MobileGroove

In this episode of the Full Funnel App Growth Series powered by Aarki, Peggy sits down with Rajeev Ranjan, VP of Product at Aarki, to demystify one of the most misunderstood topics in mobile marketing today: SKAN and privacy-first measurement.

As data becomes delayed, aggregated, and harder to interpret, many teams see SKAN as a blackout. Rajeev argues the opposite. When approached correctly, SKAN becomes a predictable timeline — one that helps marketers make better decisions, not worse ones.

This conversation is part podcast, part masterclass, and focuses on what growth leaders actually need to know to operate confidently in 2026 — without drowning in technical detail.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why SKAN is not a loss of signal, but a shift in cadence
• How to treat postbacks as decision points, not just data
• What to do (and what not to do) at Day 4, Day 10–15, and Day 30
• Why killing campaigns too early is one of the most expensive mistakes teams make
• How creative testing and retargeting still work under SKAN — just differently
• Where AI helps, where it fails, and why black-box automation is risky
• Why full-funnel growth now means UA and retargeting working together, earlier than most teams expect

Rajeev also shares practical lessons from working with marketers across gaming and non-gaming apps, including why waiting too long to re-engage users can permanently cost you high-value cohorts.

This episode connects directly to Chapter 4 of the Full Funnel Growth Playbook, where Rajeev lays out a clear framework for reclaiming your data advantage in a privacy-first world, without panic, denial, or guesswork.

If you’re responsible for growth, budgets, or performance in a world where feedback loops are slower but expectations haven’t changed, this episode is required listening.

*** Subscribe for More ***

👉🏻YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/PeggyAnneSalz?sub_confirmation=1

👉🏻Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5yFF2InbeIgkIRcxvDy3jm👉🏻Amazon: https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/28e1039b-4ead-4c48-aed7-8aceb5195fa6/mobilegroove

👉🏻On Point Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7020756661006925824

*** Let's Connect ***

👉🏻 LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/peggyannesalz

👉🏻 Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/peggy.salz👉🏻 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/peggyannesalz

👉🏻 Website - https://www.mobilegrove.com

*** What We Do ***

MobileGroove: Mobile Marketing Insights, Trends & Growth Strategies

MobileGroove is a top-ranked destination for mobile marketing, app growth, and customer engagement strategies. We deliver expert analysis, custom research, and strategic content marketing to help mobile-first businesses and tech startups thrive in a fast-moving industry.

My videos cover:

• User acquisition (UA) best practices
• App retention and lifecycle marketing strategies
• Personalization and loyalty programs that drive ROI
• The latest in mobile advertising and data-driven growth
• Success stories from top marketers and mobile-first brands

Peggy is a recognized thought leader, named a Top 100 Mobile Influencer by Mobile World Congress, and the author of Apponomics (with InMobi) and The Everything Guide to Mobile Apps.Subscribe for weekly updates on mobile app marketing, growth hacking, retention tactics, and more.

Footnote: Immersive in-game ads is currently in closed beta and is only available for selected publishers

Most publishers are still relying on the same old ad formats and experiences. That feels safe, but it leaves money, premium demand and player trust on the table. In this episode, we dig into why traditional formats are overrated, why immersive in-game ads are underrated, and how a new hybrid monetization model can deliver both revenue and respect for your players.

I’m joined by Fatma Gungor Okutan from Google, who works on partnerships with app and game publishers across EMEA. Fresh from the Google App Summit in Dublin, Fatma shares what she’s seeing in the market: publishers hesitant to change formats, brands demanding higher-quality inventory, and players who want ads that blend into the game rather than break the flow.

We unpack what immersive in-game ads actually look like – from billboards on virtual race tracks to menu items and pause screens that become native placements – and how AI is shaping everything from creative design to targeting and localization so ads feel relevant, not random.

Fatma also calls out the red flags: forced redirects to app stores, confusing or missing exit buttons and low-quality, over-frequent ads that might give you a short-term bump but destroy retention and brand value over time. She explains why even hyper-casual games now need to balance frequency, segmentation, and experience to achieve real, sustainable performance.

When we talk about the future, Fatma doesn’t pick between ads, IAP or subscriptions. She puts her bet on a new hybrid model where IAP still dominates in absolute dollar terms. Still, ads take a bigger share – as long as publishers use segmentation, smarter formats and ad quality as a core design principle, not an afterthought.

