Business of Apps Podcast

#83: Catapulting app growth with Apple Search Ads with Yusuf Barutcu, Director of Business Development of SearchAds.com

Every app marketer is on a quest to acquire more users for her or his app. Today’s app marketing toolbox consists of such well time-proven tools as App Store Optimization, Paid User Acquisition via ad networks, paid ads platforms from Facebook, Google, Twitter, Pinterest and such, as well as content marketing, PR, ads in podcasts, on TV, radio and even good old outdoor ads.
But when it comes to iOS apps specifically, the Apple’s Search Ads stands out as one of the most powerful weapons in the app marketer’s arsenal. The platform has gone through a few years of evolution to become an effective tool to drive iOS app installs on multiple markets. In this episode we have Yusuf Barutcu of SearchAds.com to tell us about how to use this platform efficiently and scale up your app user acquisition campaign.
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️ Yusuf began his career in e-commerce and for the last 12 years he’s been an app search marketer, spending the last 2+ years in the SearchAds.com team
✔️ SearchAds.com helps app marketers to plug Apple’s Search Ads to their overall app user acquisition campaigns and have a holistic view on their UA efforts. It provides tools you need to find the best keywords, scale your marketing campaigns, and to be at the top of App Store search.
✔️ 60% of all iOS app downloads are driven by search - hence Search Ads is the must platform to use
✔️ The core of a successful Search Ads campaign is to define as much keywords relevant to your app as possible
✔️ Always consider a broader context than your app’s purpose to discover additional keywords to drive app installs
✔️ Make sure you bid on keywords that present your brand to avoid loosing traffic to your competitors
✔️ To market your app on 60 markets for dozens of keywords you need to use automation tools, unless you are a super human
✔️ iOS15 Custom Pages bring new capabilities for the visual creatives on the iOS App Store.
✔️ Search is a source of a high quality traffic, people open up the App Store app to search with an intent to find a specific app
✔️ On which side of the Android & iOS duopoly Yusuf is? iOS (and never looked back)
✔️ What apps would Nick miss the most if he leaves the smartphone home. Slack :-)
Links and Resources:
Yusuf Barutcu LinkedIn profile
Search Ads website - https://searchads.com
Quoеtes from Yusuf Barutcu:
"The main quality traffic generator is search. Because there have an intent to get what they after, so if what they after is what you have then you should be there.
Once you follow the right strategy, well - bingo, it’s not a rocket science and you can easily grow your business.
To speak loudly about that, at Mobile Action platform we have around 6 million keyword crawled every day."
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#82: iOS 15 implications for ASO with David Bell, CEO of Gummicube

Year in, year out Apple has been improving its mobile operating system that every iPhone runs on - the iOS. This year its 15th version has just hit the market. In some years, Apple’s focus is on introducing new features, others on polishing some features, sometimes they don’t get a particular feature right from the first shot and they need to revisit it again next year - Apple’s engineers are human beings, like you and me.
In particular, amongst all these updates there are some that are of interest to mobile app marketers. Today we’ll cover such updates introduced with iOS 15 and we have Dave Bell, CEO of Gummicube, a leader in providing Big Data Analytics for the App Stores, which is used for App Store Optimization, Mobile Marketing and Market Analysis, here to tell all about it.
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️Dave's been in the mobile marketing space since 1999, actually was among developers who created and published apps for featured phones, before the rise of Apple's iOS App Store for the iPhone.
✔️Gummicube is the oldest North America-based App Store Optimization company, more than 11 years on the market, built the tech to help app marketers to understand how the app stores work from an app marketing perspective.
✔️Apple's focus with iOS, as well as in general, is app users' data privacy and creating a more robust experience for app marketers.
✔️iOS 15 beta feature Private Relay, which is essentially Apple's VPN - another Apple's step in the direction of replacing iOS apps developed by a third party, when the stakes are high, like in the case of iOS app users privacy and data safety.
✔️Updates for the iOS's Spotlight
✔️A/B testing solution for iOS
✔️Custom Product Pages
✔️Searchable In-App Events
✔️SKAdNetwork enhancements
✔️App Clips updates
✔️Dave's iOS 15 favorite features
Links and Resources:
Dave Bell's Linkedin profile
Gummicube website.
Quotes from Dave Bell:
"Apple is moving in the direction when they are going to make it more convinient for their user to stay with Apple ecosystem.
Frankly, if you're looking at the amount of time people spend in mobile apps versus websites, I think the statistics is 88% of the time is being spent in the mobile app versus web.
But I think that actually the reality of In-App Events is going to be much more broad because of this in even in apps, you know, categories you wouldn't think of, like Productivity, Utilities simply because in-app events are re-engagement ASO."
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London - 25 Apr 2024
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#81: Building apps for businesses to survive COVID-19 with Nick Swenson, Managing Partner at Swenson He

