Shows
Mobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 4, Episode 12: The mobile gaming fundraising market (with Annina Salvén)My guest on this week's episode of the podcast is Annina Salvén, the COO of BIT ODD, a Helsinki-based gaming studio that was recently profiled by the WSJ. Bit Odd raised $18MM in a seed extension this month, following on from the €5MM seed round it raised in 2022. My fund, Heracles Capital, is an investor in both rounds.
I asked Annina to join me on the podcast to discuss the current state of venture fundraising for mobile gaming. Specifically, we cover:
Why Anniina returned to mobile gaming, given the challenges;
How the 2016-era of mobile gam...
2024-11-2049 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 4, Episode 11: Understanding AppLovinIn this episode, I present a long-form analysis of AppLovin's business and its significant recent growth.
But understanding AppLovin the company is fundamentally predicated on understanding the market in which it operates, mobile games advertising, and the direct response digital advertising landscape more broadly. And so this podcast is structured in three parts:
Understanding direct response advertising
Understanding mobile gaming advertising
Understanding AppLovin’s growth
All of these topics can seem unapproachable and impenetrable from the outside. I hope this episode clarifies them.
Thanks to the sponsors of this week’s episode of the...
2024-11-1239 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 4, Episode 10: AI Overviews and consequences for the open web (with Paul Bannister)My guest on this week's episode of the podcast is Paul Bannister, the Chief Strategy Officer at Raptive. Paul is returning to the podcast for the third time; see the first two episodes here and here.
Our topic of discussion is Google's AI Overviews product, which I profiled in Google's Gambit. Among other things, we cover:
How web publishers perceive AI Overviews;
Whether AI Overviews have yet appreciably impacted publisher traffic;
How AI Overviews might fit into Google's broader strategy with respect to the Open Web and Cookie deprecation;
Google's claim that AI Overviews result in...
2024-11-0643 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 4, Episode 9: The current state of app marketing analytics (with Kate Minogue)My guest on this week's episode of the podcast is Kate Minogue, who previously served as Meta's Head of Marketing Science for EMEA and now serves as a fractional C-level executive for various companies. Kate published one of the first guest posts on Mobile Dev Memo in 2019: The LTV metric isn’t dead. Here’s why. The post was a rebuttal / response to my own contentiously titled post, It’s time to retire the LTV metric.
Among other topics, Kate and I discuss:
The core of a capable marketing analytics function for an app developer -- the "mi...
2024-10-3053 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 4, Episode 8: Click-to-cancel, web-to-app, and all things subscription apps (with Thomas Petit)In this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with Thomas Petit, a well known voice in the mobile ecosystem and a veteran of the podcast. In the episode, we discuss all things related to subscriptions for mobile apps, including:
The current state of web acquisition for subscription apps;
The timeline over which web acquisition gained traction for subscription apps;
The downsides of web acquisition for subscription apps;
How web acquisition differs from app acquisition;
How gaming apps and subscription apps pursue web acquisition differently;
The measurement benefits of web acquisition;
How and whether the FTC's...
2024-10-2251 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 4, Episode 7: The power of AI in game development (with Christoffer Holmgård)My guest on this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast is Christoffer Holmgård, the CEO and co-founder of modl.ai, which allows game developers to deploy AI-empowered bots into their games to discover bugs and personalize game experiences. Our conversation is focused on the use of AI in game development.
Among other things, we discuss:
How AI is being used to assist with game development now, and how that might change or expand in the near term;
Which of the less glamorous aspects of game development are the most natural places to apply A...
2024-10-1538 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 4, Episode 6: Consumer welfare and antitrust in tech (with Andrey Fradkin)My guest on this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast is Andrey Fradkin, an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Boston University's Questrom School of Business. The topic of our conversation is the role of antitrust in tech and the various design decisions impact consumer welfare. Among other things, our discussion covers:
The role of antitrust law with respect to digital marketplaces;
Whether digital marketplaces naturally trend toward anticompetitive behavior;
How and whether certain consumer tech design practices can benefit consumers and still be considered anti-competitive;
Amazon's treatment of its own products in search rankings (from Andrey's...
2024-10-0945 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 4, Episode 5: Understanding the retail media landscape (with Andrew Lipsman)ho covers the retail media space through his blog, Media, Ads + Commerce. We discuss the current state of retail media, including:
When the explosion in retail media began (when did Everything become an Ad Network?);
Whether retail media budgets generally represent "new money" or are being redirected from elsewhere;
The sustainability of growth in the retail media market;
The measurement challenges that arise from advertisers' use of multiple retail media networks;
Any forthcoming consolidation in the retail media segment;
Which downstream categories (like eg., measurement) benefit from growth in the retail media space.
Thanks to the sponsors...
2024-10-0246 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 4, Episode 4: Meta introduces incrementality optimization and other upgrades (with Fred Leach)My guest on this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo is Fred Leach, a Vice President of Product Development at Meta. Fred published a blog post last month announcing three significant changes to Meta's advertising platform: new value-based optimization objectives, support for incrementality optimization, and integrations with third-party analytics tools.
