Business of Apps Podcast

Summer Liu, CMO at SocialPeta, discusses leveraging app data, staying competitive in app marketing, and upcoming SocialPeta features. Topics include her background, SocialPeta's evolution, trends in mobile advertising, and the importance of data-driven decisions. She shares insights on app performance, ad creatives, and the future of digital marketing. Liu also talks about features she would miss on her smartphone and changes she'd like to see in digital marketing.

Sherina Khalidi, VP Performance Marketing at Deezer, discusses the app's growth strategy, user acquisition, data analytics, retention tactics, partnerships, and emerging trends. She shares her experience, challenges in digital marketing, and preferences between Android and iOS. The podcast delves into her smartphone feature wishlist and nostalgic memories of early mobile phones.

Jakub Chour, Mobile Growth at HER app, discusses marketing techniques outside app stores. Topics include affiliate marketing, Generative AI for content, viral marketing, overhyped app channels, and desired smartphone features.

Let’s state the obvious - people love playing games, especially on their smartphones, and they do love brands. Now, if you ask a mobile marketer what does it imply she would tell you that it’s a great opportunity on one side to let brands reach more potential customers and on the other - for mobile game developers to generate revenue. So far so good, right? But what if I tell you that there is a report that actually reveals specifically what brand categories people prefer who play games in various types of games such as Puzzle, Card, Word, and Action? Sounds even better, right? Well, today Ravi will be talking about Digital Turbine’s BRAG INDEX IV report that brings up precisely this information. Today’s Topics Include: Ravi's background What is Digital Turbine today and its mission The BRAG Index report and its methodology The biggest highlights from the report The mobile games landscape today The report insights for Word / Word Search game category The report insights for Puzzle game category The report insights for Card game category The report insights for Action game category Android or iOS? Leaving his smartphone at home, what features would Ravi miss most? What features he would like to see added to his smartphone? Links and Resources: Ravi Pimplaskar on LinkedIn Digital Turbine company BRAG Index IV report  Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry Quotes from Ravi Pimplaskar: "What we did is we sort of indexed the people who play Word games against certain brands. And we really found that they had an affinity for fitness and travel. Some of their top brands included, you know, Red bull, Delta Airlines, Panera Bread. But one of the things, Word  gamers, which isn't surprising, are avid readers." "Puzzle gamers - what we really found about their interest is they gravitate towards beauty and adventure. Their favorite brand is  beauty products like Aveeno. They're into Travelocity, Lululemon's brands. One of the things that we did find about puzzle gamers - they really into traveling. So, you know, that Sudoku player sitting next to you on flight he may be more typical than you think." Host Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry since 2012

One of the topics, that has been permeating this podcast over the years, is mobile app growth. And in general - year after year, conference after conference, countless webinars, white papers, and podcasts have been dedicated to this topic. And it’s all for a good reason - if your app’s user base doesn’t grow you can not build a sustainable app business and because the app landscape has been changing you always needs to be in the know of what works now and what doesn’t. And this is exactly what we’re going to cover on this episode with Gilad. Today’s Topics Include: Gilad's background What is Moburst App marketing recent evolution App growth marketing essential strategies Mobile app growth common challenges Influence of tech on app marketing Trends that will dominate mobile app marketing Advice to young app marketers What would Gilad like to change about app marketing Android or iOS? Leaving his smartphone at home, what features would Gilad miss most? What features he would like to see added to his smartphone? Links and Resources: Gilad Bechar on LinkedIn Moburst Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry Quotes from Gilad Bechar: "I think that from the get-go apps optimization was always pretty big on app growth. And when you're thinking about app optimization, you think about how users might find the app. The app optimization, I think it became much more sophisticated in the past few years, where you have the ability to impact users with so many different gateways to the app. So it's no longer five screenshots you're telling the story and that's it, like you used to have.  Now you have 35 different gateways in the App Store on the, on iOS and 50 different gateways on custom product pages on Android." " I think that AI  is a massive improvement and advancement. And that's something that will impact the world for now and onwards. But I think that the ability to be data-driven and seeing what works and what doesn't work, which means at the end of the day, there are users. You're trying to bridge your message to the user and getting them to a very positive experience about whatever you're trying to sell.   I think that being data-driven and understanding which customers to approach with which type of messaging that will resonate with them and will get them to one step closer to the action that you want them to take. That's the key element that is with all of the tech technology advancements and with all of the new tools that are available and all of the better programs of TikTok and Meta and Google." Host Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry since 2012

Ok, a bit of a mental gymnastics - imaging you’re holding a smartphone in your hand and you’ve just purchased it. You’ve unpacked it, turned on and now browsing through its default apps and checking out its features. You’re consciously taking mental notes on features that tick off boxes for you - that is the rational part. Right, but don’t you notice that holding that phone in your hand makes you feel good? We, human beings, are driven by emotions, even on occasions when you feel like you are strictly rational, your decisions are still influenced by your emotions. Now, this episode stands out the rest, because with the exception of the episode with Joe Schaeppi, CEO of Solsten, where we talked about the psychology of app user acquisition, we haven’t touched emotions in app marketing. But we’re going to change it now today by having Naksha and talking about driving app engagement with empathy. Today’s Topics Include: Naksha''s background What is UserTesting What is empathy and how it is different from sympathy Connecting with brands - how it works and why it's important How to assess how well or bad your app connects with its users Customer Experience First approach Takeaways Android or iOS? Leaving her smartphone at home, what features would Naksha miss most? What features she would like to see added to her smartphone? Links and Resources: Naksha Ruiz (Ghirardelli) on LinkedIn UserTesting Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry Quotes from Naksha Ruiz: "Yeah, I think that's a very, very good point, especially now in the digital age that we were talking about how technology brings brands more closely. I guess that would be the best way to say it. I think,  at this point, consumers have endless options and it's very important to create genuine connection, to build a difference, to be a differentiator from all of the brand offerings. So ultimately, when we think about brands, brands sell, experience or sell, sell, sell you those feelings that then you can empathize with." "I think from a business perspective, sympathy is what you will have the whole time. You're trying to keep it in mind, and the empathy will be something that you will connect to every now and then." Host Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry since 2012