We are more than a year and a half into this pandemic and, aside from the multiple challenges it’s brought into our lives, there is this one - are you ready to volunteer to help others, providing your business’s services for free? Are you entirely focused on your own survival or you are willing to help people to relieve some of the challenges they’re going through?
In this episode, Nick, Managing Partner at Swenson He - award-winning digital development company, will tell us the story of how his company's commitment to help people in need hit by COVID-19 and more.
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️Nick's story starts at MIT, where he was studying to become a bio-engineer and met his future co-founder and COO of Swenson HE Chao He, with whom he shared the same passion about new digital experiences. Nick has been fascinated with building the bridge between digital and the real world and understanding how to make this bridge useful for people based on their perception of it.
✔️Swenson HE is a software development company that works on both mobile and desktop software projects. Their portfolio ranges from Fortune 500 companies to small clients with unique needs.
✔️Luckily Nick's company team was already in the business of changing their operations to understand how they can work remotely prior to COVID-19 and hence the pandemic didn't hit hard his team.
✔️Watching how other businesses were impacted by the pandemic, Nick's team decided to figure out how they can help the most and make the biggest impact. That effort lead to launching several projects, one example was working with the Reach Project to build a platform for their latest initiative: feeding the “Invisible Aggies,” essential employees on the Texas A&M campus, who have been laid off due to Covid19.
✔️The most challenging part of any app development project - engagement, making sure people interact with the app and it brings them real value.
✔️Today innovation in app design is about figuring out how to develop apps that meet today's standards of Gen Ze.
✔️It's hard to pinpoint what today's cutting-edge tech will eventually stay or will be left in the dust over time.
✔️ On which side of the Android & iOS duopoly Sacha is? iOS
✔️ What apps would Nick miss the most if he leaves the smartphone home. Email.
Links and Resources:
Nick Swenson Linkedin profile
Swenson He website.
Quotes from Nick Swenson:
"Digital experiences are about this transitioning between the digial world and a real world and understanding how users interact with an interface and how they think, desicions they make. It's very much is in some cases is a psychology problem. 
If you aren't innnovating you already behind."
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London - 25 Apr 2024
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#80: 2021 Influencer Compensation report with Joe Sinkwitz, Co-founder and CEO at Intellifluence

One of the biggest differences in a life of a marketer, from let’s say, 10 years ago is that today a big chunk, of not entire, marketing campaign that she or he runs for a brand's product or service takes place on social media. But the reason why marketing on social media really works is people. Influencers Or Creators.
Now question is - how much do they charge? Well, the answer is classic - it depends. It depends on a particular social media platform and other factors. Today we’ve got Joe Sinkwitz, CEO at Intellinfluence marketing platform that helps brands partner with key influencers to achieve better results, to riddle this question for you.
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️Joe is a veteran of digital marketing, spending a quarter of a century in this area and Intellinfluence his latest creation.
✔️Intellifluence is the largest warm contact Influencer marketing network
✔️How the idea to issue the 2021 Influencer Compensation Report came about and what did it take
✔️How much does it take to launch a marketing campaign via Influencers on Instagram
✔️How much do Influencers charge for a marketing campaign on Twitter and who are the biggest Influencers on Twitter
✔️What would be a marketing budget to fun an Influencer marketing campaign via Influencers on YouTube
✔️What is a ballpark for a marketing campaign via Influencers on TikTok.
✔️What are the biggest takeaways from the report for brands
✔️Influencer versus Creator - what's the difference and what brands should know about each.
✔️ On which side of the Android & iOS duopoly Sacha is? iOS
✔️ What apps would Joe miss the most if he leaves the smartphone home. You would be surprised - good old making calls :-)
✔️ What is missing from mobile app technology? The mix of AR with auto-translation makes traveling easier.
Links and Resources:
Joe Sinkwitz Linkedin profile
Intellinfluence website
2021 Influencer Compensation Report
Quotes from Joe Sinkwitz:
"The hard part was getting people to fill up the survey
So the data absolutely will be skewed towards micro-influencers internet network but it's really interesting just to see how they felt about everyone.
The coolest thing that came out 41% felt that brand is not pitching them the right amounts."
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London - 25 Apr 2024
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#79: Yubo: building a social network differently with Sacha Lazimi, CEO at Yubo

