Business of Apps Podcast

#53: ASO & Paid UA duo: best practices with Arthur Kolayan, VP, Sales & Partnerships at Jellyfish

Ask a professional app marketer "what is in your marketing toolbox?" and he'll tell you - App Store Optimization, Paid User Acquisition, Influencer Marketing, PR, podcasts, TV and radio.
Now, you can split all that app marketing techniques into two buckets: Organic and Paid. Organic relies on distribution channels that you don’t spend your money on. With paid, you do. It’s that simple. As an app marketer, should you go with organic, paid, or both?
Today’s guest is Arthur Kolajan, VP of Sales and Partnerships at Jellyfish. Arthur talks about how to make the difficult choice between organic or paid app marketing.
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️ How Arthur got involved in app marketing: Recruiter, new role, and recommendations
✔️ Why is it called Jellyfish? True story—founders wanted something without ‘digital’
✔️ Organic App Marketing: Strategy and optimization needed to be successful
✔️ Paid App Marketing: Facebook, Instagram, and other channels for brand awareness
✔️ App Lifecycle: Conceptualizing, funding, developing, and marketing
✔️ Overnight success? Launching app without strategy requires marketing and money
✔️ When to launch: Anytime is the right time for marketing an app
✔️ App Visibility: Simple to find, download, generate profit; complex with number of apps
✔️ App Stores: Reasons why they exist to make informed decisions
✔️ Apple Search vs. Google Ads: Two biggest paid app platforms and marketing potential
✔️ App Ad Campaigns:
Optimize relevant metadata for high conversion and high visibility
Make keywords effective and creative by testing banners, copy, and users
Track data points (Conversion, cost, consistent organic/paid communication)
✔️ Android or iOS? iOS
✔️ What is Arthur’s favorite mobile app(s) today? Multiplayer gaming apps
✔️ What’s Arthur’s wanting with app technologies? Social audio
Links and Resources:
Arthur Kolayan’s Email
Arthur Kolayan on LinkedIn
Jellyfish
Quotes by Arthur Kolajan:
“The reality is that for organic to actually work, you need to have a strategy in place.”
“It’s some additional PR, but it’s more about app store optimization. It’s more about search engine optimization for your Website. It’s about creating this viral to loop some referral campaigns.”
“The right timing is actually any timing because when you launch, you want to support your launch with the proper strategy. When you grow, you don’t want to lose to small competitors.”
“If they stop marketing, they will die. ”
“You need to go where there’s less competition, and then you will be found. The reality is that less competition means less data. So, you actually are more likely to be found if you go into a competitive category because there will be more data about what people search for.”
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London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024
 

#52: Finance for App UA managers with Martin Macmillan, CEO and Founder at Pollen VC

A mobile app user acquisition funding is a crucial process every app business owner should know well to succeed. Too often it's being neglected and it leads to an app project failure. In this episode we want to fill the gap for app developers and brands and talk about an app projects funding.
Today’s guest is Martin Macmillan, CEO and co-founder of Pollen VC—a financing model for mobile apps and game publishers to unlock unpaid revenues and eliminate payout delays up to 60+ days. How? By connecting to their app store and ad network platforms.
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️  App Business Funding: Solving app developer problems, payments
✔️  Use old financial services knowledge and new knowledge as app developer
✔️  Company Portrait: Digitally verify sold or displayed but unpaid receivables every day
✔️  Borrowing Base: Pull IP or ad network revenues and borrow up to 95%
✔️  Misunderstandings: User acquisition and financial staff need to speak same language
✔️  Key Metrics: Calculate user acquisition machine as an investment equation
✔️  Capital Stack: Start with cheapest, next most expensive, stop when it doesn’t make sense
✔️  Economic Laws: Demand-and-supply curve for UI for a mobile app
✔️  Public or Private: As companies get bigger, budget process gets harder
✔️  Android or iOS? iOS
✔️  What is Martin’s favorite mobile app today? Vivino
✔️  What’s Martin wanting with technologies? Longer battery life and a bigger keyboard
Links and Resources:
Martin Macmillan’s Email
Pollen VC
Pollen’s LTV Calculator and App Cashflow Forecaster
Quotes by Martin Macmillan:
“Most developers and publishers that we’re working with, they just want to know what is available, how much can I draw, and when can I get it?”
“The user acquisition is nothing more than an investment equation. How much money do you invest? When do you break even on the money? When do you get your return on your money?”
“A lot of people didn’t really realize whether their UA was likely to be ROI-positive or not.”
“Be very focused on profitability, as opposed to a source of capital or anything else. You want to be able to do everything that’s going to keep you driving towards maximizing your return.”
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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
 

