Intelligent Artifice, formerly the Mobile User Acquisition Show

Our guest today is Josh Burns, founder of DigitalDevConnect. Josh founded DigitalDevConnect to partner with game developers, game publishers, and service providers to support key business areas including strategy, market intelligence, marketing, game publishing, business operations, product management and business development. Josh’s specialty is in advising game developers and publishers, and helping them crack international markets. Josh also curates the Gaming Insiders newsletter.

Key Highlights:

🤔How apps should begin thinking about international expansion.

🙇Many developers tend to overthink internationalization by considering local partners when typically Western channels with local inventory can be the best place to begin.

🙋How a developer should prioritize among the 200+ countries they could be localizing in - and what their first steps should be.

📋Why getting an iOS app to be approved to be live in China can often take 100-200 pages of paperwork.

🌀Why the foreign developer approval process in China is almost humorously complex.

🎫The regulation change that will kick in on July 1.

📉Why the number of companies releasing foreign games in China has declined over time.

😐Why does China make it so hard to publish an app?

😓There is significant consolidation in Android app stores in China - yet there are challenges in operating here.

🔨How featuring works in the Android stores in China.

🕹Some examples of games that have transitioned well to the Chinese market.

🤷‍♂️What might happen after July 1, after which you have to have a license to be on iOS in China.

Check out the full transcript and show notes here: http://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/episode/100-page-documents-source-code-printouts-and-more-how-to-crack-international-expansion-with-josh-burnsfounder-a-digital-dev-connect/

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Check out our podcast featuring inside stories of how technology evolves and grows:
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Our guest today is Beth Gilmore, is a marketing consultant and founder at The New Department. Beth has an incredible wealth of experience in the programmatic space from her work as the Head of Commercial Partnerships at MoPub.

In today’s conversation, Beth shares some fascinating insights about how many levers marketers have to understand and unpack their programmatic performance, if they only dive deep enough to understand what happens under the hood. From understanding what happens even before an ad is shown to being able to influence where in a publisher’s inventory an ad is shown, there’s so much possibility that this conversation highlights for advertisers - and I’m thrilled to uncover so much goodness in today’s interview.

Key Highlights:

🤔 Why it’s important to understand what parameters a DSP takes into consideration in formulating their bids.

😲 Why a bidder might correctly identify a bid request that might drive an install or purchase - and yet lose an auction.

🤷 Why a bidder might win a bid request and might not end up showing an impression.

⏳ What the lifecycle of an ad is like - from when it’s loaded in the system to when it’s eventually shown.

🔅 How bidding on lowest-priced inventory can be suboptimal in driving performance.

🗄️ What the best way is to think about privacy or confidentiality concerns around sharing data with DSPs.

💡 Why DSPs sometimes may not have access to high performing inventory from publishers - and how they should address this situation.

💯 What session depth means - and why it’s important for a marketer to be mindful of this.

Check out the full transcript and show notes here: http://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/episode/unboxing-the-black-box-moving-the-hidden-levers-that-drive-programmatic-performance-with-beth-gilmorefounder-at-the-new-department-former-head-of-commercial-partnerships-at-mopub/

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Get more mobile user acquisition goodies here:
http://RocketShipHQ.com
http://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

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Check out our podcast featuring inside stories of how technology evolves and grows:
http://HowThingsGrow.co

Our guest today is Colette Nataf, CEO & Co-Founder at Lightning AI. Lightning AI helps advertisers find target audiences and advertise to them on Facebook and Google. Lightning AI has worked with more than 500 ad accounts and has managed more than $100M in ad spend.

I’m excited for today’s episode because Colette is among the few folks I know that’s transitioned from a user acquisition service to a user acquisition product. She’s not only taken what to many can be a significant leap - but has also grown her business at Lightning AI very substantially since then. Additionally of course, she’s always been a source of great advice to me -> and I couldn't be more thrilled to feature her today.

Key Highlights:
🔑 Some of the key triggers that inspired Colette to start automating user acquisition work.

🔄 How Colette mapped out her personal process as a precursor to automating it.

🕹️ What resources should a marketer find once they understand what to automate.

⏰ Figuring out Facebook’s documentation can sometimes be a very time consuming process.

🏆 The most common early win for most marketers who are looking at automation.

📈 Are products with very high CPAs just bad candidates for automation?

👨‍🏫 What a marketer can do to educate themselves to be ready for automation.