I invited Fred onto the podcast to unpack these changes in more detail. In our conversation, we discuss, among other things:
How the Meta ads platform has evolved over the past 2-3 years;
How Meta thinks about incrementality, and why it is important to advertisers;
...
2024-09-2439 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 4, Episode 3: What is advertising incrementality? (with Garrett Johnson)My guest on this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast is Garrett Johnson, an Associate Professor of Marketing at Boston University's Questrom School of Business.
I was delighted to bring Garrett back to the podcast -- we recorded an episode about advertising auctions back in February 2022 -- because his seminal paper on the concept of Ghost Ads deeply informed my understanding of incrementality measurement in advertising, which is the topic of discussion in the episode. In our conversation, we cover:
What advertising incrementality is;
How a marketing team can measure incremental contribution from advertising;
...
2024-09-1740 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 4, Episode 2: Unpacking the DoJ's ad tech suit against Google (with Ari Paparo)In this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with notable ad tech authority and former podcast guest Ari Paparo about the specifics of the Department of Justice's lawsuit against Google in its ad tech lawsuit, which recently went to trial. Ari is the CEO of Marketecture, which recently launched a new sub-site dedicated to Google's antitrust lawsuits called The Monopoly Report.
I used this opportunity to speak to Ari to have him explain the various allegations made in the lawsuit (which I originally covered here). Among other things, Ari explains the specifics of:
2024-09-1149 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 4, Episode 1: Mastering experimentation in consumer products (with Bill Grosso)In this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with Bill Grosso, the CEO of Game Data Pros, a consultancy that specializes in experimentation for digital entertainment. Over the course of our conversation, among other things, we discuss:
Experimentation as a concept in consumer products;
Whether experimentation should exist as a standalone team or be integrated into the workflow of a product team;
The tools needed for experimentation;
How to ensure that experiments don’t conflict with or negate each other;
Pricing experimentation;
The most severe mistakes teams make with experimentation.
Thanks to the sponsors of...
2024-09-041h 07Mobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 3, Episode 27: AI's impact on social media abuse (with Rob Leathern)In this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with Rob Leathern, a trust and safety and business integrity executive, on the potential use of AI by bad actors to perpetrate scams and other forms of abuse on social media. Among other things, we discuss:
The role of a business integrity function at a large technology company;
How proactive these teams can be to new and emergent threats;
The ways in which privacy vulnerabilities are exploited for monetary gain by malicious actors;
How AI changes the threat landscape for things like business integrity, trust and safety...
2024-08-2851 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 3, Episode 26: Exploring the future of mobile ad measurement (with Barak Witkowski)My guest in this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast is Barak Witkowski, the Chief Product Officer of Appsflyer, a mobile advertising attribution and measurement platform.
In our conversation, among other things, Barak and I discuss:
The prevailing themes in mobile attribution;
How advertisers have adapted to the rapidly evolving privacy landscape, and what separates the most effective advertiser initiatives from those that haven't worked as well;
How the media landscape utilized by mobile app advertisers changed over the past few years;
How mobile app advertisers should view the web as a potential source of...
2024-08-2048 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 3, Episode 25: How to launch an app (with Offer Yehudai)My guest on this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast is Offer Yehudai, the CEO of Arya, a product that helps couples re-ignite intimacy in their relationships. Prior to Arya, Offer was the President of Fyber, which was acquired by Digital Turbine in 2021.
In this episode, Offer and I discuss the process and methodology of launching a consumer product. Among other things, we explore:
Offer's philosophy for launching and growing consumer products;
How to balance the desire to grow as quickly as possible and seize a market opportunity with the necessity of building a strong...
2024-08-1348 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 3, Episode 24: Understanding the Roblox creator ecosystem (with Joe Ferencz)My guest in this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast is Joe Ferencz, the CEO and founder of Gamefam, a metaverse game developer that operates the largest portfolio of titles on Roblox. Among other things, Joe and I discuss:
The degree to which the Roblox creator ecosystem has been professionalized;
The enterprise tools that Roblox makes available to creators;
Roblox's developer economics and revenue share terms, how they compare to those offered on other platforms, and whether they are likely to change in the near-term future;
Roblox's new consumer-facing advertising platform and how it has changed...
2024-08-0648 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 3, Episode 23: Netflix games and the necessity of gaming for legacy media (with Joost van Dreunen)My guest on this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast is Joost van Dreuen, the CEO of Aldora, a data insights platform. Joost is also an adjunct professor at NYU's Stern School of Business, the author of the SuperJoost Playlist newsletter, and a well-known analyst of the mobile gaming ecosystem.
Joost and I discuss Netflix's gaming efforts to date, as well as the expansion of many legacy media companies into gaming. Among other topics, we cover:
Netflix's strategy with its gaming endeavor;
Netflix's hiring of Alain Tascan from Epic to run its gaming division;
T...