This conversation is part of PlayerFirst Perspectives, a MobileGroove mini-series powered by AppHarbr. It’s a series about fixing ad quality and developing ad policies so users stay in your app or game, and you can enforce what you believe is right for your players.

👉 Join the conversation

Be part of the Player First Collective on Slack, where marketers, product teams and platforms swap real examples of bad ads, immersive formats, policy fixes and UX wins. You’ll find the Slack invite link and more resources in the show notes.

In this episode, Fatma tells me:

• Why relying too much on traditional formats is an overrated trend in mobile game monetization
• Why immersive in-game ads are underrated and how making every item or surface in your game a potential placement can unlock premium, brand-safe demand
• How AI is already embedded in Google’s infrastructure, from auctions to new formats, and how publishers are using it for creative design, coding and end-to-end experience building
• What a high-quality immersive ad experience looks like for players and for brands that care how they show up in games
• The ad quality red flags she watches for: too-frequent, low-quality, non-relevant ads that may boost short-term revenue but hurt retention and brand health in the long run
• How segmentation by country, behavior and ad tolerance helps you design the right ad mix for different users instead of treating everyone the same
• Why she is betting on a new hybrid monetization model where IAP and ads work together, and quality, formats and segmentation decide who wins

*** Subscribe for More ***

👉🏻YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/PeggyAnneSalz?sub_confirmation=1

👉🏻Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5yFF2InbeIgkIRcxvDy3jm

👉🏻Amazon: https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/28e1039b-4ead-4c48-aed7-8aceb5195fa6/mobilegroove👉🏻On Point Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7020756661006925824

For years, app and game growth felt like a sugar rush. Cheap installs, aggressive ads, quick wins. That era is over. Now we’re finally seeing hard data on what disruptive ad experiences really do to player retention – including how one bad ad can trigger instant churn and how repeat exposure can burn through half your audience.

In this episode, I’m joined by Alexis de Charentenay, Director for EMEA App and Gaming at Google, live from the Google App Summit in Dublin. Alexis explains why he believes we’re in a post–sugar rush phase, what new ad quality data is revealing about user behavior and how AI inside Google’s stack is helping filter out the junk so publishers can protect players and performance.

This conversation is part of PlayerFirst Perspectives, a MobileGroove mini-series powered by AppHarbr. It’s all about fixing ad quality and building ad policies that keep users in your app or game so you can enforce what you believe is right for your players.

👉 Join the conversation

Be part of the Player First Collective on Slack, where marketers, product teams and platforms swap examples of bad ads, policy fixes and UX wins.

In this episode, Alexis tells me:

• Why he says the industry has been on a “sugar rush” and what changes in the post–sugar rush era
• What new Google data shows about immediate churn after a single disruptive ad, and how repeat bad experiences can burn through half your audience
• How AI is built into Google’s ad stack to detect and filter low-quality and disruptive formats at scale
• Why publishers need visibility into how specific ad experiences affect retention, not just short-term revenue
• How to push partners and networks on ad quality and make it part of your brand promise
• Why retention should be your North Star metric – and how to aim for both high ad quality and high performance instead of trading one for the other

Stay tuned for upcoming PlayerFirst Perspectives episodes on MobileGroove, where we explore how publishers, platforms and partners are turning ad quality, policy and player trust into a real growth advantage.

*** Subscribe for More ***

👉🏻YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/PeggyAnneSalz?sub_confirmation=1

👉🏻Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5yFF2InbeIgkIRcxvDy3jm

👉🏻Amazon: https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/28e1039b-4ead-4c48-aed7-8aceb5195fa6/mobilegroove👉🏻On Point Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7020756661006925824

*** Let's Connect ***

👉🏻 LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/peggyannesalz

👉🏻 Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/peggy.salz

👉🏻 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/peggyannesalz

👉🏻 Website - https://www.mobilegrove.com

*** What We Do ***

MobileGroove: Mobile Marketing Insights, Trends & Growth Strategies

MobileGroove is a top-ranked destination for mobile marketing, app growth, and customer engagement strategies. We deliver expert analysis, custom research, and strategic content marketing to help mobile-first businesses and tech startups thrive in a fast-moving industry.

My videos cover: • User acquisition (UA) best practices • App retention and lifecycle marketing strategies • Personalization and loyalty programs that drive ROI • The latest in mobile advertising and data-driven growth • Success stories from top marketers and mobile-first brandsPeggy is a recognized thought leader, named a Top 100 Mobile Influencer by Mobile World Congress, and the author of Apponomics (with InMobi) and The Everything Guide to Mobile Apps.

