Business of Apps Podcast

Learn how Luisa Zuleta scaled subscription apps for kids, faced marketing limitations, built partnerships, redefined audiences, and optimized LTV. Discover challenges in compliance, adapting to industry changes, and reworking marketing channels. Explore reflections on smartphones, features, and Apple AirTags disappointment.

There is this joke in Silicon Valley “US tech companies are great in software, Chinese ones are cool in hardware and EU make laws and regulations” Of course, there is always a kernel of truth in every joke and I would say that this one has a pretty big one. Big Tech has been in a free fly mode since the inception of Google. There have been very few regulations for which you don’t event need fingers on your both hands to count. But things change and right now regulations are coming. Today Michael will tell us about the EU’s Digital Markets Act - what it is and what are its implications for app developers and publishers. Today’s Topics Include: Michael Bilotta's background What is Worldline Digital Markets Act: definition and implications for app developers and publishers Third-party payment systems providers response The advantages of implementing third-party billing for mobile app developers and publishers Trialing alternative payment systems with customers in South Korea, implications for the US What Mike would like to change about the mobile teach the most Android or iOS? Leaving his smartphone at home, what features would Mike miss most? What features she would like to see added to his smartphone? Links and Resources: Michael Bilotta on LinkedIn Worldline website Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry Quotes from Michael Bilotta: "So the Digital Markets Act is multifaceted, and essentially what it's looking to do is regulate the way that big tech can operate in the EU really from the perspective of ensuring that there are not these monopolies that are created because of the fact that these big tech companies are so expensive. " "So when a payment goes through the traditional app store, it goes into kind of a black box that nobody is super familiar with, nor do we really understand exactly how that payment is being processed. But through a third party payment provider, we can do things like smart routing, where if a transaction fails initially, we can try and route it to another financial institution and see if we can get an acceptance. " Host Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry since 2012

Another week another bonus episode for you, this time it is the Boosting User Engagement and App Retention panel discussion from our App Promotion Summit Berlin that we hosted back on November 30 last year. Every app marketer would agree that App Retention is absolutely crucial for a mobile app project to become sustainable. To address a number of questions about app user engagement and retention we had: Ioana Iordache, Head of Retention at Blacklane Tobias Lüder, Head of CRM at Delivery Hero Isabelle Matuschka, Senior CRM Manager at Blinkist Niklas Henckell, Head of Community Development at Jodel Jon Genovard, CRM & Retention Manager at ShareTheMeal, United Nations World Food Programme. The focus of this panel was on: ✅ real life case studies for retaining app users ✅ measuring app user retention ✅ how of app users habits fit in their usage of apps regularly Host Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry since 2012

What are you watching these days? The Morning Show or Foundation on Apple TV+? Jack Ryan on Amazon Prime? Are you listening music on Apple Music or Spotify? In other words - we live in a streaming world. Initially it was cool to have Netflix for all your online movie watching time and now there are Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Hulu, Peacock, Paramount Plus, Max (which you may still call HBO Max), Disney +. All these platforms charge you around $10 a month, but when you decide to go with a few of them at the same time, it adds up pretty quickly. People clearly need to decide what platforms to choose because they both don’t have enough money and don’t have time to watch all of it and so they have to choose.  And this is just movies, there are streaming apps for gaming, fitness, podcasts, and more. In this episode we have Chris to help us out with your app growth strategy to survive these streaming wars. Today’s Topics Include: Chris Puga's background What is Creative Clicks Why content curation is important for streaming apps How to make a first impression good while app onboarding How to make your app users stick to the app Examples of successful app growth strategies Takeways Android or iOS? Leaving his smartphone at home, what features would Chris miss most? What features she would like to see added to his smartphone? Links and Resources: Chris Puga on LinkedIn Creative Clicks website Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry Quotes from Chris Puga: "From the brand's perspective, it's simple, like content creation is important because a seamless user experience is no longer a luxury or a nice to have, it's a necessity." "I think deep linking  is a great way to make a good first impression. I think not inundating new users with a lengthy user flow. I think that's huge. That is an amazing way to make a good first impression." Brought to you by Business Of Apps App industry marketplace Insights App Growth videos App Data App Events

Wendy Tai, Ara Salbashian, Alexander Beresford, and Rodolphe Helderwerdt discuss effective team management, market trends, and suggestions for app growth in 2024. They explore topics such as multi-channel approach, localization, incrementality testing, media mix modeling, local preferences, and computational reducibility.

Mansi Sharma, VP, Growth Marketing at MyFitnessPal, shares lessons on growing and keeping the app in shape. Topics include proper research, ad creative and targeting, scaling mobile user acquisition, assessing budget spending, testing marketing campaign hypotheses, and effective competition.