#51: How to win Gen Z on mobile with Lexi Sydow, Senior Market Insights Manager at App Annie

How old were you when you got your first smartphone? These days, 98% of the Generation Z demographic have a smartphone and owned their first one by the age of 10. Why? Apps. 
Today’s guest is Lexi Sydow, Senior Market Insights Manager at App Annie. Lexi talks about how to build a winning Gen Z mobile marketing strategy. If you were born in the mid-to-late 1990s to early 2010s, then you’re part of Gen Z.
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️  Why should app marketers consider different generations? Priorities and psychology
✔️  Gen Z Stats: Average user base doubled faster and engages 20% more frequently
✔️  Mobile Device Delight: App marketers offer personal, timely, and relevant communication
✔️  Why attract Gen Z? Formative years establish brand preferences and earn loyalty
✔️  Daily Active Users: KPI metric measured anytime app is opened during defined period
✔️  What app categories are most popular with Gen Z? Comics, social, and games
✔️  Time vs. Money: Gen Z spent time playing games, but interest grew in finance, shopping
✔️  TikTok and Snapchat: Gen Z marketing strategy should focus first on videos and images
Links and Resources:
Lexi Sydow on LinkedIn
App Annie
App Annie Report: How to Build a Winning Gen Z Strategy on Mobile
#16: 10 Actions marketers need to win mobile with Lexi Sydow, Data Analyst at App Annie
Quotes by Lexi Sydow:
“Gen Z is the only generation to grow up with a smartphone in their hands.”
“Every engagement of every session is an opportunity to delight a consumer.”
“Mobile offers a really great way to garner brand awareness and trust.”
“It’s all about tapping into this market in an authentic way that resonates with them, especially as they’re forming these habits and continuing to grow in their influence.”
Brought to you by Business Of Apps
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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
 

#50: How to effectively retarget for e-commerce with Thomas Yannopoulos, Director of Sales at REMERGE

How do app marketers engage consumers and keep them using their apps? This is not a trivial question. For the last several years, one of the top problems marketers had with their apps was a User Churn. The numbers are staggering - around 30% of users used an app within the first day since they had downloaded it and only about 10% or less within the next 30 days. 
But don’t lose sleep over app retention and engagement questions. Today’s guest is Tommy Yannopoulos, Director of Sales at Remerge. Tommy talks about the economics of mobile app retargeting to re-engage consumers.
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️  Mobile Marketing Industry: Valuable learning experience getting acquired by competitors
✔️  Retarget: Engage consumers when they are not on your property to complete an action
✔️  Performance Marketing: Math equation that everyone is trying to crack and scale
✔️  User Acquisition: Communicate consistently with consumers
✔️  App Ecosystem: Losing consumers is part of the game; reduce churn to relate to brand
✔️  Audience Segments: First-time and previous purchases present different behaviors
✔️  eCommerce App Mistakes:
Lack of personalization
Lack of focus on seamless consumer experience
Use of poorly developed creatives not compelling to consumers
Challenge of measuring efficacy and incrementality of campaigns
✔️  Privacy Updates/Delays: Consumers have rights, companies obligated to follow them
✔️  Android or iOS? iOS
✔️  Favorite App(s): AllModern from Wayfair
✔️  What’s Tommy looking forward to with app technology in the future? 5G, Apple’s innovation
Links and Resources:
Remerge
Tommy Yannopoulos’s Email
Tommy Yannopoulos on LinkedIn
The Social Dilemma on Netflix
Quotes by Tommy Yannopoulos:
“User acquisition, that’s my biggest argument for why you should retarget. If it’s economically in the green for you, there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t do it.”
“You should retarget because you want to talk to your consumers on a consistent basis.”
“It’s important for businesses to stay engaged with their consumers because as we know, especially in the app ecosystem, losing consumers is part of the game.”
“The Holy Grail of retargeting, in general, is personalization.”
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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
 