Subscribe for weekly updates on mobile app marketing, growth hacking, retention tactics, and more.

Publishers are done being passive participants in their own monetization stacks.Recorded live at the Google App Summit in Dublin, this MobileGroove episode features two candid conversations with experienced publishers who are taking a clear, player-first stance on ad quality, trust and long-term value.

I spoke with:

Otto Simola, Head of Player Acquisition and Monetization at FingersoftAnastasiia Paliienko, Marketing Lead at 6037Together, we unpack how publishers are rethinking monetization as a product decision, and why ad quality, policy and trust are now central to sustainable growth.

With Otto, I talk about:

• Why user acquisition and monetization must operate as one system
• How poor ad quality quietly erodes long-term retention
• Why publishers have more power than they think to push back on bad ads
• What clear value exchange gets right in rewarded experiences
• Why measuring retention over time matters more than short-term performance
• Where AI helps today in detecting low-quality and misleading ads

With Anastasiia, I dig into:

• What it means to scale subscription apps without compromising trust
• Why hybrid monetization is becoming essential
• How ad policy and platform standards support better player experiences
• Where AI is already changing creative production and testing
• Why value, honesty and relevance matter more than clicks alone

Across both conversations, a clear theme emerges: publishers are shifting to a player-first perspective, where ad quality, trust and long-term value are treated as core growth levers, not trade-offs.

PlayerFirst Perspectives on MobileGroove

This episode is part of PlayerFirst Perspectives, a MobileGroove mini-series powered by AppHarbr.The series focuses on improving ad quality and developing ad policies so users stay in your app or game and publishers can enforce policies that are right for their players.

👉 Join the conversation

Be part of the Player First Collective on Slack, where marketers, product teams and platforms share real examples of bad ads, policy fixes and UX wins.

*** Subscribe for More ***

👉🏻YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/PeggyAnneSalz?sub_confirmation=1

👉🏻Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5yFF2InbeIgkIRcxvDy3jm

👉🏻Amazon: https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/28e1039b-4ead-4c48-aed7-8aceb5195fa6/mobilegroove👉🏻On Point Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7020756661006925824

*** Let's Connect ***

👉🏻 LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/peggyannesalz

👉🏻 Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/peggy.salz

👉🏻 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/peggyannesalz

👉🏻 Website - https://www.mobilegrove.com

*** What We Do ***

MobileGroove: Mobile Marketing Insights, Trends & Growth Strategies

MobileGroove is a top-ranked destination for mobile marketing, app growth, and customer engagement strategies. We deliver expert analysis, custom research, and strategic content marketing to help mobile-first businesses and tech startups thrive in a fast-moving industry.

My videos cover: • User acquisition (UA) best practices • App retention and lifecycle marketing strategies • Personalization and loyalty programs that drive ROI • The latest in mobile advertising and data-driven growth • Success stories from top marketers and mobile-first brandsPeggy is a recognized thought leader, named a Top 100 Mobile Influencer by Mobile World Congress, and the author of Apponomics (with InMobi) and The Everything Guide to Mobile Apps.

Subscribe for weekly updates on mobile app marketing, growth hacking, retention tactics, and more.

Publishers are facing some tough questions: why are there so many bad ads, who actually owns ad quality, and what can publishers do about it right now?

In this candid backstage debrief, I’m joined by Božo Janković (Ad Monetization Consultant at GameBiz Consulting) right after we leave the main stage at the Google App Summit in Dublin to unpack the realities publishers face every day. We talk through a simple way to frame ad quality – from harmful content and deceptive templates to nonstop ad spam and hidden malicious code – and why ad experience is app experience for your users and your bottom line.

Božo also shares insights from a Google / AdMob / Deloitte study showing that 1 in 5 players will quit a game after a negative ad experience. We also dig into what happens when the industry doesn’t fix this itself: user backlash, app store pressure and, eventually, regulation.

This conversation is part of PlayerFirst Perspectives, a MobileGroove mini-series powered by AppHarbr. It’s a series about fixing ad quality and developing ad policies so users stay in your app or game, and you can enforce what you believe is right for your players.

👉 Join the conversation

Be part of the PlayerFirst Collective on Slack, where marketers, product teams and platforms swap real examples of bad ads, policy fixes and UX wins – and compare notes on what’s working.

