Business of Apps Podcast

#162: Generative AI in mobile ad campaigns with Levi Matkins, CEO of LifeStreet

ChatGPT from OpenAI, Bard from Google, Llama from Meta, and a decent number of smaller players are firing on all cylinders to power the Generative AI revolution that took off late last year.
Of course, for folks who had been watching the AI space, it was not a surprise but for the rest of us - it was. Generative AI based on Large Language Models is changing the business landscape. Today, we want to talk about its impact on mobile ad campaigns.
Today’s Topics Include:
Levi Matkins's background
Levi's take on ChatGPT
The impact of ChatGPT on mobile ad creatives production
Generative AI impact on programmatic bidding
The impact of Generative AI on mobile ad campaigns analytics
Can Generative AI impact programmatic ad campaigns' costs
Generative AI impact on jobs in the programmatic ad sector
What Levi would like to change about the programmatic tech sector the most
Links and Resources:
Levi Matkins on LinkedIn
LifeStreet company
Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry
Quotes from Levi Matkins:
“As things stand today, I think it's in most cases it (Generative AI) is a very helpful tool for a design team to use both for ideation and production."
“We've been using deep neural nets for quite a few years at this point."
"This is an area (AI programmatic ad analytics) where we have done some investigations and thus far the insights we're able to see are not reliable enough today."
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#161: Building apps for a billion users with Rajesh Janakiraman, Engineering Manager at Gmail Android at Google

One of the things that set mobile apps apart from desktop software is the scale. Since 2008, when the mobile app stores were launched, and on, scale has been a crucial ingredient for any iOS or Android app project success.
For both Apple’s and Google’s app ecosystems to grow mobile apps had to be affordable for lots of people. But for app developers and brands to make app enterprises profitable, they had to acquire a large number of users.
And there is more - in some cases when we talk about a free app from one of the most influential companies on the planet - Gmail app, we’re talking about roughly 1.8 billion users. This scale implies some unique challenges we’re going to be discussing with Rajesh today.
Today’s Topics Include:
Rajesh Janakiraman's background
Definition of app onboarding
Challenges of building an app for billions of users - development and management-wise
Rajesh's Thoughts on Generative AI in Gmail
Toughest projects in Rajesh's career
What Rajesh would like to change about tech the most
Android or iOS?
Rajesh's first mobile phone
Leaving his smartphone at home, what features would Rajesh miss most?
What features v would like to see added to his smartphone?
Links and Resources:
Rajesh Janakiraman on LinkedIn
Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry
Quotes from Rajesh Janakiraman:
“Having a product [Gmail] maintained that reputation for so long is a very difficult thing to do"
“It's such a massive set of users that you see this whole spectrum of how they use the product."
"Just from your device perspective, you see the latest $1,500 Samsung device running the latest version of Android with hundreds of Gb of storage, so it's not gonna matter how much space you take up of their phone, with multiple processors so it's gonna matter how efficient your app is, all the way to the $10 no-name smartphone."
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London - 25 Apr 2024
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#160: App onboarding: solving the endless choice problem with Chris Dalla Riva, Senior Product Manager at Audiomack

Frictions. “The resistance that one surface or object encounters when moving over another” - this is the dictionary definition of what friction means in science. When you ask a mobile app developer “What do frictions mean to you?”, the answer is “any obstacle that prevents my app users from doing with the app what I expect them to”.
This notion sounds great but as with everything in our life, moderation is the key and today, Chris will give you an example of that.
Today’s Topics Include:
Chris Riva's background
Audiomack brief bio
Definition of app onboarding
Onboarding for the Audiomack app
Bad friction versus good friction
Takeaways
What Chris would like to change about tech the most
Android or iOS?
Chris's first mobile phone
Leaving his smartphone at home, what features would Chris miss most?
What features Chris would like to see added to his smartphone?
Links and Resources:
Chris Dalla Riva on LinkedIn
Audiomack app's website
Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry
Quotes from Chris Dalla Riva:
“One thing we noticed is that this notion of what follower means on social media or on various music apps - it doesn't always mean you can reach your followers."
“Our process is evolved pretty dramatically over the last four years. When I started the Audiomack the onboarding process was a novel onboarding process, the idea was to let the person in the app, start listening to the music, they're gonna stick, they gonna eventually create an account, start saving music."
"We just look at each step of the onboarding to see where the people stumbling, are there ways that we can improve those pages."
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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
 

#159: Web-to-app user acquisition war stories with Andrew Tsui, former Director of Product at K Health