Even if you aren’t a tech pundit, who has been following all stories about social media companies, inevitably you stumble upon a breaking story about Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok that talks about their negative impact on our society, on teenagers’ mental health and even on the democracy itself.
You may get an impression that there is no way how you can design a social network differently, so you won’t get such a flip side. But that’s not the case and Sacha, CEO of Yubo, will tell us how it’s actually possible to achieve.
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️Sacha is on a mission to improve how people interact online, hence his involvement into developing multiple social media apps prior to Yubo
✔️Yubo is a social media platform for Gen Z to interact with each other in small groups
✔️ It doesn't compete with big social media platforms like Twitch, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat. 
✔️ Yubo is the social media app that doesn't push its users to be hooked on such concepts as Likes, Comments and Followers.
✔️ The app applies 8 age-verification procedures to make sure it has on board legit age users only
✔️ The platform is ads free, it's freemium based with paid options & subscriptions to get more engagement
✔️ Yubo is used by Gen Z on their leisure time - after school, on weekends or holidays
✔️ Once COVID-19 hit both usage and engagement shot up
✔️ Yubo is available on both iOS and Android but the bulk of users on iOS
✔️ On which side of the Android & iOS duopoly Sacha is? iOS
✔️ What apps would Nico miss the most if he leaves the smartphone home. Good old placing calls function :-)
✔️ What is missing from mobile app technology? 
Links and Resources:
Sacha Linkedin profile
Yubo website
Quotes from Sacha Lazimi:
"...with the same mission "To improve how people meet each other and connect online"
Yubo is just an iteration of what I've done with my co-founder and we always have the same mission.
Yubo is a social platform to socialize online all over the world and designed for Generation Z. It's a public space where you have a small group that interacting publicly through video, audio and chat."
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London - 25 Apr 2024
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#78 :The opportunity for consumer subscription apps with Nico Wittenborn, Investor at Adjacent

On the enormous landscape of mobile apps, there are two special categories that have been grabbing a lot of businesses attention - SAAS (stands for Software As a Service) and App Subscriptions.
Both generate tens of millions of dollars for such companies as Slack, HULU, Netflix, Spotify and others. While there are obvious differences between these two, like it's a lot easier to get loads of users for a SAAS app (because all these people are employees of a particular company) as opposed to doing your best to reach out people who will benefit from an App Subscription app, but there are similarities too.
In this episode we've got Nico Wittenborn from Adjacent to tell us about these similarities and lessons that can be applied from the world of SAAS apps to the App Subscriptions.
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️Nico's career's trajectory: from re-selling refurbished iPhones to investing into big SAAS apps
✔️What is an App Subscription
✔️App Subscription model advantages and limitations
✔️Enterprise SAAS vs. Consumer App Subscription model
✔️SAAS and App Subscription apps growth indicators
✔️What's coming up in the mobile space
✔️ Android or iOS? both iOS and Android
✔️ What apps would Nico miss the most if he leaves the smartphone home. Not much, he does leave it on purpose to limit the time he interacts with the phone
✔️ What is missing from mobile app technology? Having better tools for the smartphone screen time moderation
Links and Resources:
Nico's Linkedin profile
Quotes from Nico Wittenborn:
"Yeah, it did. It sounds like a bit of exaggeration but in retrospect the iPhone definitely changed my trajectory.
It's not really new that we pay for something on a recurrent basis that we use for a long time, it's just for software it seems to be the evolution - first we paid for a license once for a product on a CD and now we pay on a monthly basis
The interesting thing is that after one or two years, if the company is still stick around, they're flatting out in terms of their reach and retention and so there might be a big drop in the first year for a company with an app subscription but the second year they almost don't drop anymore"
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#77 : How to make more of your Search Ads targeting campaigns with Simon Thillay, Head of ASO at AppTweak

