Mobile Heroes Uncensored

Can you make better games by understanding player psychology? By knowing what people’s primary (and secondary) motivations are in mobile games? According to GameRefinery’s Joel Julkunen, absolutely. And understanding these motivations has led, he says, to multiple hit games over the past few years.

In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored we chat with Julkunen. He’s played over 500 games, and that’s a core part of his work, believe it or not. From that and a huge amount of data from thousands of games, he’s found 12 key player motivations that determine what kinds of games we like and which we don’t.

And that can help game marketers and designers build and market the right games to the right people.

Timestamps

0:00 Playing games for a living

2:44 Player motivation framework

4:57 The 12 core mobile game player motivations

10:23 Matching motivations to personas

13:18 Crossover games

17:16 Predicting the next big mobile games hit

21:47 Be bold and brave

Why stick with a potential audience of millions if you could have billions?

It’s not the right move for every app, but for apps that don’t rely on geographical boots-on-the-ground in terms of inventory, warehouses, or fulfillment, going global can unlock runaway growth. But there are a few things to keep in mind, says Bessie Byeon, Senior Director of Global Marketing at Liftoff.

In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we chat about her recent guide to scaling mobile apps overseas.

Timestamps

0:00 Why not go global?

4:05 The first criteria

5:10 What app marketers need to know about their apps

9:35 Localizing apps

14:40 Puzzling creatives

17:30 Predicting the future

23:05 Elements of success

From crazy success to favorite flops, we chat with veteran DoubleDown Interactive marketer Faith Price. Price tells us about soft launches, MVPs, app store featuring, and advice for a younger self, and talks about how getting the “grand tour” in marketing gigs was the perfect set-up for what she’s doing now … and maybe our privacy-safe future.

Hosts Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier also quiz Price on one of her favorite success stories in mobile marketing: a declining game turned around by smart product development and smart marketing.

Timestamps

0:00 Gaming at the forefront

2:40 The grand tour of tech

6:20 Origin story

8:50 Advice for a younger you

10:20 Favorite success story in mobile

13:40 Favorite flop in mobile marketing

17:50 Soft launches

20:20 App store featuring

22:40 Different strategies in soft launches

26:50 MVPs for soft launches

Scaling ad spend seems easy: boost buys, increase bids, add partners. But it’s really easy to lose massive amounts of efficiency and instead of driving results, simply increase ad blindness.

In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored we chat with mobile growth marketer and consultant Alper Taner, who has worked with over 50 apps in 10 verticals and helped brands scale users 5X to 50X.

We chat about:

Timestamps

0:00 Scaling ad spend to 8 digits

2:05 What brands want

3:15 Making the right decisions when scaling ad spend

6:05 Do you always lose efficiency when scaling?

10:50 The best ad channels

13:14 Biggest surprise in scaling ad spend?

15:40 Biggest mistakes in scaling ad spend?

20:10 Creatives and ad fatigue

25:10 Creatives and personas

28:30 SKAN 4 is “great”

32:15 Top tip for mobile marketers who are looking to scale ad spend

More granularity! More data over time! But … still plenty of uncertainty over timing, transition, implementation, and so much more.

Apple’s announced SKAN 4, and in this Mobile Heroes Uncensored we dive deep into it with mobile growth expert and consultant Thomas Petit, who participates while being down with Covid (!!!). We chat about what we know and what we don’t know, and especially about the new areas of complexity that, he says, are great job security for consultants :-)

We also discuss:

Timestamps

0:00 SKAN 4

2:05 Best parts of the new SKAN 4

3:35 Worst parts of the new SKAN 4

5:20 The SKAN 4 transition is going to be tough

9:20 From 1 postback to 3

9:20 From Campaign ID to Source ID

10:20 Creative optimization in SKAN 4

13:45 Cohorts (sorta) but no customer journey

15:30 SKAN 4 and subscription apps

17:45 Coarse and fine values in SKAN 4

24:05 Fraud and SKAN 4

25:35 SKAN 4 and web

30:30 SKAN 4 launch date

Can you run user acquisition at scale without app store optimization? Probably not without wasting a lot of money, according to Taha Karsli from MobileAction.