#49: What app publishers need to know about data today with Lior Barak, Co-Founder at Tale About Data

App data - how much does this notion actually tell you? It's been one of the most popular catch phrases but it seems its popularity doesn't really match its comprehension.
For the past 12 years, Apple has been establishing a huge mobile ecosystem with millions of developers building apps for iOS. What allows all those developers to build successful app businesses? Data for their app’s performance on the market.
Today’s guest is Lior Barak, author of Data is Like a Plate of Hummus and podcast host of WHAT The Data?! Lior talks about what app publishers need to know about data, today. Data runs the world and drives decisions.
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️  Lior’s Book: Data is Like a Plate of Hummus (a tasty dish that you can enjoy)
✔️  Data strategies should consist of five ingredients to collecting and storing data
✔️  WHAT The Data?! Lior’s podcast covers various topics—from fake AI to privacy
✔️  Fate of iOS 14?
✔️  Happy that Apple’s taking initiative, not being forced to do so
✔️  Disappointed by industry’s reaction to Apple’s privacy update
✔️  Data for App Publishers: Serve the user; user does not serve them
✔️  ROI: Focus on features, not revenues
✔️  KPIs: One size does not fit all or always scale; depend on needs, business, and growth
✔️  Analyze and Optimize: Fix mistakes made collecting data by understanding users
✔️  Android or iOS? Android
✔️ Favorite App(s): Vivino wine app
✔️  What’s Lior looking forward to with app technology in the future? Holograms
Links and Resources:
Lior Barak on LinkedIn
WHAT The Data?!
Data is Like a Plate of Hummus
Tweets/Quotes by Lior Barak:
“Be a little more relaxed when using data. This is our biggest problem as we go forward in this industry.”
“Data is Like a Plate of Hummus—a tasty dish that you can eat and that you can enjoy.”
“We have so much data out there that is collected and stored, but the reality is, we can’t make sense of all of it.”
“With using data, with understanding your user, you will be able to actually give them a much better product, much better features, instead of focusing on your revenues.”
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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
 

#48: Combatting mobile ad fraud in COVID-19 era with Luke Taylor, COO and Founder at TrafficGuard

Mobile ad fraud has been a dark shadow on the entire mobile advertising industry for a number of year by now. It's been growing fast - fraudsters keep inventing more sophisticated ways to steal, fraud detection and prevention companies do their best to keep up and being able to detect new kids of fraud and help brands to minimize its impact on their bottom line.
It is the ongoing battle.
One would hope that COVID pandemic would slow mobile fraudsters down and that would be really naive take on that. It is quite contrary. 
Today’s guest is Luke Taylor, COO and founder of TrafficGuard. Luke talks about the current state of affairs for mobile advertising fraud during COVID-19.
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️  TrafficGuard: Full funnel ad verification and fraud prevention solution
✔️  Mobile Fraud Before COVID (BC): Reality ever since advertising started
✔️  Wasting Money? Measure what you want and what you should pay
✔️  Traffic and Trivial Changes: Audiences, behaviors, data, and privacy concerns
✔️  Buyer Beware: When looking for a bargain, fraudsters never sleep or stop
✔️  Transparency: What does fraud look like? Look after yourself, data, and ad spend
✔️  Android or iOS? iOS
✔️  Favorite App(s): 1Password
✔️  What’s Luke looking forward to with app technology in the future? On-device ML
Links and Resources:
Luke Taylor of LinkedIn
TrafficGuard
Quotes by Luke Taylor:
“Fraud has been happening in mobile space, ever since advertising was running.”
“Fraud is everywhere. It’s even hard for the premium sources to keep it at bay.”
“People have been forced to tighten budgets. Unfortunately, that means that many advertisers are chasing cheaper traffic.”
“Anywhere that there’s money, there’s going to be some aspect of fraudulent activity.”
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London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024
 