Like with many things in business, when it comes to app marketing people either rely on data to make decisions or listen to their gut feeling. We are strongly suggesting to do the former, we encourage you to do your best to keep it rational and follow the data, be a scientist in your field. In this episode, Steve will make the case for you showing what A/B testing reveals about app engagement, paywalls, and more. This episode is special to celebrate the beginning of 2024 - you can either listen it here or actually watch it on our YouTube channel. Today’s Topics Include: Steve P. Young background What is App Masters What does A/B testing reveal about app engagement? Is introducing a paywall on onboarding a great idea? Do discounts for app subscriptions work? The significance of customization Hard and soft paywalls The right number of plans for app subscriptions What A/B testing tells us about an efficient Call-To-Action What Steve would like to change about app industry Takeaways Links and Resources: Steve P. Young on LinkedIn App Masters website Video version of the episode on YouTube Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry Quotes from Steve P. Young: "Now I had Yeva from Headway, the product manager. And she said when you have a longer onboarding, we've actually seen our clients from their data that longer onboardings actually lead to higher conversions. Yes, there will be more drop offs, but the people actually make it all the way through will actually subscribe. And the people who drop out, they were never probably going to subscribe it anyways. " "I mean, frankly, in life, just think like a scientist, like everything is an experiment. We have a hypothesis, which may come from our gut, but we're going to test it out, and then we're going to let data decide." Brought to you by Business Of Apps App industry marketplace Insights App Growth videos App Data App Events

Generative Pre-trained Transformer or better known to you as ChatGPT. This Generative AI, based on a large language model, was launched by OpenAI on November 30th last year. You might have heard about OpenAI’s very recent turmoil with its CEO, Sam Altman’s firing and re-hiring 5 days later. Of course such a twist with a company worth 80$ billion grabbed your attention. Speaking of money - how Generative AI can help you to boost your app’s monetization strategy? It’s a good question and we have Jenny to help us to figure it out. Today’s Topics Include: Jenny Kay Pollock background Jenny's take on the current state of Generative AI How app developers and brand can figure out if Generative AI is a good fit for their app How Generative AI can help with app monetization How to create effective prompts for Generative AI What Jenny would like to change about app marketing Takeaways Links and Resources: Jenny Kay Pollock on LinkedIn A free AI Prompt Engineering worksheet to help you save time and boost app revenue with AI support. Women and AI (WAAI) on LinkedIn www.womenandai.com - join a community focused on advancing the field of artificial intelligence by empowering and amplifying the voices of women in technology. Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry Quotes from Jenny Kay Pollock: "AI’s power to drive business growth is exciting! Organizations and individuals can partner with generative AI to create something better or faster!" "AI is not going to take your job. You’re just going to have to partner with it. Collaborate with the AI to supercharge your efforts." "The [AI] technology is moving fast and things like corporate governance and legislation can be slow to catch up. Your board should be talking about AI strategy and AI policies."   "AI is a new frontier and with that comes a new opportunity for more diversity." Brought to you by Business Of Apps App industry marketplace Insights App Growth videos App Data App Events

App user acquisition is so important across mobile platforms, countries and languages - we all understand the challenge and significance of connecting your app with users. We also are pretty familiar, way more than we would like to, with the notion of a mobile app churn. This infamous situation when people, users of your app you spent so much energy to find, abandon the app. In this episode, we will be talking about how to prevent app subscriber churn in particular. When people leave your paid app it’s a problem but not as big as when they pay you a subscription fee and they stop using your app. Today’s Topics Include: Vahe Baghdasaryan background What is CoinStats today What is App Subscriber churn Unintentional users churn and how to mitigate it Intentional users churn and how to mitigate it App Analytics tools Vahe suggests Switching the tables: the case when Vahe was an app user who was persuaded to stick to the app Android or iOS? Leaving his smartphone at home, what features would Vahe miss most? What features he would like to see added to his smartphone? Links and Resources: Vahe Baghdasaryan on LinkedIn CoinStats company Vahe's coaching page Vahe's course Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry Quotes from Vahe Baghdasaryan: "Subscriber churn is inevitable, but implementing the right interventions  can make it healthy." "Giving this your customers a grace period is always a good idea. Another very important thing here is incorporating life cycle marketing in terms of transactional communication with the users that you fail to charge. For example, if you fail to charge, send them an email notification that says your payment didn't go through. " "So the biggest takeaway from here is like if you're gonna ask them to update their billing information, there's something that is that has a lot of friction in it. And your strategy should be also how am I gonna like minimize the friction? " Brought to you by Business Of Apps App industry marketplace Insights App Growth videos App Data App Events

Ok, if you work in a brick-and-mortar mall you can see your customers in person daily and you even have a chance to know some of them better than others. If you own a mobile app, you stare at your laptop’s screen and you better have a good consumer intelligence platform in hand to have a clue about what people use your app, so you can serve them well. In this episode we have Paul to talk about his company’s “AppLife Report 2023 Vol. 2” report that talks about app users’ behavior. Today’s Topics Include: Paul Neto's background What is Measure Protocol today Bird-view on the AppLife Report 2023 Vol. 2 Generational differences in app preferences TikTok users' behavior Customers' journeys Priority engagement for mobile apps Top 5 trends What Paul would like to change about the ad tech today Android or iOS? Leaving his smartphone at home, what features would Paul miss most? What features he would like to see added to his smartphone? Links and Resources: Paul Neto on LinkedIn Measure Protocol company AppLife Report 2023 Vol. 2 Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry Quotes from Paul Neto: " And I think we're just in the early stages and maybe underappreciate some of the changes that are being driven by  TikTok. So, for example, the volume is immense. If you look at younger audiences, they're browsing about 5,400 videos a month. Older audience, it's around, 1,600 videos. That's a massive amount of content. Secondly, actual engagement with the app is, through the ceiling." "And so we look at what are some of the top apps that people use when they first pick up the phone. And we see often it's for communication for across for all the generations. So things like messaging, Snapchat or even Discord tend to be ranked relatively high, of the reason why you pick up this device. So it often ends up being communication or some kind of entertainment. And entertainment will be things like Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. All those tend to bubble to the top." Brought to you by Business Of Apps App industry marketplace Insights App Growth videos App Data App Events