🛠️ Building the mindset of understanding processes is as important as building hard skills around analysis.

⚖️ Why scaling audiences via automation can be challenging - and how Lightning AI approaches this.

👩‍🏫 How learnings from audiences can inform creatives. 

📊 How parts of creative iteration and execution can be automated.

Check out the full transcript and show notes here: http://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/episode/taking-the-leap-how-to-get-started-with-automating-your-user-acquisition-with-colette-natafceo-at-lightning-ai/

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Get more mobile user acquisition goodies here:
http://RocketShipHQ.com
http://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

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Check out our podcast featuring inside stories of how technology evolves and grows:
http://HowThingsGrow.co

Our guest today is Matej Lancaric. Matej is the Director of User Acquisition at SuperScale and a mobile user acquisition consultant who has worked on a number of games. He’s worked on soft-launches, on massively scaled campaigns - and on everything in between while managing over $10 million in user acquisition spend.

In today’s episode, we dive into the art of the soft launch - and look at the 3 key stages of a soft launch, and why it’s important to nail every one of these. 

Also: Matej is teaching the course ‘Soft launch strategy for mobile games’ at the Mobile Dev Memo Academy. If you are interested in going much deeper into soft-launches - and dive into every aspect of soft-launches - from ASO to UA to early testing, you should definitely check out his course on the Mobile Dev Memo Academy at http://mdm.academy.

Key Highlights: 

📲 What goes into the technical stage of a soft launch.

👀 What metrics to look for in the technical stage of a soft launch.

⏳ What metrics to look for in the retention stage of a soft launch.

🤩 Why it’s preferable to soft launch on Google Play before iOS.

💸 What metrics to look for in the monetization stage of a soft launch.

🔎 What volume of payers to aim for in the monetization stage.

✅ Why it’s important to do the retention test before the monetization test.

💭 Does this way of thinking about soft launches change for subscription apps or ad monetized apps?

😮 The common mistakes that developers make with soft launches.

⏱️ Why it’s important to ideally look at a six month time frame for soft launches.

🤦‍♂️ One outcome of a soft launch might be that you have to kill your app.

Check out the full transcript and show notes here: http://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/episode/three-steps-to-a-killer-soft-launch-with-matej-lancaricdirector-of-ua-at-superscale/

**

Get more mobile user acquisition goodies here:
http://RocketShipHQ.com
http://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

**

Check out our podcast featuring inside stories of how technology evolves and grows:
http://HowThingsGrow.co

Our guest today is Bozo Jankovic, Business Development Manager at GameBiz, a boutique consultancy firm for games.

Bozo works with F2P game developers, helping them grow the business by monetizing their games with ads. Some of his clients include studios such as Wargaming, Creative Mobile, Nanobit, Two Desperados. etc..

This is also the third episode of the Mobile Dev Memo Academy preview series. Bozo is also presenting the course Ad Monetization 101 for the Mobile Dev Memo Academy - so if you want to go deeper, do definitely check out his course on mdm.academy.

This is also our first episode on ad monetization -> and today we’ll talk about an underappreciated yet emerging opportunity in ad monetization - native ads. This is a topic that I’m very very curious about - primarily because it used to be something that used to be accessible only to big brands with massive teams and budgets, but of late this has become much more available to smaller advertisers and app developers.

Key Highlights:

💡 The 3 stages of evolution of early native ads.

💯 The best known native ad examples - Barack Obama, Farmville, Pokemon Go.

👨🏻‍💻 How recent incarnations of native ads are accessible to smaller game developers.

🤔 The factors that an app should consider evaluating the opportunity with native ads.

👀 Most native demand comes from brands - not from games or performance advertisers.

🎥 How CPMs for native ads compare to rewarded video or interstitial ads.

👌 Why native ads may not be a natural fit for performance advertisers.

🧐 Do native ads cannibalize your rewarded video, interstitial and banner ads?

🙋 Why revenue impact shouldn’t be the primary criteria for assessing the viability of native ads for a game.

😅 The key pitfalls that a developer should watch out for while evaluating native ads.

