCat website.
Quotes from Jens-Fabian Goetzmann: 
"I would argue regardless whether you are trying to make money or you're tinkering, building in-app subscription infrastructure is not a lot of fun either.
I think basically the headline is that for now most developers and app publishers that are currently or having been mandated to use in-app purchases will continue to use in-app purchases.
I think the security has multiple different levels. I think this kind  of stance falls to how good the app review is really? Because there are various levels of security. There is a ton of security features baked into the operating system on iOS and those could still apply"
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