Business of Apps Podcast

#186: The best and worst mobile user experiences with Eric Futoran, Co-Founder of Embrace

User experience. This term has become so widespread and significant for business because we all use so many products and services and if you think about it - your interaction with those products and services can make your day or ruin it.
Our smartphones and mobile apps have become our life companions and chances are your first thought in a morning can be about your experience with a mobile game the previous evening or watching something cool on Netflix or chatting with ChatGPT-4 on the OpenAI app and going philosophical about something. And if those apps worked flawlessly you had a great user experience, if they were buggy - you know what it feels like.
In this episode, Eric will tell about common technical issues apps have, the evolution of users’ expectations for app experiences over the years, unique challenges for mobile product and engineering teams, and more.
Today’s Topics Include:
Eric Futoran's background
What is Embrace
The most common app tech issues developers encounter
The evolution of app users' expectations for app experiences over the years
Unique challenges mobile product and engineering teams face
App categories that have the biggest problems with app quality
The impact of unresolved app performance issues on app marketing metrics
What Eric would like to change about mobile tech the most
Android or iOS?
Leaving his smartphone at home, what features would Eric miss most?
What features he would like to see added to his smartphone?
Links and Resources:
Eric Futoran on LinkedIn
Embrace website
Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry
Quotes from Eric Futoran:
"One of our customers actually got threatened recently. A voice-to-chat app, which has millions of users got threatened recently that their app would be pulled by Google because they were below or above the threshold that you would see in the Google Play console. We help with all those things, and then we help you prioritize."
"And then they're throwing an alert which is really reactive. It's too late on mobile, your users are gone. And then because the release cycles, you're waiting a week, two weeks to a month.
And then you're trying to get an approval cycle from Apple or Google, which is getting faster. That's not perfect. But you're still waiting. And like, even a week is too long for a lot of these issues, even the smaller ones that you seemingly don't think that are a big issue, but they can pile and so the pain is getting all these pieces to work together, but also getting your teams to talk a common language."
Host
Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry since 2012
A message from App Promotion Summit
Tickets are 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

How do you scale subscription apps for kids with Luisa Zuleta, Growth Lead at Sago Mini & Toca Boca

As so many app developers and publishers would agree, growing an audience for an app is a challenge. Nothing is static - you find a new marketing channel that works and for a while and you feel like you can finally breath again freely but then it becomes crowded with your competitors or the app industry wide change happens like Apple’s introduction of ATT framework and… - back to the drawing board.
But today Luisa will tell you a story of what it takes to scale a subscription app for kids and if you feel like it should be even more challenging, you are right - it is.
Today’s Topics Include:
Luisa Zuleta's background
What Sago Mini and Toca Boca games are about
Limitations in app marketing Luisa faced even before SKAD introduction
Building relationships with partners to go through tough times
Rethinking app audiences
Reworking the marketing channel
Defining LTV for an app
What Luisa managed to achieve as the result
Takeways
What Luisa would like to change about mobile ad tech the most
Android or iOS?
Leaving her smartphone at home, what features would Luisa miss most?
What features she would like to see added to his smartphone?
Links and Resources:
Luisa Zuleta on LinkedIn
Sago Mini website
Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry
Quotes from Luisa Zuleta:
"So when you're advertising and producing kids apps, you are you have to face two sets of regulations COPA for the US and GDPR for Europe. Those regulations affect not only marketing, but also the app development, publishing, what kind of data you can collect inside the apps, and also monetization strategies. "
"So it's not like any traditional gaming app where you look at your user base and you know that the user that's most engaged is the one who did level one to three in the first 20 minutes, or bought this pack or that. It's not applicable. Sometimes you could have a parent of a four year old having a strict screen time of two times a week."
Host
Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry since 2012
A message from App Promotion Summit
Tickets are 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

#184: New regulatory landscape of In-App purchases with Michael Bilotta, Head of Digital Goods & Services at Worldline

There is this joke in Silicon Valley “US tech companies are great in software, Chinese ones are cool in hardware and EU make laws and regulations” Of course, there is always a kernel of truth in every joke and I would say that this one has a pretty big one.
Big Tech has been in a free fly mode since the inception of Google. There have been very few regulations for which you don’t event need fingers on your both hands to count. But things change and right now regulations are coming.
Today Michael will tell us about the EU’s Digital Markets Act - what it is and what are its implications for app developers and publishers.
Today’s Topics Include:
Michael Bilotta's background
What is Worldline
Digital Markets Act: definition and implications for app developers and publishers
Third-party payment systems providers response
The advantages of implementing third-party billing for mobile app developers and publishers
Trialing alternative payment systems with customers in South Korea, implications for the US
What Mike would like to change about the mobile teach the most
Android or iOS?
Leaving his smartphone at home, what features would Mike miss most?
What features she would like to see added to his smartphone?
Links and Resources:
Michael Bilotta on LinkedIn
Worldline website
Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry
Quotes from Michael Bilotta:
"So the Digital Markets Act is multifaceted, and essentially what it's looking to do is regulate the way that big tech can operate in the EU really from the perspective of ensuring that there are not these monopolies that are created because of the fact that these big tech companies are so expensive. "
"So when a payment goes through the traditional app store, it goes into kind of a black box that nobody is super familiar with, nor do we really understand exactly how that payment is being processed. But through a third party payment provider, we can do things like smart routing, where if a transaction fails initially, we can try and route it to another financial institution and see if we can get an acceptance. "
Host
Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry since 2012
A message from App Promotion Summit
Tickets are 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