Today, of all business models the subscription model is the one that rules the world of mobile apps. Long gone the times when you hear the word subscription in a conversation about mobile apps you could only think of apps for content streaming or online media. Today subscription apps are everywhere. On this episode, Léa will share with you best practices for subscription apps monetization. She will cover things like product-market fit, language-market fit, framing the prices, and more. Today’s Topics Include: Léa's background Monetization benefits for subscription apps Product-market fit: what it is an how to achieve it Language-market fit Framing the prices Building trust How to prevent users churn for subscription apps Takeaways Android or iOS? Leaving her smartphone at home, what features would Léa miss most? What features she would like to see added to her smartphone? Links and Resources: Léa Samrani on LinkedIn Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry Quotes from Léa Samrani: "So, you know, it's not enough to have an amazing idea and an amazing product. You also need enough people that think this is a great idea and a great product. So you need enough of the market as well for it to work. So those are the three things that I think are very much like minimal at least that you really need to start getting some level of product market fit and start building traction. And then there's how you measure that, which is some decent activation and engagement metric, you know, around activation and maybe retention. And if your product have some sort of habituation into it, you can also look at things like stickiness." "In a way before subscription app, one of the best way to get new customer was a referral. It was the word of mouth. You trust a lot more when a brand or a product, when it's endorsed by someone you trust. The exact same principle applied to subscription app." Host Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry since 2012

We passed the Equinox a couple of weeks ago - the spring is here and, in kind of celebrating spirit, I want us to take a look back at 2023, a bird-view on the app industry via the one and only State of Mobile report from Data.ai. The app industry is on scale of millions of apps used by billions of people, apps permeate the entire world economy. By now, you just can’t find an industry that hasn’t been influenced by mobile. Competition is high, new technologies emerge and from time to time we all need to take a step back and take a holistic view on the industry to check out on the trends and understand how well we fit into this picture. Today’s Topics Include: Lexi Sydow's background Big data points from the State of Mobile 2024 report How much time people spent in mobile apps in 2023 How much money people spent in mobile apps in 2023 Apps vs. games - where do people spend more time? Mobile advertising growth year over year AI & Mobile - the increasing popularity of ChatGPT4 The influence of Generative AI on top apps growth Top Apps & Games of 2023 Links and Resources: Lexi Sydow on LinkedIn The State of Mobile 2024 report Data.ai SensorTower Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry Quotes from Lexi Sydow: "We saw 257 billion app downloads in 2023 alone, which is a roughly flat year on year. And that's sort of what we'd expect to see given more maturity in the market. These are completely net new installs. And it equates to about almost  half a million downloads every minute is what that equates to you globally" "$171 billion being spent across iOS, Google Play and third party Android stores in China. So the top five markets are China at $52 billion being spent alone. That actually is down 10% year on year. Number two is the U S, up $45 billion, and that's up 6%. Japan at 18 billion is our number three kind of market on mobile, up a modest 1%. " "And in 2023, we saw $64 billion annually being spent in the non game sector, and that has grown roughly 6.5 X from 2016, where it was only $10.3 billion. So just a huge growth in like the last seven or eight years there. "  Host Business Of Apps – connecting the app industry since 2012

Learn about TikTok app marketing best practices with insights from Inna, Senior User Acquisition Manager at Hily. Discover Hily's framework, influencer marketing on TikTok, ad targeting strategies, and creative approaches. Dive into the evolution of AI in smartphones and find out what features Inna can't live without.

This week we have another bonus episode for you, this time it’s the recording of our recent webinar with Colin Contreary, Head of Content at Embrace, app performance analytics platform. Right now we use and rely on so many apps in our daily life, we don’t even register when you use all those apps - it’s just how you connect with your family, do your banking, getting around in a city, shop for a variety of things and so on. When all those apps do work we are happy, when they crash they drive us nuts. Sponsor This episode is sponsored by Perform[cb], leading outcome-based marketing company. Perform[kb] targets marketers' ideal audience and promotes brands with AI-powered, high-value placements on a pay for performance model. Get in touch with their user acquisition team today! In this episode: ✅  Identifying pain points ✅  The battle against app crashes and ANRs (stands for Application Not Responding) ✅  Case studies Links and Resources: Colin Contreary on LinkedIn Embrace website The 2024 Mobile Developer Pain Points Report Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry Quotes from Colin Contreary: "And so once they were started using Embrace, when they got user complaints, they were able to immediately look up the full user experience and see what exactly the issue was." "They're able to put out a hotfix for deep linking issues and hotfixes if they surface new crash patterns, which understandably happen when you have such a surge in interest during that big event. And so the end result of being able to immediately dive into those user experiences is that they were able to maintain 99.99% crash free rating, which is already incredible outside of a big event like Black Friday." Host Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry since 2012