In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we chat with Karsli about key ranking factors on Google Play and the App Store, reviews, fitting ASO into an overall mobile growth strategy, and how frequently you should update your app listings.

We also get insight into

Timestamps

0:00 App store optimization

3:15 ASO and paid user acquisition

5:15 How much differentiation good ASO makes

7:45 Key ASO ranking factors

10:45 Key ASO ranking factors for Google Play

14:20 App reviews and ASO

19:20 App images and screenshots

21:45 5 quick ASO questions

26:10 Merging organic and paid datasets

Does your creative drive targeting? Does your creative answer questions? Do you offer video ads like cinematic trailers for the CTR and gameplay videos for the retention?

In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored we chat with Activision’s senior manager of growth strategy Thanasi Chalkiadakis, who shares how he drives growth for one of the most iconic game franchises of all time, Call of Duty.

With hosts John Koetsier and Peggy Anne Salz, we dive into:

Timestamps

0:00 What UA pros need to know

1:01 Mobile growth from 1979

5:45 From Greece to Call of Duty

7:40 What working in a restaurant teaches you about UA

9:30 Lifecycle marketing in mobile

11:05 UA and product

14:55 Ad creative: 2 kinds

20:20 How creative drives targeting

24:05 Getting a job in user acquisition

26:40 Create ads that answer questions

Have you ever been review-bombed by an unscrupulous competitor?

In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored we chat with Natalie Drozd, User Acquisition Lead at Fabulous. She’s an app store optimization expert as well as a user acquisition expert, and she chats about good ASO, bad ASO, and toxic ASO.

We also chat about being featured by Apple as an Editor’s Choice app, learning from Reforge, winning in the wellness, fitness, and health categories, and the biggest challenges to achieving and sustaining organic growth.

Timestamps

0:00 From the trenches to Everest

2:05 Getting featured by Apple

6:01 What I learned from Reforge

9:20 Winning in fitness and health

12:55 Dan Ariely and Predictably Irrational

16:57 Holistic mobile marketing

20:30 Achieving and sustaining organic growth

22:15 App Store Optimization

27:25 Black Hat ASO

30:05 3 tips for mobile marketers in fitness

Can it be possible that 99% of ads for midcore games fail to address one of the most important factors in drawing new players in?

In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored we dive into Liftoff’s creative index report. Based on analysis of 805 billion ad impressions -- yes you got that number right -- the report highlights what works and doesn’t work in mobile advertising.

Our guests:

What we learn: far too many ads ignore key user motivations, one very old and much-maligned ad unit is actually an all-star, what hooks new users in fintech, and much, much more …

Timestamps

0:00 What 99% of mobile ads miss

2:30 805 billion ad impressions

4:40 Banner ads don’t suck

5:35 Most surprising insight

8:00 Banner ads actually rock

12:07 Creative strategy in 2022

14:30 12 user motivations for gamers

22:42 E-commerce creatives

24:00 The makeup-applying robot

25:00 Top tips for ad creative

Is it possible to have privacy that doesn’t suck for marketers? While SKAdNetwork and iOS 14.5 might not fit that billing, Privacy Sandbox on Android just might.

What does it include? What will change? What will get worse, and what will get better. In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we interview three experts to get their insights:

They tell us what Privacy Sandboxes’ most pleasant surprises are, what the biggest concerns about losing GAID are, and whether Topics API is robust enough for accurate targeting. All that and more …

Timestamps

0:00 Privacy Sandbox on Android

4:01 Best surprise about Privacy Sandbox

8:30 Multi-touch attribution?

13:10 Losing GAID

17:50 Topics API and targeting

24:00 How does this change ad networks?

27:55 How does this change marketing?

34:50 Campaign optimization

38:50 Top tips for marketers