#47: App growth in 2020: Stitcher with Julie Booth, Growth Marketing Manager at Stitcher

Do you listen podcasts? Since they emerged as a new medium on iTunes in early 2000, they’ve grown to a huge source of information for people about pretty much anything you can think of.
Last year alone, 90 million people in the United States listened to podcasts at least once a month. They spend hours listening to hosts that they trust talk about all kinds of topics.
Today’s guest is Julie Booth, Senior Growth Marketing Manager at Stitcher. Julie shares how Stitcher has become one of the leading podcast platforms and apps.
Today’s Topics Include:
 ✔️  Favorite Podcasts: Everchanging list includes You’re Wrong About and reality TV recaps
✔️ How do people choose podcast apps? Depends on content, curiosity, and features
✔️ Product Design Challenges: People don’t always know what they want or will use
✔️ Stitcher Difference: Advanced features for customization and control specific to podcasts
✔️ Free to use Forever: Stitcher provides podcast listeners with a great listening experience
✔️ Geographical Anomalies: Average Stitcher user is older, affluent, and educated
✔️ COVID: App usage adapted from listening during commute, not at all, to remote routine
✔️ User Acquisition: Podcasting is still a niche entertainment medium and faces competition
✔️ User Acquisition Channels/Universal App Campaigns: Google, influencers, partnerships
✔️ Android or iOS? iOS
✔️ Favorite App(s): Facebook Messenger
✔️ What’s Julie looking forward to with app technology in the future? iOS 14 widgets, personal vs. professional privacy
Links and Resources:
Stitcher
Julie Booth on LinkedIn
Julie Booth on Instagram
Julie Booth on Twitter
Julie Booth’s Email
Quotes by Julie Booth:
“For the podcast app, we find a lot of people say they want a feature, but then never use that feature.”
“A podcasting app is really the frame, it’s not the picture.”
“We provide a lot of control to users that other apps don’t.”
“Getting people into podcasting is what I focus on the most...it’s really hard to get someone to switch apps once they’ve started.”
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London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024
 

#46: Transparency and mobile performance with Jordi de los Pinos, Co-founder and CEO at SMADEX

It’s undeniable - when it comes to mobile advertising, performance - is what you’re looking from your online advertising partner first and foremost. Nobody would argue with that.
But then comes the second extremely important component - transparency. For an advertiser of any size - big brands especially - it’s crucial to know what channels are being used to drive traffic to their product of service. Is their brand safe with those channels?
Today’s guest is Jordi de Los Pinos, co-founder and CEO at Smadex. Jordi provides complete transparency on Demand Side Platform (DSP) performance.
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️  Jordi’s Journey: Switch from engineering hardware to mobile app advertising
✔️  Programmatic Advertising: Real-time bidding via signal processing and machine learning
✔️  Smadex: Mobile programmatic advertising platform that places ads for user acquisition
✔️  Performance and Transparency: What Smadex strives to give its marketing clients
✔️  DSP: Difference between Digital Signal Processor and Demand Side Platform
✔️  DSP Benefits: Smart technology makes money, quick decisions in real-time auctions
✔️  Privacy and Advertising: Upcoming options and concerns for targeting individuals
✔️  COVID Impact: Mobile advertising scalability and acceleration of digital transformation
✔️  Biggest Problem: Attribution—give merit to partner/company by analyzing metrics
✔️  Android or iOS?: Android
✔️  Favorite App(s): Play Chess
✔️  What’s Jordi looking forward to with app technology in the future? 5G
Links and Resources:
Jordi de los Pinos on LinkedIn
Smadex
Quotes by Jordi de los Pinos:
“As humans, we always want what we don’t have.”
“We help app marketers to get people to download their app into their phone.”
“They make the advertiser money.”
“What we strive to achieve for our clients, in general, is to give them two things that I believe are key on what any marketer would want—performance and transparency.”
“Choose an ad for the right person at the right time.”
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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
 

