Mobile Dev Memo Podcast

Season 6, Episode 6: What is signal engineering? (with Itai Kafri)

Aug 19, 2025
Itai Kafri, Head of Product Growth at Voyantis and former senior exec at TikTok, dives into the fascinating world of signal engineering. He explores how this emerging tactic enhances digital marketing, especially amidst rising platform automation. Itai discusses the best practices for employing existing vs. new event signals, and the roles of different teams in optimizing user engagement. He also shares insights on how various advertisers—mobile games, e-commerce, and subscription apps—adapt their strategies and the common traits of successful companies in this space.
Ask episode
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
INSIGHT

Automation Makes Signal Engineering Essential

  • Signal engineering retrains ad platforms by sending better signals so automated delivery finds higher-value users.
  • The more automation in platforms, the more critical engineered signals become to control outcomes.
INSIGHT

Predictions Need A Signaling Strategy

  • Signal engineering uses deterministic event APIs to send probabilistic predicted values about user value.
  • You must translate predictions into a signaling strategy because you cannot naively send probabilistic values.
ADVICE

Don't Send Raw Predicted LTVs

  • Avoid simply inserting predicted LTV into a purchase event without experimentation because platforms treat probabilistic values differently.
  • Test packaging, timing, and volume of signals to discover what the platform responds to best.
Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode
Get the app