At this point, It wouldn’t surprise any app marketer that to acquire users for their apps they need to do both - App Store Optimization to get native traffic and run paid search, among many performance marketing, ad campaigns.
It’s given.
But the question they may have - what about bidding on their brand keywords? Should they do that? They’ve heard other folks do it and now they’re trying to answer this question for themselves. In this episode, we have Simon Thillay, Head of ASO at Apptweak, the leading ASO tool driven by data science, to riddle this question for you.
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️Simon’s trajectory in business: from a small mobile game studio, to Deezer and finally one of the leading App Store Optimization agencies.
✔️Apptweak - ASO and marketing intelligence tool, covering both major app stores and expanding beyond to cover the Facebook Ads platform and more.
✔️Apple’s iOS 14.5 ATT framework and how it changes app marketers UA campaigns.
✔️Keywords cannibalism - what is it, how and why app brands need to pay attention to it closely.
✔️The role of ad creatives in the App Store Optimization, how app screenshots may help to communicate the app’s message to specific audiences.
✔️Apple’s A/B testing tool and custom landing pages - what should we expect
✔️ Android or iOS? iOS
✔️ What app features would Simon miss the most? Texting via WhatsApp and music streaming via Deezer
✔️ What is missing from mobile app technology? Offline mode for mobile games
Links and Resources:
Simon Thillay’s LinkedIn
Apptweak website.
Quotes from Simon Thillay:
If you look at the direct impact of the ATT on Apple Search Ads it’s almost zero because Apple Seach Ads was the one marketing channel that was going to be exempted from it.
If I’m seeing a small pirating app that is based on pirated shows on YouTube, I don’t think it’s possible anymore, but just for the sake of the argument, I won’t feel the same level of threat. This is where you need to think “ok, not every threat is equal”
Don’t expect too much out of it, we still see a lot of people only now finding out what is ASO and thinking that they can get 300+ downloads just out of the thin air”
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London - 25 Apr 2024
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#76 : Can ASO work hand in hand with performance marketing with Anton Tatarynovich, Senior ASO Consultant at Phiture

ASO (aka App Store Optimization) has been an app marketing service for a quite a while. Soon after the Apple’s App Store was launched back in 2008, people began to wonder how to get more downloads for their apps on the store and Google Play market joined the party shortly after.
It’s 2021 and it’s time to take a fresh look at ASO and see how it can actually work with other areas of the digital marketing , such as performance marketing, together.
In this episode, Anton Tatarynovich, Senior ASO Consultant of Phiture, a multi award-winning mobile growth consultancy, tells us all about it.
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️ Anton’s path: from a Sales Manager in a A/B testing company to the Senior Consultant at the top app marketing agency
✔️ Phiture - a hundred employee Berlin-based mobile agency with a broad spectrum app marketing expertise, famous for its Mobile Growth Stack concept
✔️ So what is App Store Optimization?
✔️ What ASO tools do we have and should use
✔️ How ASO and performance marketing can actually work together and feed each other with useful data
✔️ What results app marketers should reasonably expect from ASO plus performance marketing combo?
✔️ How ASO and Apple Search Ads can be useful to each other
✔️ What updates for app marketers has Apple’s WWDC 2021 brought?
✔️ Android or iOS? Actually both, no real preference here :-)
✔️ What app features would Seth miss most? Messaging via Telegram and listening music on Spotify
✔️ What is missing from mobile app technology? Better Apple’s App Store experience, tech & financial media for GenZ
Links and Resources:
Anton’s LinkedIn profile
Phiture website.
Quotes from Anton Tatarynovich:
I think a lot of companies still approach ASO as new, even though it’s been around for a quite a few years.
Essential ASO tools - two main ones, obviously the App Store Connect and Google Play Store Console. That’s pretty much are high level analytics what we check day to day to understand how the app is doing.
It’s really the key to align performance marketing and ASO for apps, especially when the sheer of downloads coming from paid sources is substantial.
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#75 : How Rapchat got to 7 million with Seth Miller, founder and CEO at Rapchat