#45: Paid Social Campaigns with Hannah Parvaz, Head of Growth at Curio

Paid social campaigns are what our today's guest app marketer Hannah Parvaz is well known and praised for. Over the years, she was multiple time in charge of an app growth from a pre-launch to millions of users.
App marketers need to connect app with users to grow and sustain a successful app business. First comes search, followed by paid acquisition and social campaigns to drive installs for apps.
Today Hannah Parvaz is Head of Growth at Curio, an audio platform featuring a curated library of expertly narrated journalism.
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️  Audio vs. Text: Audio is better medium for learning, understanding, and connecting
✔️  Authentic Speech Narration: Stories are narrated by people, rather than robots
✔️  Curio’s Competition? Apple News+ is simply another option with a different focus
✔️  Product, Users, Experiments: How to prepare, launch, and run social media campaigns
✔️  Social Campaign Copy: Optimize app store listing and obtain high comprehension score
✔️  Mistakes: Too much text in images, not trying/testing platforms, and narrowing audience
✔️  Creatives: Everything requires teamwork in a startup, one can’t run everything well
✔️  Android or iOS? iOS
✔️  Favorite App(s): Freetrade and Letterboxd
✔️  What’s Hannah looking forward to with app technology in the future? iOS 14 widgets
Links and Resources:
Hannah Parvaz on LinkedIn
Curio
Quotes by Hannah Parvaz:
“Because we’re curating everything, we know that everything is packed with insight. We only pick pieces we think will be evergreen, so they can have a long shelf life.”
“Audio is a better medium for learning. Our main goal is really to just help everyone understand the world better so that people can really connect with each other.”
“We’re more focused on journalism and storytelling. We’re not really about the fast news cycle.”
“Everything requires teamwork in a startup, unless you’re somehow like a very talented magician. You can’t really run everything by yourself well.”
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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
 

#44: Dating apps growth in 2020 with Geoff Cook, CEO of The Meet Group

An app growth is always on the radar of every app developer or a brand. Eavesdrop any app marketing team brainstorming session and you'll hear them avidly discussing  how to gain more loyal app users and what user acquisition channels to focus on.
Now, dating apps have a special place in the app industry and in our lives. No matter where you live, your age, or your gender, you probably use mobile apps to connect with others and dating apps is surely one way of doing that.
Today’s guest is Geoffrey Cook, CEO of The Meet Group. Meeting other people to socialize or date is simply part of human nature. The Meet Group is the largest provider of live streaming dating apps.
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️  Five Dating Apps: MeetMe, SKOUT, Tagged, LOVOO, and GROWLr
✔️  Dating Community: 15 million monthly users mostly in United States and Europe
✔️  Live Streaming Solution: Monetizes via users giving each other virtual gifts
✔️  COVID Impact: Created significant increase in dating game usage in past five months
✔️  Management Tools: Shift to remote work using Zoom, Slack, and more for productivity
✔️  Marketing Channels: Singling out pricing power to acquire new users for growth strategy
✔️  Types of Content: Create user-generated content in form of chats and messages
✔️  Live Streaming: Consumption and production offers connection during social distancing
✔️  Videos: More efficient, more information available, and less risk swiping left or right
✔️  Android or iOS? iOS
✔️  Favorite App(s): Medium
✔️  What’s Geoffrey looking forward to with app technology in the future? Authenticity and AI
Links and Resources:
Geoffrey Cook on Medium
The Meet Group
Veronica and the Volcano
Quotes by Geoffrey Cook:
“The way we think of ourselves is really as the mobile version of the bar, the coffeehouse, this social gathering place.”
“What we’ve been doing that’s fairly unique is adding live streaming video to dating since 2016. And lately, we’ve been aiming to make everyone the star of their own dating show.”
“We, essentially, use all the same tools we used before the pandemic. We just use them more given that there is no in-person contact.”
“Marketing is always a challenge. Year over year, we’re seeing rates (cost per registrations) go up as it costs more to acquire users.”
Brought to you by Business Of Apps
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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