A long-long time ago, 16 years ago to be precise, there was the world before Mobile - the time when if you wanted to read the news, watch movies, pay your bills, plan your next trip and so on you had to sit down at your desktop computer or grab a laptop to open a browser window to go to a website.
Then Steve Jobs stood on the stage at Macworld Expo in San Francisco to introduce the iPhone. The rest is history. These days, as a mobile marketer, you expect the bulk of traction for your business to take place on mobile. But that’s not entirely true - today Andrew will tell you how important are customers' journeys between web and mobile for user acquisition.
Today’s Topics Include:
Andrew Tsui's background
Marketing channels Andrew used to run ad campaigns
Applying web-to-app marketing to the K Health app
Lessons learned
What Andrew would like to change about the industry the most
Android or iOS?
Andrew's first mobile phone
Leaving his smartphone at home, what features would Andrew miss most?
What features Andrew would like to see added to his smartphone?
Links and Resources:
Andrew Tsui on LinkedIn
Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry
Quotes from Andrew Tsui:
“I'd say that it (web-to-app marketing) has worked quite well in raising the awareness of K Health and driving strong new user growth."
“It's a powerful technique that requires a few basic things - natural user entry points, delivering value on the web as well as in the app, prioritizing account creation and attribution tech, and obsessing over the analytics."
"Hindsight is always 20/20, and I suppose the easy answer is I just wish we had done the aspects of what we've talked about way earlier."
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A message from App Promotion Summit
Discounted ticket prices are currently available on all of our 2024 summits
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London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024
 

#158: Strategic analytics for app growth with Jeff Wang, VP of Growth at Hiatus

I don’t think anybody in the app industry would argue with the fact that growth is what occupies app marketers’ and developers’ minds all the time. From Monday to Friday and, unfortunately quite often, from Friday to Monday as well, people do mental gymnastics for how to make their app’s growth more efficient.
But if you don’t measure it properly you can not improve it. What analytics reports are important to check regularly to measure your app’s growth? How do we do incrementality growth analysis? I invited Jeff to riddle these puzzling questions for you.
Today’s Topics Include:
Jeff Wang's background
Cohort and funnel definition
App analytics reports to focus on
The most important report to work with
App analytics reports to check less often
Incrementality growth analysis
The takeaways
Android or iOS?
Jeff's first mobile phone
Leaving his smartphone at home, what features would Jeff miss most?
What features Jeff would like to see added to his smartphone?
Links and Resources:
Jeff Wang on LinkedIn
Hiatus website
Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry
Quotes from Jeff Wang:
“I can spend all day looking at the reports, especially when you have a lean team. It's really important to get a sense of your business impact to guide workflows as well as the strategical direction."
“One good tip I would give is to have a regular cadence for certain reports."
"I think since we're a subscription product, looking at churn is really useful, seeing what a month-to-month looks like."
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#157: Marketing with ChatGPT: lessons learned so far with Bryan Karas, CEO of Playbook Media

In this episode, we’ll be discussing how ChatGPT can help you create more effective digital marketing campaigns.
We’ll be exploring the latest advancements in language models and machine learning and how they can be used to generate persuasive marketing content tailored to your target audience.
Our guest speakers will share their insights on how ChatGPT can help you improve your digital marketing efforts by creating more engaging content, improving your SEO, and increasing your ROI. So sit back, relax, and join us as we explore the exciting world of Digital Marketing with ChatGPT!
Ok, if you ever heard my previous intros you would feel there is something off about this one. And you would be right - this intro was written by ChatGPT itself. I have no idea why it decided that I’ll be having not one but multiple guests on this episode and of course the topics run the whole gamut of what can be said about using ChatPGT in digital marketing but we only have like half an hour, not a week to discuss them all :-)
Today’s Topics Include:
Bryan Karas's background
ChatGPT area of application in an app marketing
Tools that have embedded ChatGPT
Mistakes people do with ChatGPT in marketing
Expectations from ChatGPT 5,6 and on
What Bryan would like to change about digital marketing the most
Android or iOS?
Bryan's first mobile phone
Leaving his smartphone at home, what features would Bryan miss most?
What features Bryan would like to see added to his smartphone?
Links and Resources:
Bryan Karas on LinkedIn
Playbook Media
Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry
Quotes from Bryan Karas:
“ChatGPT, when I think about it, I think it can be used for idea generation, output copyrighting."
“If you are thinking about translation service, as you are moving from one country to another, you could use ChatGPT"
"One of the things that drive me the most crazy about marketers, is they look at everything from last-click attribution standpoint."
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London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024
 

#156: The art & science of a mobile user research with Rosie Hoggmascall, Head of Growth at Perceptycs

Think about it - whatever product or service you offer on a market your success always hinges on how well you know the people you sell your product to. There is just no other way around it - either you understand their needs and their problems so you can address them and succeed or - not a chance, forget about it.
How do we conduct research for mobile app users? It’s a great question and today we have Rosie to help us to answer it.
Today’s Topics Include:
Rosie Hoggmascall's background
Mobile user research objectives
Finding participants to conduct a research
Common challenges and mistakes
What Rosie would like to change about digital marketing the most
Android or iOS?
Rosie's first mobile phone
Leaving her smartphone at home, what features would Rosie miss most?
What features Rosie would like to see added to his smartphone?
Links and Resources:
Rosie Hoggmascall on LinkedIn
Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry
Quotes from Rosie Hoggmascall:
“It really depends on what you're trying to find out. With user research, there is a number of different methods you can use and they fit with a problem that you're solving"
“It's really hard [to find participants for research], things are on the spectrum here. One end is cheap and free, and the other end is expensive. "
"Not doing enough [of mobile user research], sometimes people just listen to like app reviews and support tickets. And if that is your user research, it's not enough"
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#155: Growing your app downloads with PR with Jessica Alderson, Co-founder and CEO at So Syncd