#183: Boosting User Engagement and App Retention @ APS Berlin

Another week another bonus episode for you, this time it is the Boosting User Engagement and App Retention panel discussion from our App Promotion Summit Berlin that we hosted back on November 30 last year.
Every app marketer would agree that App Retention is absolutely crucial for a mobile app project to become sustainable.
To address a number of questions about app user engagement and retention we had:
Ioana Iordache, Head of Retention at Blacklane
Tobias Lüder, Head of CRM at Delivery Hero
Isabelle Matuschka, Senior CRM Manager at Blinkist
Niklas Henckell, Head of Community Development at Jodel
Jon Genovard, CRM & Retention Manager at ShareTheMeal, United Nations World Food Programme.
The focus of this panel was on:
✅ real life case studies for retaining app users
✅ measuring app user retention
✅ how of app users habits fit in their usage of apps regularly
Host
Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry since 2012
A message from App Promotion Summit
Tickets are 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

#182: Your app growth strategy to survive the streaming wars with Chris Puga, SVP Mobile at Creative Clicks

What are you watching these days? The Morning Show or Foundation on Apple TV+? Jack Ryan on Amazon Prime? Are you listening music on Apple Music or Spotify? In other words - we live in a streaming world.
Initially it was cool to have Netflix for all your online movie watching time and now there are Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Hulu, Peacock, Paramount Plus, Max (which you may still call HBO Max), Disney +. All these platforms charge you around $10 a month, but when you decide to go with a few of them at the same time, it adds up pretty quickly.
People clearly need to decide what platforms to choose because they both don’t have enough money and don’t have time to watch all of it and so they have to choose.  And this is just movies, there are streaming apps for gaming, fitness, podcasts, and more.
In this episode we have Chris to help us out with your app growth strategy to survive these streaming wars.
Today’s Topics Include:
Chris Puga's background
What is Creative Clicks
Why content curation is important for streaming apps
How to make a first impression good while app onboarding
How to make your app users stick to the app
Examples of successful app growth strategies
Takeways
Android or iOS?
Leaving his smartphone at home, what features would Chris miss most?
What features she would like to see added to his smartphone?
Links and Resources:
Chris Puga on LinkedIn
Creative Clicks website
Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry
Quotes from Chris Puga:
"From the brand's perspective, it's simple, like content creation is important because a seamless user experience is no longer a luxury or a nice to have, it's a necessity."
"I think deep linking  is a great way to make a good first impression. I think not inundating new users with a lengthy user flow. I think that's huge. That is an amazing way to make a good first impression."
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

#181: App Growth Strategies for 2024 @ APS Berlin

This week we have another bonus episode for you, this time it’s the App Growth Strategies for 2024 panel discussion from our App Promotion Summit Berlin that we hosted back on November 30, 2023. 
On the panel we had:
Wendy Tai, Head of Performance Marketing at Wolt
Ara Salbashian, Head Of Digital Marketing at FREENOW
Alexander Beresford, Chief Growth Officer at Taxfix
Rodolphe Helderwerdt, Head of Marketing at Tandem.
App Growth is one of evergreen themes in app marketing, it was relevant and important five years ago, it was crucial last year and it continues to be on minds of app marketers this year.
The focus of this panel was on:
✅ effective team management.
✅ what trends can be seen in the market
✅ suggestions for app growth 💯
 
Ladies and gentlemen, without any further ado - the App Growth Strategies for 2024 panel.
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

#180: Fitness app growth marketing lessons with Mansi Sharma, VP, Growth Marketing at MyFitnessPal

Happy 2024 everybody! It’s time of the year when we think about resolutions like keeping yourself fit and so fitness can be one of the things on your mind right now. How about keeping your fitness app fit? I bet just like with keeping yourself in shape you wouldn’t mind to learn from other folks’ experience, wouldn’t you?
In this episode, I have Mansi to tell you about the lessons she’s learned growing and keeping the MyFitnessPal app in shape.
Today’s Topics Include:
Mansi Sharma's background
What is MyFitnessPal app
How to conduct a proper research
The role of ad creative and targeting in running an app ad campaign
A scaling of a mobile user acquisition campaign
Assessing user acquisition budget spending
Testing app marketing campaign hypotheses
How do you compete effectively?
Takeaways
Android or iOS?
Leaving his smartphone at home, what features would Mansi miss most?
What features she would like to see added to his smartphone?
Links and Resources:
Mansi Sharma on LinkedIn
MyFitnessPal app
Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry
Quotes from Mansi Sharma:
" So, for example, if the category is not big enough, we need to come up with category expansion campaigns, which would be much more broad reaching and sort of educational in nature. However, if the category is okay and our budgets are still small and we need results in the short term, I'd focus on growing my market share by reaching out to people who are already in the category right and win them over to my side. "
"So creative wins over targeting because what I found is that a good creative can break the targeting barriers. So for example, if you have designed a creative for a 25 year old male, if it is designed well, it can also work for a 45 year old male."
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