Everybody loves music, right? Maybe not the same music, but all the songs you want to hear are at your fingertips. What if you want to do more than just listen, like create and write music?
Our today’s guest, to tell you the story of an app growth, is Seth Miller, CEO at Rapchat, which lets you create music and beats without using a computer to be heard, record, share, and get noticed.
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️ Rhyme Time: It’s like Snapchat for rap, so just call it Rapchat
✔️ Game Changer: Viral loop of ability to create and share songs with more than friends
✔️ Retention: Build a great product/product-market fit to minimize app users’ churn
✔️ Recording Studio: Too many core features can clutter the music experience
✔️ Product Market Fit: Qualitative survey data positively impacts engagement and retention
✔️ Business Models and Monetization: Rapchat went from ads to subscription products
✔️ Seth’s Key Takeaways: Don’t get lost in the sauce as you start to scale your app
✔️ Back to Basics: Who’s coming and why? Clarify and analyze user research and data
✔️ Android or iOS? iOS
✔️ What app features would Seth miss most? Sleep tracker and Twitter
✔️ What is missing from mobile app technology? Ability to turn off all notifications and distractions
Links and Resources:
Seth Miller on Twitter
Rapchat
Quotes from Seth Miller:
“It’s like Snapchat for rap.”
“Rapchat - the easiest way to make music on your phone. We really put a recording studio in your pocket for the everyday artist.”
“Build your own philosophy, your own system, and figure out what works for your product, your users.”
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London - 25 Apr 2024
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#74 : Driving Growth with Engagement and Retention strategies with Nicole Chin, growth at Mindvalley

The app growth is the most popular and challenging topic among mobile app marketers. Pull away couple app marketers, get them some coffee and chances are they will drag you into a conversation about mobile app growth.
A mobile app lifecycle is a marathon that, like any other growth of a 🌱, crystal,  👶, it requires knowledge, planning and dedication. 
In this episode Nicole Chin, growth marketer at Mindvalley will tell you how to approach an app growth as a system and even somewhat automate it.
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️ Nicole’s path: from a management consulting to a growth marketer at Mindvalley
✔️ Mindvalley - a subscription-based app tech platform to sells online courses with a mindset of a startup, even after being for years on the market
✔️ AARRR - acquisition, activation, retention, referral, revenue, what the marketing funnel is all about.
✔️ App growth as a system, a holistic look at growing your mobile app
✔️ Is it possible to automate app growth?
✔️ How long should you wait to let your app audience to check out your app to see if it works for them?
✔️ How to get people who aren’t your app loyal core users to get back to your app? What puts they away?
✔️  Strategies to achieve mobile app users retention. Achieve the real engagement with the app, not clicking on the app for the sake of inflating the MAU to report your share holders on a quarter financial call.
✔️ The hardest part of the mobile app growth business
✔️ iOS vs. Android: iOS
✔️ First mobile phone: Nokia
✔️ Smartphone feature Nicole would miss the most leaving the phone at home: taking picture to stay safe from harassment on the street.
✔️ New software / hardware features Nicole would love to get on her iPhone: totally happy with what it does for her now.
Links and Resources:
Nicole LinkedIn profile: Nicole Chin
Mindvalley website - https://www.mindvalley.com/
Quotes from Nicole Chin:
There is a foundation that an app and a business has to reach first and it’s a product / market fit. A lot of times if you don’t reach a product / market fit, no matter what you do it’s gonna be difficult to growth.
It’s not a one size fits all, even within your product you can really drill down further for 20% who are coming back and what about the other 80%?
What you really want to know whether or not there is any traction for the app. So it’s really defined by users, installs and  downloads.
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