Intelligent Artifice, formerly the Mobile User Acquisition Show

Our guest today is Samuel Hulick, user onboarding consultant and founder at UserOnboard.

I’ve wanted to interview Samuel for a long long time. I’ve read Samuel’s work for over 7 years now. I love his onboarding teardowns of many many apps that are both incredibly instructive and very hilarious. Always incisive, always insightful - I’ve enjoyed so much of Samuel’s work. My interview with Samuel today pinpoints how crucial user onboarding is - and outlines how to improve both upstream and downstream user retention dramatically by improving your app’s user onboarding experience.

Key Highlights:

🤝 The ‘educational moments’ that Samuel looks for when he analyzes an app or product’s onboarding.

🤔 Why Samuel recommends thinking of software as a service rather than a good for sale or an object.

🧭 Why Samuel recommends letting users feel in control rather than taking them on a tour of the product’s features.

👉 Why Samuel suggests thinking about boiling down your business model to supporting human motivation - or helping people do what they want to do.

↘️ How Samuel recommends reducing stress in onboarding experiences that sometimes need to be long drawn - for instance, banks or fitness apps.

☝️ Why it’s important to wrap every ask in the context of why a user is better off for having done it.

👥 Why it’s important to build different user segments based off of the kinds of things that people are trying to do, rather than the kinds of people that they are.

🔄 Why it’s important to value an existing onboarding process and get insights from it before changing it.

💯 The concept of POP or ‘point of payoff’.

ℹ️ How some products and apps are customizing the onboarding experience based on information they collect earlier in the process.

Check out the full transcript and show notes here: http://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/episode/how-to-win-with-user-onboarding-with-samuel-hulickfounder-at-useronboard/

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Get more mobile user acquisition goodies here:
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Check out our podcast featuring inside stories of how technology evolves and grows:
http://HowThingsGrow.co

Today’s episode is a mini-episode - and it punctuates our regular weekly programming of interviews, which will continue next Wednesday.

These mini-episodes are short vignettes based on mobile user acquisition topics or themes that we think could be helpful or instructive for you folks.

This mini-episode is a mini-case study, and describes a phenomenon we saw recently - and were able to diagnose.

Check out the full transcript and show notes here:
http://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/episode/mini-episode-welp-i-dont-see-my-google-uac-installs-in-my-mmp/

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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 Michail ‘Mishka’ Katkoff, the Head of Studio at Rovio. Mishka has worked on hit games at Zynga, Supercell, Digital Chocolate and FunPlus - and is the founder of the very popular and very insightful Deconstructor of Fun blog that is very much an authority on the gaming space - I definitely recommend checking it out if you haven't done so already.

In today’s episode, we ask a very important question - how to build a studio that can make genre-defining hit games. Even though game mechanics are powerful forces, what can truly drive massive and sustainable growth are culture, processes and teams that drive high-performing studios - a perspective that I’m excited to dig into today. I’m truly thrilled to get Mishka’s insights distilled from hundreds of games from tens of studios in our interview today. 

Key Highlights:

🤔 Why is it important to know and understand how to build a successful studio, versus, say how to make successful game mechanics?
🎮 The seven elements that make for a great studio. 
✅ Why ‘right sized’ teams are important to a great studio.
👨🏻‍💻 Why Mishka values software and art over presentations.
🎨 Why Mishka considers an art director a key early hire.
❌ The one common characteristic of unsuccessful games.
📐 How engineers, designers and business people on teams look at problems from very different perspectives.
💭 Why a PM or businessperson-driven culture can find it hard to release anything genre-defining.
✌️ How to change the composition and leadership of studio teams as a game matures.
💯 How to think about being design driven vs. metrics driven.

Check out the full transcript and show notes here: http://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/episode/how-to-build-genre-defining-gaming-studios-with-michail-mishka-katkoff-head-of-studio-at-rovio-founder-at-deconstructor-of-fun/

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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

Our guest today on the Mobile User Acquisition Show is Andy Carvell, the co-founder and partner at the Berlin based mobile growth consultancy Phiture. Before founding Phiture, Andy led the retention team at Soundcloud, where he helped drive some massive experimentation-driven growth. He is also known for his Mobile Growth Stack, a framework that I’ve found impressive in both its comprehensiveness and simplicity. 

In today’s conversation we talk about in-app messages, which can sometimes be underappreciated as a retention strategy especially compared to PNs and emails. Andy outlines why they work, when they work - and talks about the tremendous impact they can have. He gives the example of a 4000%+ uplift in engagement that they helped drive even when they were untargeted. I’m very excited for an in-depth view into an underrated but very powerful strategy that this interview with Andy provides. 