#179: App Subscription A/B Testing best practices with Steve P. Young, Founder at App Masters

Like with many things in business, when it comes to app marketing people either rely on data to make decisions or listen to their gut feeling. We are strongly suggesting to do the former, we encourage you to do your best to keep it rational and follow the data, be a scientist in your field.
In this episode, Steve will make the case for you showing what A/B testing reveals about app engagement, paywalls, and more. This episode is special to celebrate the beginning of 2024 - you can either listen it here or actually watch it on our YouTube channel.
Today’s Topics Include:
Steve P. Young background
What is App Masters
What does A/B testing reveal about app engagement?
Is introducing a paywall on onboarding a great idea?
Do discounts for app subscriptions work?
The significance of customization
Hard and soft paywalls
The right number of plans for app subscriptions
What A/B testing tells us about an efficient Call-To-Action
What Steve would like to change about app industry
Takeaways
Links and Resources:
Steve P. Young on LinkedIn
App Masters website
Video version of the episode on YouTube
Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry
Quotes from Steve P. Young:
"Now I had Yeva from Headway, the product manager. And she said when you have a longer onboarding, we've actually seen our clients from their data that longer onboardings actually lead to higher conversions. Yes, there will be more drop offs, but the people actually make it all the way through will actually subscribe. And the people who drop out, they were never probably going to subscribe it anyways. "
"I mean, frankly, in life, just think like a scientist, like everything is an experiment. We have a hypothesis, which may come from our gut, but we're going to test it out, and then we're going to let data decide."
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
 
 

#178: Using Generative AI to boost your monetization strategy with Jenny Kay Pollock, Mobile App Expert

Generative Pre-trained Transformer or better known to you as ChatGPT. This Generative AI, based on a large language model, was launched by OpenAI on November 30th last year.
You might have heard about OpenAI’s very recent turmoil with its CEO, Sam Altman’s firing and re-hiring 5 days later. Of course such a twist with a company worth 80$ billion grabbed your attention.
Speaking of money - how Generative AI can help you to boost your app’s monetization strategy?
It’s a good question and we have Jenny to help us to figure it out.
Today’s Topics Include:
Jenny Kay Pollock background
Jenny's take on the current state of Generative AI
How app developers and brand can figure out if Generative AI is a good fit for their app
How Generative AI can help with app monetization
How to create effective prompts for Generative AI
What Jenny would like to change about app marketing
Takeaways
Links and Resources:
Jenny Kay Pollock on LinkedIn
A free AI Prompt Engineering worksheet to help you save time and boost app revenue with AI support.
Women and AI (WAAI) on LinkedIn
www.womenandai.com - join a community focused on advancing the field of artificial intelligence by empowering and amplifying the voices of women in technology.
Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry
Quotes from Jenny Kay Pollock:
"AI’s power to drive business growth is exciting! Organizations and individuals can partner with generative AI to create something better or faster!"
"AI is not going to take your job. You’re just going to have to partner with it. Collaborate with the AI to supercharge your efforts."
"The [AI] technology is moving fast and things like corporate governance and legislation can be slow to catch up. Your board should be talking about AI strategy and AI policies."  
"AI is a new frontier and with that comes a new opportunity for more diversity."
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
 

#177: Preventing App Subscriber Churn with Vahe Baghdasaryan, Sr. Growth Marketing Manager at CoinStats

App user acquisition is so important across mobile platforms, countries and languages - we all understand the challenge and significance of connecting your app with users.
We also are pretty familiar, way more than we would like to, with the notion of a mobile app churn.
This infamous situation when people, users of your app you spent so much energy to find, abandon the app.
In this episode, we will be talking about how to prevent app subscriber churn in particular. When people leave your paid app it’s a problem but not as big as when they pay you a subscription fee and they stop using your app.
Today’s Topics Include:
Vahe Baghdasaryan background
What is CoinStats today
What is App Subscriber churn
Unintentional users churn and how to mitigate it
Intentional users churn and how to mitigate it
App Analytics tools Vahe suggests
Switching the tables: the case when Vahe was an app user who was persuaded to stick to the app
Android or iOS?
Leaving his smartphone at home, what features would Vahe miss most?
What features he would like to see added to his smartphone?
Links and Resources:
Vahe Baghdasaryan on LinkedIn
CoinStats company
Vahe's coaching page
Vahe's course
Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry
Quotes from Vahe Baghdasaryan:
"Subscriber churn is inevitable, but implementing the right interventions  can make it healthy."
"Giving this your customers a grace period is always a good idea. Another very important thing here is incorporating life cycle marketing in terms of transactional communication with the users that you fail to charge. For example, if you fail to charge, send them an email notification that says your payment didn't go through. "
"So the biggest takeaway from here is like if you're gonna ask them to update their billing information, there's something that is that has a lot of friction in it. And your strategy should be also how am I gonna like minimize the friction? "
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