Today we're talking about mobile A/B testing - and about the moment the app store hands you a winner.

Because that result is directional, not the truth. And if most of your traffic is paid, you may have measured the wrong users entirely.

In this episode, we speak with Scott Masters, Director of Strategy and Partnerships at Gummicube, about why mobile A/B testing is never set-and-forget.

Scott explains why most developers and marketers under-invest in testing, what a sensible cadence looks like - once or twice a month, with each test running at least two weeks to reach statistical significance - and why changing one element at a time is the only way to know what actually moved the needle.

If you work in app store optimization, user acquisition, or app growth, this is a practical guide to testing your product page properly.

“If you're not A/B testing at least once or twice a month, you're leaving users out there for other competitors to take from you.”

"It's not a one-and-done. You can't set it and forget it. It's just like with any other brand - you create a package for your product and you put it on the shelf. If it doesn't change over time, if you're not attracting those users with new materials or new approaches, it's going to get stale."

“The platforms will give you an estimated conversion impact and confidence interval for each test you run. But that data is directional. True validation of performance really comes from launching a test winner into the store and then measuring the pre-deployment conversion rate versus the post-deployment conversion rate.”

Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry since 2012

In a world built to fragment your attention, one news app made the opposite bet: fewer ads, trusted sources, and users who actually stay.

In this episode, we speak with Ramesh Ramalingam, VP of Product at SmartNews, about how a Japanese news app was rebuilt — not ported — for American users.

Ramesh explains why SmartNews users spend 20 minutes per session, why 79% of them don't switch to another screen while reading, and how that focus turns into brand recall for advertisers. He also covers contextual targeting without cross-web tracking, why the product looks different in Tokyo than in Los Angeles, and how a revenue-share model keeps publishers in the loop.

If you work in product, app growth, or media monetization, this is a conversation about building for engagement quality rather than scale.

“What is interesting about SmartNews is it's not about the scale. We're talking about 50 million, but it's more about the user engagement. Our users spend on average 20 minutes in our product, which is very high.”

“From an advertiser perspective, yes, they do care about the reach, but trust is the most important aspect. We don't rely on invasive tracking across the web like other platforms do. What we built is a privacy-first, brand-safe environment.”

“We didn't take the Japanese app and plug it into the US. We made sure that it is customized to the user preferences in the US, and it's built for American users.”

Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry since 2012

Everyone in app growth has an opinion on AI, web-to-app, and channel strategy — but few of those opinions ever get stress-tested in public.

In this episode, we bring you a live panel debate featuring:

The format is simple: six provocative statements — from AI replacing growth roles to data versus creative — and the panel, along with a live audience voting in real time, has to agree or disagree. Along the way, you'll hear which growth tasks AI can already handle, why fintech can't rely on performance marketing alone, and how changing a single optimization event cut cost per acquisition by 96%.

What if the channel you've written off as "brand-only" could measurably lift your Meta and Google performance?

In this episode, tech journalist David Murphy is joined by Mike Fogarty, Head of Client Development at Tatari, and Lauren Frame, Director of Growth & Brand Media at Greenlight, to explore how a performance-first app brand turned TV from a scary experiment into an always-on channel that now accounts for over a third of its media mix.

Whether you're a growth marketer watching CACs climb on paid social, wondering how to measure a channel without click-through attribution, or curious whether AI-produced creative can fight TV's fatigue problem, this conversation offers a practical framework for treating TV as a performance channel.

Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry since 2012

Let's be honest — nobody wakes up in the morning excited to open your app. Well, some people may but definitely not all of them! And in 2026, the CRM teams that win aren't the ones sending more messages. They're the ones who know exactly who to reach, on which channel, at which moment — and when to say nothing at all.

In this special episode, we're bringing you the Business of Apps London 2026 panel 2026 CRM Trends: The Ultimate Guide to Customer Retention. It's a candid look at what retention really takes right now — from LLMs quietly rewriting app discovery to why downloads have become a vanity metric — told by three people running lifecycle for some of the UK's most recognizable brands:

You know it better than us — the era of experimenting with AI is over. The question isn't whether to use it anymore. It's whether it's actually moving the numbers.

In 2026, the winners aren't the teams running clever pilots. They're the ones who've wired AI into the core of their growth engine — into how they find users, activate them, and figure out what those users really want.