Key Highlights:

💬 What are in-app messages?

⚡️  The typical use cases for in-app messages - and how they are a part of a multi-channel strategy for Phiture.

💯 The 4000%+ engagement lift that Phiture saw when they tested completely untargeted in-app messages for promoted books for Blinkist.

💪 Why in-app messages are powerful - and how to measure their impact - both positive and negative.

😰 How over time in-app messages can get fatigued.

💰How to think about users’ propensity to purchase or lapse - and to think about predictive messaging.

💡 Some of the more surprising things that Andy has seen with in-app messaging.

🏁 For an app that has never tested in-app messaging, where Andy recommends beginning - and what he sees as low hanging fruit. 

Check out the full transcript and show notes here:
http://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/episode/4000-engagement-lift-from-early-tests-the-superpowers-of-in-app-messaging-with-andy-carvellco-founder-at-phiture/

**

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 Lomit Patel, VP of growth at IMVU. Prior to IMVU, Lomit managed growth at many early stage startups including Roku which had an IPO, TrustedID which was acquired by Equifax, Texture which was acquired by Apple & EarthLink. Lomit is a frequent speaker at different conferences and has been recognized as a Mobile Hero by Liftoff. Lomit has also authored the book Lean AI: How Innovative Startups Use Artificial Intelligence to Grow, which is a fascinating deep dive into the wild crazy world of automated marketing - the book comes out this week. We link to that in the show notes, so definitely check it out. In today's episode, we dive into how Lomit and his team run incredibly sophisticated re-engagement ads.

We are going to dive into why paid re-engagement is necessary even when there are other organic options available. We talked about how to employ re-engagement across very different points of the user journey, how to measure the impact of re-engagement and we get a peek into the AI based creative testing and optimization system that Lomit & his team used to drive some incredible performance. This is a fascinating peek behind the curtain of an incredibly sophisticated marketing machine.

Key Highlights:

💸 Why spend money on retargeting when you’ve already spent money on acquiring users.

3️⃣ The three key segments Lomit recommends retargeting - and why.

📧 Why push notifications and emails can’t reach all the users that you might want to retarget.

👬🏼 How Lomit recommends setting target KPIs for retargeting different segments of users based on their behavioral profiles.

📈 What incrementality is - and why it matters.

🤔 Why Lomit recommend going after different sets of retargetable users on different channels.

📱 Why IMVU shifts communication from paid retargeting to emails & PNs after a user’s first 7 days post-install.

👨‍💻 The user behavior inputs that let IMVU use AI to build personalized creatives.

🚋 How deeply understanding the ideal user journey helps IMVU craft personalized ads for users at each stage of the user journey.

💯 How Lomit thinks about building vs. buying AI technology - and how maintaining an in-house system can be a challenge.


Check out the full transcript and show notes here:
http://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/episode/how-to-supercharge-your-retargeting-ads-with-automated-personalization-with-lomit-patelvp-of-growth-at-imvu/

**

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 Sharath Kowligi, the director of Ad Monetization at GameHouse and advisor to Rocketship HQ. Sharath works on improving monetization and yield for a portfolio of over 35 apps, and no, that is not a typo. Sharath has an incredible wealth of experience both on monetization as well as user acquisition and growth. In the past, he managed user acquisition and growth for Bash Gaming, where he worked alongside me. Bash Gaming was acquired for 170 million.

Sharath also worked for Pretty Simple and has advised many companies on different aspects of growth. Something that Sharath has done an incredible amount of work on, has been App Store testing. He has run over 200 app store conversion experiments and that's what I'm excited to dive into with him today.

Key Highlights:

🔎 Why most apps don't run app store tests.
🤔 How Google Play store has become so much more important than about 5 years ago.
🚀 For an app that’s never tested anything before, where Sharath recommends beginning.
🆕 How Sharath and his team uncovered a ‘new and interesting’ idea for an icon that was a big win.
💡 How Sharath recommends generating ideas for experiments.
🎨 Why dramatically different designs sometimes have no impact on metrics.
📁 How a cadence of testing helps teams gain respect for each other - and how it helps avoid a culture of red button-green button testing.
🤝 How to run effective team meetings.
🤷‍♂️ How Sharath recommends testing if Android results are portable to iTunes.
🔥 What metrics Sharath recommends using to evaluate results of AB tests. 