Check out the full transcript and show notes here: http://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/episode/how-to-capitalize-on-the-native-ad-opportunity-with-bozo-jankovicbusiness-development-manager-at-gamebiz/

**

Get more mobile user acquisition goodies here:
http://RocketShipHQ.com
http://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

**

Check out our podcast featuring inside stories of how technology evolves and grows:
http://HowThingsGrow.co

Welcome to the second episode of the Mobile Dev Memo Academy preview series.
Our guest today is Eric Seufert. Eric is the founder of Heracles and Mobile Dev Memo. Eric is a media strategist and quantitative marketer who has spent his career working for transformative consumer technology and media companies, including Skype and Rovio. Eric most recently sold his mobile advertising analytics company, Agamemnon, to the mobile gaming company N3TWORK.

In today’s episode, we get into a macroeconomic perspective on what the current pandemic means for the mobile app economy - and how we might see the world change over the next couple of months. This is absolutely something that Eric has a great deal of perspective on - and I’m thrilled to have him share these.

Also: Eric is teaching the course ‘Introduction to Marketing Cohort Analysis’ for Mobile Dev Memo Academy. Check his course out on http://mdm.academy - alongside the other courses taught by some of the smartest folks in mobile. Of course, Eric is the brain behind the Mobile Dev Memo Academy - huge props to him for helping make this project happen.

As the pandemic makes massive changes to the retention and monetization profiles of apps, these courses are perhaps timely in helping you adapt, learn and upskill - and I highly recommend checking these out.

Key Highlights:

🏦 While the pandemic is driven by exogenous non-economic forces, it likely does exacerbate structural weaknesses in the economy.

🌪 The pandemic is like Hurricane Katrina hitting every metro area in the world at the same time.

📅 What trends are visible from Silicon Valley layoff lists.

🤔 Will the app economy’s low-priced digital goods(IAPs) be impervious to recessionary forces?

📲 How the ad supported apps are impacted by the increased engagement - and the recessionary forces.

📑 Why it might become important to shift thinking from a ROAS standpoint to a profitability standpoint.

💡 Why the current crisis might see a migration of advertisers to Facebook and Google from other ad networks.

Check out the full transcript and show notes here: http://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/episode/inside-the-storm-what-the-coronavirus-pandemic-means-for-the-mobile-app-ecosystem-with-eric-seufertfounder-at-heracles-and-mobile-dev-memo-mdm-academy-preview-special/

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Get more mobile user acquisition goodies here:
http://RocketShipHQ.com
http://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

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Check out our podcast featuring inside stories of how technology evolves and grows:
http://HowThingsGrow.co

Welcome to the first episode of the Mobile Dev Memo Academy preview series.

Our guest today is Thomas Petit. Thomas is an independent mobile growth consultant working primarily with non-gaming B2C apps. He is an external consultant for large apps (inc. 2 unicorns), a collaborator assisting several app agencies and an advisor for very early-stage startups.  He’s run campaigns since the first day, spending 7 digits on the platform directly and also run audits on many other accounts, is certified by Apple, SearchAdsHQ & ASOdesk - and is a regular public speaker on the topic.

In today’s episode, we dive into a crucial but underappreciated aspect of user acquisition on Apple Search(and also elsewhere) - LAT - or Limit Ad Tracking. Limit Ad Tracking essentially means you cant track your users because their IDFAs show up as zero. In this masterclass, Thomas shows us ways to think about and make estimations to understand and capitalize on LAT, which can have a significant impact on user acquisition strategy.

Also: Thomas is teaching the course ‘Apple Search Ads: Beyond The Basics’ for Mobile Dev Memo Academy. If you are interested in going much deeper into LAT and all things Apple Search related, you should definitely check out his course on the Mobile Dev Memo Academy at http://mdm.academy.

Key Highlights:

🤔 Why there can be a 30 to 70% difference between Apple Search and MMPs.

👀 What LAT is - and how these users are marked by Apple and Google. Why LAT installs don't get seen in MMPs.

🚧 How different channels handle LAT. Why LAT can sometimes mean that a significant portion of your audience is unreachable on Facebook and Instagram.

⛰ Geowise, OS-wise and vertical wise differences in LAT-on percentages.

🔞 Apple turns on LAT by default for anyone under 18.

🤷‍♂️ How a marketer might find out what percentage of users have LAT turned on.

💸 Why avoiding targeting users with LAT on can be more expensive than targeting them.

👍 How Thomas recommends bidding for LAT on users vs. all users.

📈 How Thomas recommends estimating LTV/retention/monetization of LAT on users in the absence of perfect tracking.

🙅‍♂️ Why attributing organic revenue to LAT on users can potentially open up a Pandora’s box.