In this backstage episode, we talk about:

• Why there may be more bad ads than good ones – from disgusting or misleading creatives to malware, spyware and scams hidden under the surface
• A simple ad quality “stack”: ad content, ad templates and UX, ad implementation and frequency, and ad integrity
• What the Google / AdMob / Deloitte data reveals about churn, player choice and the real revenue impact of negative vs positive ad experiences
• The four key stakeholders in ad quality – advertisers, ad networks and mediation, publishers and app stores – and how responsibility and power are shared
• Why publishers have more leverage than they think: defining ad policies, insisting networks enforce templates and shifting teams from quantity to quality
• How communities help share solutions and push the industry toward higher standards
• Why ignoring ad quality is no longer an option if you care about profitable growth, valuations and building a business with solid, sustainable metrics

Stay tuned for upcoming PlayerFirst Perspectives episodes on MobileGroove, where we continue to dig into how publishers, platforms and partners are turning ad quality, policy and player trust into a real growth advantage.

*** Subscribe for More ***

👉🏻YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/PeggyAnneSalz?sub_confirmation=1

👉🏻Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5yFF2InbeIgkIRcxvDy3jm

👉🏻Amazon: https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/28e1039b-4ead-4c48-aed7-8aceb5195fa6/mobilegroove👉🏻On Point Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7020756661006925824

*** Let's Connect ***

👉🏻 LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/peggyannesalz

👉🏻 Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/peggy.salz

👉🏻 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/peggyannesalz

👉🏻 Website - https://www.mobilegrove.com

Bad ads don’t just annoy users – they quietly drain your growth. Intrusive, misleading or unsafe creatives push players to churn, wreck trust and make your monetization look worse than it really is. This episode is about how to stop that leak and turn ad breaks into a player-first experience instead of a reason to uninstall.

Berk Ulusoy works with leading app and game publishers at Google on the AdMob team. He shares what Google’s best-performing partners do differently: how they spot bad ad UX before it becomes a churn problem, how they use segmentation to protect high-value users and why clear ad policies have become a growth lever, not just a brand-safety checkbox.

This conversation is part of PlayerFirst Perspectives, a new MobileGroove mini-series powered by AppHarbr. It’s a series about fixing ad quality and developing ad policies so users stay in your app or game, and you can enforce what you believe is right for your players.

👉 Join the conversation: Be part of the Player First Collective on Slack, where marketers, product teams and platforms swap examples of bad ads, policy fixes and UX wins. You’ll find the Slack invite link and more resources in the show notes.

In this episode, Berk tells me:

• Why one bad ad can be enough to make a player quit your app or game
• What Google is seeing in ad UX across EMEA and how different markets approach experimentation
• How to use segmentation (payers vs non-payers, regions, behaviors) to design smarter ad experiences
• How to think about formats, density and placements so ads feel integrated, not intrusive
• Why it pays to start conservative with monetization tests, then scale once you understand user expectations
• How to balance rewarded ads, IAP and other revenue streams without breaking UX
• How to work with partners like Google AdMob and AppHarbr to clean up bad ads and enforce your policies

Stay tuned for upcoming PlayerFirst Perspectives episodes on MobileGroove, where we dig into how publishers, platforms and partners are turning ad quality, policy and player trust into a real growth advantage.

Growing an app has never been harder. Privacy limits are rising, signals are shrinking, and marketers are expected to deliver more with less. In this episode, Nicoline Strøm-Jensen from Adjust tells me how teams can still grow with confidence when the data gets thin.

Nicoline is an Engineering Operations Manager at Adjust and a Top 100 App Leader known for turning complex measurement into clear, actionable strategies. She explains why installs no longer tell the full story, how retention-led growth is reshaping budgets, and why user journeys now depend on transparency, trust, and deeper signals across the funnel.

This conversation is part of the 2026 Full Funnel App Growth Series on MobileGroove powered by Aarki, where we unpack how growth really happens in a privacy first world — and why marketers need new playbooks, not just new tactics.

In this episode, Nicoline tells me:

• What Adjust’s data reveals about global shifts in app growth
• Why healthy growth now depends on engagement and retention
• How funnels are becoming continuous learning loops
• Why the value contract matters for trust and personalization
• How marketers can act on delayed or limited signals
• How deep linking rebuilds journey continuity
• Where AI assists with faster, clearer decision-making

Stay tuned for the upcoming Full Funnel App Growth Playbook and future episodes in this series, where we explore how marketers are turning privacy, performance, and creativity into a real growth advantage.