Check out the full transcript and show notes here:
http://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/episode/learnings-from-200-app-store-conversion-tests-with-sharath-kowligi-head-of-ad-monetization-at-gamehouse/

**

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

My guest today is Anette Staloy, the VP of Business & Marketing at Dirtybit, the Norwegian studio behind the successful Fun Run titles for mobile (125+ mill downloads). She joined the company almost 5 years ago, and has had a key role in growing the company from 8 to 22 employees. Anette is also co-founder of Women in Games Norway.

I’m excited for this conversation because Anette & her team have had experiences that are a direct counterpoint to a very public position that I’ve had. In many articles and forums online I’ve stated that distribution on mobile is very very hard without paid marketing - for many reasons. Yet Anette and her team at Dirtybit crossed 100+ million installs for the Fun Run series of games with no paid marketing whatsoever - by relying primarily on their community to capitalize on a surprising burst of early virality.

Yes, mobile is primarily pay-to-play today -> but this conversation with Anette showcases what circumstances let you evade the primarily pay-to-play nature of the mobile app ecosystem.

Key Highlights:

🔥How FunRun ended up trending worldwide on Twitter and became the top downloaded app on the iTunes charts in 2012.

⚡️How the DirtyBit team discovered that the virality had originated in high schools in America.

🎨Why the DirtyBit offices have one wall designated for fan art.

🤝What DirtyBit’s approach to community and live ops is like today.How DirtyBit works with in-game ambassadors - and how they incentivize them.

💰Why DirtyBit started thinking about paid UA in 2017.

🔎 What Anette and her team did when they noticed the older versions of Fun Run were cannibalizing the newer ones.

🚀Is it realistic to expect to attain massive organic growth a la Fun Run in 2020?


Check out the full transcript and show notes here:
http://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/episode/100-million-installs-with-zero-paid-user-acquisition-spend-with-anette-staloyvp-of-business-marketing-at-dirtybit/
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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

My guest today is Adam Hadi, the VP of Marketing at the mobile bank Current. Adam began his career as an economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and made his way into mobile app marketing for The Topps Company. Since then, he’s headed up marketing for leading apps such as Draft, Quidd and now Current – and advised a host of other apps on influencer marketing. Adam’s experiences are fascinating because with his background in quantitative performance-focused marketing, he would be an unlikely proponent of branding in marketing - yet in his present role at Current, he has championed driving performance while being very brand-focused, even without massive budgets. In this conversation, we dive into why branding matters, especially for high-involvement products like fintech apps - and how Adam approaches this. As someone that, much like Adam, is very performance-focused, this was a refreshing & new perspective on marketing.

Key Highlights:

• As someone with a predominantly performance marketing background, what made Adam aware of the importance of branding.
• Why branding is far less important for games than it is for high-involvement, emotional products like fintech apps.
• How Current’s brand and performance marketing efforts are integrated.
• Why complete focus on performance can erode your brand - and eventually hurt performance.
• How Adam recommends approaching branding for a performance marketer that is looking to become more brand-conscious.
• How the evolution of mobile has resulted in the natural shift to an increasing emphasis on branding.

Check out the full transcript and show notes here:
http://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/episode/why-you-need-to-protect-your-brand-in-a-relentlessly-performance-focused-world-with-adam-hadivp-of-marketing-at-current/
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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

Often the duopoly of Facebook & Google just don't suffice to meet all your UA needs. Sometimes you need to hit scale that’s far bigger than Facebook and Google can provide, even if these come together with Snapchat, Apple, Pinterest & other self-attributing networks. 

Programmatic advertising can be a wide blue ocean opportunity for advertisers seeking scale - but it is also one that is fraught with risks, because you’re essentially bidding on CPM, and are building on ML/AI capabilities of DSPs to drive performance for you. We untangle some of the many challenges that programmatic advertising can often present - and I have with me one of the foremost experts on programmatic/DSP buying today.  

I interview Misha Syrotiuk, the Head of Ad Networks & programmatic for UA at Huuuge Games - and we talk about many things programmatic, and discuss how to unlock scale outside the duopoly.

Check out the full transcript and show notes here:
http://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/episode/how-to-unlock-scale-outside-the-duopoly-with-misha-syrotiukhead-of-ad-networks-programmatic-for-ua/

**

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

One element of Facebook ads that can come across as monolithic or opaque is bidding - at the outset, it can appear simplistic - you either increase bids or drop them, and that is what it is. However the way Facebook’s(and any other ad tech platform’s) algorithm works is that the bid isn't the only thing that matters - relevance does just as much. In this episode, I’ll walk you through some of the math behind bidding for ad auctions - and how to impact its different components.

Check out the full transcript and show notes here:
http://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/episode/why-bidding-isnt-everything-the-simple-math-behind-winning-ad-auctions/

**

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