Check out the full transcript and show notes here: http://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/episode/the-mysterious-lat-and-how-to-tame-it-with-thomas-petitgrowth-consultant/

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Get more mobile user acquisition goodies here:
http://RocketShipHQ.com
http://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

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Check out our podcast featuring inside stories of how technology evolves and grows:
http://HowThingsGrow.co

Our guest today is Alice Guillaume. Alice is the Senior Director of Marketing at AppLovin where she heads up AppLovin’s in-house creative studio, SparkLabs, where she and her team build creatives for Lion Studios, for gaming studios worldwide, and for AppLovin’s partner studios to help developers grow their businesses. I'm excited to have Alice primarily because she's seen and experienced so much from working on creatives for a wide variety of games on AppLovin’s client base as well as for Lion studios, which is something I'm very, very curious about, especially given the massive success they've had lately.

Key Highlights:

🎮 What player motivations are - and how they apply to creative design.

💭 How to do directed brainstorming to improve creatives.

🎨 What elements in a creative drive high volumes, and what drive high quality.

⚖️ Why creative tests can be a powerful way to evaluate marketability before the launch of a game.

🧱 Why Alice recommends using raw unpolished creatives for marketability tests.

🎩 Why every designer on the SparkLabs team needs to wear the hat of a performance marketer.

🤔 How Alice thinks about creatives whose performance is inexplicable - and seem to have no clear reason for doing well.

💯 Why ads that seem to be unrelated to gameplay can sometimes work well.

Check out the full transcript and show notes here: http://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/episode/how-to-build-high-performance-creative-teams-with-alice-guillaumesenior-director-of-marketing-at-applovin/ 

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Get more mobile user acquisition goodies here:
http://RocketShipHQ.com
http://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

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Check out our podcast featuring inside stories of how technology evolves and grows:
http://HowThingsGrow.co

When we talk to people about advice that is unhelpful or frustrating to them, something that frequently comes up is ‘fix the product’ - or ‘build an amazing product’ or ‘have a strong product before you spend on UA’.

This is all good - except - if you pardon my French, WTF does that even mean? 

Today, we’re going to break down what we look for when we evaluate ‘a strong product’. We’re going to share our 6 point checklist of key metrics that you can review and benchmark to assess if your product is strong enough for you to consider doing paid UA. 

Check out the full transcript and show notes here: http://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/episode/mini-episode-wtf-does-fix-the-product-mean-our-6-question-checklist-to-assess-ua-readiness/

**

Get more mobile user acquisition goodies here:
http://RocketShipHQ.com
http://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

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Check out our podcast featuring inside stories of how technology evolves and grows:
http://HowThingsGrow.co

Today we have a very topical and very insightful episode for you guys. We answer the question- What's it like to be on the inside of an app that is seeing breakout growth in the middle of the crisis that we are in right now.

Bunch is an app that allows users to video chat while they play games. Over the last couple of weeks, Bunch has seen a massive increase in usage and engagement. With the DAUs growing many folds and the app breaking it to the top hundred overall on iTunes in nine countries and top 10 in four countries at the time of recording.

In today's episode, I'm excited to welcome Selcuk Atli, the CEO of Bunch, and Harsh Kher, the product manager at Bunch to get to know and see what it's like to be in the midst of very heady growth right now.

Key Highlights:

📈 Bunch’s growth trajectory prior to March - and what they started seeing in their metrics in mid-March.

2️⃣ The two trends that Bunch sits at the confluence of that likely drove a surge in their usage.

👥 How the age and gender composition of Bunch’s user base shifted literally overnight.

💭 How users’ nostalgia might be a reason they’re adopting Bunch.

🤝 Bunch’s onboarding and activation rates are higher than before in spite of there being no change in the product.

⚙️ Keeping the servers up is the highest priority right now.

💸 Infrastructure costs start to go up with sudden growth.

💡 The qualitative & quantitative factors the Bunch team sees that suggest that this growth trajectory could be sustainable long-term.

👨‍💻 How Harsh’s role has evolved and changed from being a growth intern/analyst.

Check out the full transcript and show notes here: http://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/episode/inflection-breakout-growth-in-the-midst-of-the-coronavirus-crisis-with-selcuk-atliceo-and-harsh-khergrowth-analytics-at-bunch-live/ 

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Get more mobile user acquisition goodies here:
http://RocketShipHQ.com
http://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

**

Check out our podcast featuring inside stories of how technology evolves and grows:
http://HowThingsGrow.co