In this special episode, we're syndicating the Business of Apps London 2026 panel AI in Action: Real-World Use Cases. It's a no-hype look at what's working right now — told through live examples from three people scaling it in practice:

Performance marketers are running out of levers — and the one most teams haven't pulled yet is signal.

In this episode, we speak with Shumel Lais , Founder of Day30, about signal engineering and why it may be the most important skill in performance marketing right now.

Shumel explains what signal engineering actually is, how prediction models use behavioural data to identify high-value users before they ever convert, and why synthetic events — goals you engineer rather than observe — help ad platforms like Meta find better users faster. He also shares how subscription apps have achieved up to 50% reductions in CAC, and why, with everything else becoming automated, signal is now one of only two levers performance marketers still control.

If you work in user acquisition or subscription growth, this is a must-listen.

“The concept of signal engineering is to see how we can manipulate that event to give the ad platforms a stronger correlation to the business value that you're after."

"A synthetic event is, ultimately, when we're creating an event that doesn't actually exist. These are not things that have actually occurred — but based on the data we take in, we can build this from scratch."

"When I think of performance marketing now, everything's become very algorithmic and very black box. There's less and less levers available for marketers to pull. I think there's only really two levers left — one is creative, and the second lever is signal."

Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry since 2012

Hi, welcome to the Business of Apps podcast!

Today, we have a special episode for you. We're featuring our recent webinar, presented by Aampe - agentic infrastructure for personalized experiences. It brings together four mobile growth leaders to cut through the AI hype and share what's actually working — from app user acquisition to retention.

This session goes beyond buzzwords to unpack the real unit economics of AI-driven testing, the challenges of letting go of control, and what companies like Blinkist are learning on the ground as they make the shift from automation to agentic systems.

Without any further ado, let's go!

👥 Sven Jurgens – Mobile Growth Consultant (Host)

Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry since 2012

Brand visibility is no longer just about winning the attention of consumers — it's about being eligible to exist in the spaces where discovery happens.

In this episode, we speak with Lavinea Morris, Managing Director EMEA at M&C Saatchi Performance, about what it really takes for brands to show up in an AI-driven world.

Lavinea introduces the concept of "eligibility" — the idea that before an ad is ever seen, brands must first earn the right to appear. She explains how the rise of AI and generative engine optimization is reshaping discoverability, why performance marketing is now an organization-wide responsibility, and what the "eligibility tax" costs brands that aren't paying attention. From taxonomy and content to trust signals and data feeds, she makes the case that getting found is no longer the job of one team — or one channel.

If you work in performance marketing, growth, or brand strategy, this is a timely conversation about what it means to be visible when the machines are doing the filtering.

“It depends what attention means to you. Every brand or client will consider attention differently... I think it's a slightly romanticized metric. We have to be thinking about what happens before the ad was seen. How eligible is your brand? How are you able to be seen in the ecosystems that we're operating in?”

“Legibility tax is what I like to talk about — the price that brands pay for not being eligible. The reality is we're seeing rising costs, and it's not always because of the performance media. It's actually how you're showing up in these spaces. And are other brands doing better than you, getting that first mover advantage? What does that cost you?”

“We've spent so many years talking about getting the attention of the humans — be it creative, putting the ads in the right place at the right time. I think now it's so exciting: how do you get the attention of the machines? And that is a new space, but an easy space for us to be working in.”

Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry since 2012

What if your MarTech stack was actually working  for you instead of against you?

In this episode, Amanda and Adam of Branch are joined by Rebecca Nackson, CEO of Notable, to explore why most companies fail at implementation after buying marketing tools, how to enlist salespeople as strategic partners in the buying process, and the systems that separate high-growth teams from stalled ones.

From reframing a non-linear career as intentional pattern recognition ("career squiggles"), to closing the costly gap between signing a contract and actually operationalizing a tool, to acting as "connective tissue" across siloed acquisition, retention, and product teams, Rebecca shares practical insights from years spent inside Audible, iHeartRadio, Bandsintown, and now leading her own marketing consultancy.

Whether you're drowning in marketing software, trying to make sense of your growth stack, or wondering how AI and low-code tools will reshape build vs. buy decisions, this conversation offers a grounded look at moving from tool chaos to strategic clarity.

"The ones that are succeeding, it is because they have a system."

"You can't scale what you don't trust."

"It's a career that's not a straight line. It takes all these squiggles and it makes all the sense in the world in hindsight."