PR - what does this acronym mean to you? If you moving from one country to the other, it’s definitely about Permanent Residency, if you’re launching a product, in our today’s conversation, a mobile product, it is about Public Relations and making a splash to grab mobile users' attention.
How big of a splash you can do with it? The size of a splash from the meteorite that killed off the dinosaurs in the Mexican Gulf 66 million years ago? Or barely noticeable? Today we have Jessica to share her experience of doing a PR campaign for her app So Syncd.
Today’s Topics Include:
Jessica Alderson's background
What is So Syncd app
PR marketing technique applicability to app categories
How to identify the audience for an app
Short and long-term strategies for pitching the press
Pitch email template
How to identify a PR campaign's success
The general strategy to approach journalists
Final tips
What Jessica would like to change about digital marketing the most
Android or iOS?
Jessica's first mobile phone
Leaving her smartphone at home, what features would Jessica miss most?
What features Jessica would like to see added to his smartphone?
Links and Resources:
Jessica Alderson on LinkedIn
Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry
Quotes from Jessica Alderson:
“I don't think that PR is applicable to all kinds of apps and I don't think it's applicable to even necessarily startups in the same vertical in different states."
“I think a good lens to think of it [is your app newsworthy for PR or not] through is how does this impact other people?"
"As you develop relationships then the journalists will start reaching out to you and you have a back-and-forth dialog"
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London - 25 Apr 2024
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Berlin - 5 Dec 2024
 

#154: The App Store is 15 years old with Simon Dussart, CEO at Adjust

Here is a question you may not expect - do you remember yourself when you were 15? And the tough one for all parents - do you remember your kids when they’re 15? Today we’ll be talking about the very special 15-year-old “kid” - the App Store from Apple.
Time runs really fast, we all have passed wondering about the App Store as a unique mobile software ecosystem, we have other things to wonder about these days, like ChatGPT or the unstoppable growth of TikTok.
Today to talk about the App Store through the years and its evolution we have Simon.
Today’s Topics Include:
Simon's background
What is Adjust today?
Recollections from the day the App Store was launched
The point when the App Store felt big
The iOS ecosystem evolution
The App Store saturation point
Indie app developers' chances for success today
The Spatial Computing potential
What Simon would like to change about digital marketing the most
Android or iOS?
Simon's first mobile phone
Leaving his smartphone at home, what features would Simon miss most?
What features Simon would like to see added to his smartphone?
Links and Resources:
Simon Dussart on LinkedIn
Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry
Quotes from Simon Dussart:
“What's interesting is that apps for a computer had been around, you could install them via a CD-ROM, you could physically exchange them and I think the real thing that the App Store changed was that it centralized all of it into one spot."
“On the mobile, you had to have the network to be developed to sustain developing apps. If you look at the streaming apps now, they all stream live data between your terminal, the mobile phone, and a server."
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London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
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#153: Building a superior mobile product with Lisa Pickett, digital product and marketing specialist

Remember your first day in the office at your first job? Now switch mentally to today, think about what your work on a project looks like now. What’s the difference? Why do you feel way more confident now? It’s your experience, the body of knowledge in your brain allows you to be sure about your next move and avoid anxiety.
In today’s episode, I have Lisa to tell you about her 5-point approach to working on the project, she has distilled from her more than a decade of experience in digital marketing, to achieve more while spending less.
Today’s Topics Include:
Lisa's background in digital marketing
Five-point approach to achieve more with less
Point #1: Get familiar with failure
Point #2: Just ask
Point #3: Grow smart
Point #4: Sweat the small stuff
Point #5: Swot up
What Lisa would like to change about digital marketing the most
Android or iOS?
Lisa's first mobile phone
Leaving her smartphone at home, what features would Lisa miss most?
What features Lisa would like to see added to her smartphone?
Links and Resources:
Lisa Pickett on LinkedIn
Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry
Quotes from Lisa Pickett:
“You not gonna have all the answers, no one I know has a working crystal ball, we can't predict the future. The sooner can realize we not aren't going to get the answers, the sooner we can kind of get out of our own way."
“Working in digital products and apps is actually really great because the feedback loop times are pretty quick if you compare it kind of traditional media. You can pretty say within a few days if what you've done is worked."
"I' would just encourage you if you're starting out your career just to really invest in growing a really great network."
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App industry marketplace
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A message from App Promotion Summit
Discounted ticket prices are currently available on all of our 2024 summits
https://apppromotionsummit.com/
 
London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024