🔗 Connect with Nicoline Strøm-Jensen (Adjust)

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sinemdemiroz/

Adjust: https://www.adjust.com/

Rovio is showing the industry what’s possible when UA and re-engagement work together.

In this new episode of the 2026 Full Funnel App Growth Series powered by Aarki, Peggy speaks with two of Rovio’s seasoned performance marketers, Martin Boccardi and Sinem Demiroz, to unpack how Angry Birds 2 is achieving exceptional results by rethinking segmentation, creative strategy, and predictive retargeting windows.

🎯 Results They Achieved:

• Beat Day 90 ROI goals by 1.7x on average

• Hit their Day 365 LTV target in just 3 months

• Increased retention and sessions even as installs dipped

• Scaled retargeting operations through dynamic (daily) list uploads

• Uncovered high-potential “movable middle” audiences previously missed
  

In this conversation, Martin and Sinem share how Rovio:

• Shifted from static rules to predictive re-engagement thinking

• Identified audiences with high future value — not just past purchases

• Shortened inactivity windows despite higher organic overlap

• Built a creative flywheel where UA insights feed retargeting (and back again)

• Embraced nostalgia-driven creatives that perform across the funnel

• Adopted a testing culture where “don’t be afraid” is the growth mindset
  

This episode is packed with learnings about segmentation, timing, creative strategy, and collaboration — and why retargeting is no longer an afterthought but a core growth lever in a privacy-first world.

🔗 Connect with the Guests

Sinem Demiroz (Rovio)

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sinemdemiroz/Rovio: https://www.rovio.com/

Martin Boccardi (Rovio)

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-boccardi/ Rovio: https://www.rovio.com/

What happens when you treat retargeting like a real growth channel—not just an experiment?

For Aleyna Cerrah, UA Manager at APPS, the result was a jump from 30% to 100% ROAS in just 28 days—powered by a creative-first strategy and close collaboration with Aarki.

In this MobileGroove episode (recorded at MAU), Aleyna breaks down how her team achieved those numbers by combining smart segmentation, AI-generated creative hooks, and weekly iteration. Plus: why playables aren’t great for re-engagement, what KPIs matter most, and how retargeting became a bridge between UA and product.

🎯 This is the full-funnel blueprint for turning retargeting into your next major growth engine.

Aleyna Cerrah: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleyna-cerrah/

APPS: https://apps.com.tr/

#ROAS #Retargeting #AppMarketing #MobileGrowth #Aarki #MobileGroove #CreativeTesting #FullFunnelMarketing #UserAcquisition #PerformanceMarketing

Can a video game treat depression? Teach democracy? Help us remember history?

In this special MobileGroove episode, we meet the creators who believe games can do all this — and more. Recorded at the POSSIBLE conference, Play with Purpose brings together three powerful conversations with game changers working at the intersection of entertainment and impact.

🎮 Jukka from Soihtu shares how his team is designing a game to treat major depression — a title that’s already seen 1,000+ patients play for 46+ hours and is moving toward FDA approval.

🇩🇪 Felix from the German Federal Agency for Civic Education explains how their agency is supporting indie games that explore democracy, media literacy, and social justice.

🕹️ Luc from Of Light and Darkness tells the story behind his Holocaust education game, played by over 2 million people globally — and why it’s sparking conversations that outlast gameplay.

If you’re a developer, brand, educator, or someone who believes games can spark change, this episode will challenge and inspire you.

Jukka Laakso: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juklaakso/ 

Soihtu DTX: https://soihtudtx.com/

Felix Zimmermann: https://www.linkedin.com/in/felix-zimmermann-07694a1a5/ and https://felix-zimmermann.net/ 

Germany Federal Agency for Civic Education: https://www.bpb.de/die-bpb/ueber-uns/federal-agency-for-civic-education/ 

Luc Bernard: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernardluc/

Voices of the Forgotten: https://www.voicesoftheforgotten.com/

Other Mentions:

Media Circus: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3868010/Media_Circus/

Take Us North: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/takeusnorth/take-us-north/rewards

Compensation Not Guaranteed: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2795590/Compensation_Not_Guaranteed/

The Darkest Files: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2058730/The_Darkest_Files/

Glasshouse: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2244700/Glasshouse/

Tears of Libya: https://www.voicesoftheforgotten.com/tearsoflibya