Mobile Dev Memo Podcast

In this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I discuss the economics of advertising auctions with Garrett Johnson, who is a professor at the Questrom School of Business at Boston University. I find that the auction dynamic is one of the most poorly understood aspects of digital marketing for practitioners: most advertisers are so intently focused on their own business objectives that they ignore the machinations of ad platforms that are invisible to them. But the auction mechanic is the beating heart of digital advertising, and it determines the pricing that advertisers pay for ad inventory. I'm happy to record this foundational, evergreen episode because I think it might help to inform a broader discussion about pricing in digital advertising generally -- and to explain how it is that ad platforms don't set prices.

In this week's episode, I speak with Canaan Linder and Atif Khan, the CEO and Head of Operations, respectively, at Stardust, a platform that allows game developers to incorporate crypto assets into their games. In this episode, we talk about the challenge of some of the various foundational notions underpinning web3 gaming -- such as the interoperability of in-game items expressed as NFTs -- as well as the potential promise in terms of expanded gameplay and player enjoyment that they present. We also talk about the skillsets needed to build web3 games, the correct way to bring a web3 game to market, and what kind of infrastructure these games require to thrive.

In this new episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with Maor Sadra, the CEO of INCRMNTAL, about probabilistic attribution for mobile advertising and why bad incentives prevent advertisers from rejecting it. We also talk about Media Mix Models and Facebook's efforts to drive adoption for Robyn, its open-sourced measurement product, and budget diversification post-ATT.

In this third and final episode of ATT, One Month In, I speak with Alex Bauer of Branch about the iOS 14.6 adoption rate curve, why it's unfortunate that misleading opt-in rate measurements proliferated throughout the mainstream media so quickly after the release of iOS 14.5, device fingerprinting and whether or for how long Apple will tolerate it, and Apple's PR campaign around ATT. The previous episodes in the series are: Episode 1: ATT, one month in: privacy thresholds with Rich Jones of Dataseat (ep. 1 of 3) Episode 2: ATT, one month in: SKAdNetwork standards with Paul Bowen of AlgoLift (ep. 2 of 3) In conjunction with the podcast series, I am offering a 20% discount on my iOS 14: How to prevail in Q2 2021 course which can be accessed with the code MDM_4325_OMI_20PCT or through this link. The discount will only be available through June 4th, 2021. As always, the Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on: Apple Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts

This is the second episode of ATT, One Month In, which is a podcast series that aims to provide advertisers with an overview of ATT's impact on mobile ecosystem as it takes root. The first episode in the series can be found here: ATT, one month in: privacy thresholds with Rich Jones of Dataseat (ep. 1 of 3) In this episode, I speak with Paul Bowen, the GM of AlgoLift, a mobile marketing analytics and campaign automation company that was acquired by Vungle last year. We discuss SKAdNetwork conversion value standards, the conversion value window, and why and for how long fingerprinting will be tolerated.

Today I am publishing the first episode in a three-part podcast series called "ATT, one month in" that will report observations on iOS 14.5 and its impact on mobile advertising from various corners of the ad tech ecosystem. The purpose of this podcast series is to serve as an analytical waypoint in the roll-out of iOS 14.5: what is currently happening in the ecosystem as the mobile landscape changes, and what can be expected in the near-term future. These episodes are not expected to age well: they are snapshots of what is happening right now -- in this very transformative moment -- in the mobile ecosystem. In conjunction with the podcast series, I am offering a 20% discount on my iOS 14: How to prevail in Q2 2021 course which can be accessed with the code MDM_4325_OMI_20PCT or through this link. The discount will only be available through June 4th, 2021. In today's episode, I speak with Rich Jones, the Head of Product at Dataseat, a mobile DSP. Rich and I discuss the nature of Apple's privacy threshold and what we've learned about it since ATT was first announced. Rich yesterday posted a very provocative graph (above) of the prevalence of conversion values in the postbacks that Dataseat is seeing across its network, which precipitated the conversation.

On Monday, April 5th, I hosted a Clubhouse room in which I provided brief commentary on Tim Cook's recent interview with Kara Swisher. The interview focused on Apple's upcoming ATT privacy policy -- and, in the interview, Tim Cook indicated that ATT will be rolled out in the next few weeks -- and I explained why I felt the interview fell short of holding Apple accountable for the structural changes that ATT will wreak on the mobile ecosystem. I recorded a rough representation of the commentary I gave in the Clubhouse room and am releasing it as a podcast.

On Monday, March 1st, I delivered a presentation on Clubhouse titled, "iOS14, Privacy, and the Future of Digital Advertising." I was asked by a number of people to release a recording of the presentation, so I have recorded the content as a podcast and am releasing it here.

In this episode of the MDM podcast, I discuss the future of advertising attribution on mobile with my guests Maor Sadra, the CEO of INCRMNTAL, and Peter Hamilton, the former CEO of TUNE.  Why did Applovin buy Adjust? Will fingerprinting be possible once ATT is made mandatory? What is the nature of ad fraud on mobile?

In this episode of the MDM Podcast, I unpack a very specific, very important question with my guest, Thomas Petit: Why doesn't Google have to show the ATT prompt? This discussion was catalyzed by the enormous amount of confusion that was created when Google announced last month that it would not expose the ATT prompt in its owned-and-operated apps. This revelation seemed to fly in the face of Facebook's announcement in December that it must show the ATT prompt in its owned-and-operated apps, and that ATT would govern not just app campaigns run on its platform but also mobile web campaigns. How can Google avoid showing the ATT prompt if Facebook seems to have been told very explicitly that it must show the ATT prompt? In this podcast, Thomas Petit and I discuss this very confounding situation and attempt to provide clarity on when exposure of the ATT prompt is required, and why.