2024-07-301h 05Mobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 3, Episode 22: The Streaming Advertising Showdown (with Adam Epstein) this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with Adam Epstein, the CEO and founder of Gigi, a CTV advertising buying platform specializing in Prime Video. We discuss the current CTV advertising landscape, including:
What is motivating the dramatic growth of CTV advertising spend?;
The distinct pricing strategies implemented by Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon for their ad-supported tiers;
The different targeting and measurement solutions offered by the major streaming services;
Why CTV measurement is challenging when inventory is purchased through third-party DSPs;
The availability of targeting data across various streaming services and programmatic channels.
Thanks...
2024-07-2349 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 3, Episode 21: Where’s the fraud line in programmatic advertising? (with Chris Kane)In this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with Chris Kane, the President of Jounce Media, a research agency that covers the programmatic advertising ecosystem. Chris and I discuss the state of the programmatic advertising market. Among other things, we cover:
The current state of the open programmatic web;
What caused the rapid decline of made-for-advertising (MFA) supply;
How the largest premium web publishers will adapt to cookie deprecation in Chrome;
Whether cookies will ultimately be deprecated in Chrome;
Why cookie deprecation in Safari provides little clarifying guidance on the impact of cookie deprecation in C...
2024-07-1654 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 3, Episode 20: The DMA, Personalized Advertising, and Digital DeglobalizationThis episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast is a spoken essay and not an interview. In the episode, I discuss the European Commission's preliminary finding that Meta's use of the "Pay or Okay" model violates the Digital Markets Act, and I relate that decision to the broader trend of digital deglobalization.
2024-07-0918 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 3, Episode 19: Understanding AdAttributionKit (with David Philippson)My guest on this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast is David Philippson, the founder and CEO of Dataseat, a privacy-first mobile DSP. As David notes in our conversation, this is the fourth episode of the MDM podcast on which David has appeared, which likely makes him the most recurring guest. David is a wealth of insight into the mobile advertising ecosystem, having founded one of the first MMPs, Ad-X, which was acquired by Criteo in 2013.
In this episode, David and I discuss AdAttributionKit, the advertising attribution framework that Apple introduced at WWDC this year and...
2024-07-0248 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Canon: What is performance marketing?MDM Canon is a new podcast series from Mobile Dev Memo in which co-hosts Eric Seufert and Stewart Johnson select an article from the Mobile Dev Memo archive and discuss it at length.
This episode focuses on an article titled What is performance marketing?, first published in October 2018. The episode attempts to clarify what I see as a broad misunderstanding of the general marketing taxonomy with a functional definition of performance marketing.
Thanks to the sponsors of this week’s episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:
Clarisights. Go to clarisights.com/demo to try it out for free. You’ll s...
2024-06-2532 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 3, Episode 18: The future of alternative app stores and payments (with Archie Stonehill)My guest on this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast is Archie Stonehill, the Head of Product at Stash, a D2C and web shop enablement tool for mobile game developers. Prior to Stash, Archie was an investor at Makers Fund, a venture capital fund investing in the gaming ecosystem.
In this episode, among other topics, Archie and I discuss:
The history of alternative mobile app stores, starting most prominently with Epic's Project Liberty and progressing through those lawsuits, as well as Google's settlement with states' attorneys general;
The current state of affairs with respect t...
2024-06-1846 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 3, Episode 17: The Scientific Approach to Prompt Engineering (with Mike Taylor)In this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with Mike Taylor, the co-author of a new book, Prompt Engineering for Generative AI: Future-Proof Inputs for Reliable AI Outputs, published by O'Reilly. Taylor was previously the founder of a 50-person growth marketing agency, Ladder.
In our conversation, among other things, Mike and I discuss:
How Prompt Engineering is a skill that can be improved upon over time;
The non-obvious ways in which prompt engineering can be approached in order to improve outcomes;
How Prompt Engineering can be approached procedurally and programmatically, and how companies...
2024-06-1143 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 3, Episode 16: Understanding the UK’s DMCC (with Tom Smith)My guest on this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast is Tom Smith, a partner at specialist competition law firm Geradin Partners. I invited Tom to the podcast to discuss the recently passed Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers (DMCC) Bill in the UK, which grants the UK's Competition and Markets Authority with broad new powers to regulate digital markets.
Among other things, Tom and I discuss:
What the DMCC aims to achieve;
The political context around the DMCC;
How the DMCC differs from the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA);
What new powers and obligations t...
2024-06-0537 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 3, Episode 15: Bringing eCommerce to live comedy (with Danny Frenkel)My guest on this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast is Danny Frenkel, the CEO of PunchUp, an eCommerce platform for stand-up comedians. Prior to founding PunchUp, Danny was an early employee at Facebook.
Danny and I discuss the process of building an audience in the era of social media subscriptions, and what the end of the internet's grand bargain means for live performers. Among other topics, our conversation covers:
The economics of live entertainment;
How developing a direct connection with customers became an imperative in the post-ATT marketing landscape;
What building a relationship with...
2024-05-2851 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 3, Episode 14: Where is the growth in digital advertising? (with Ari Paparo)My guest on this week’s episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast is Ari Paparo, a prominent entrepreneur and thought leader within the digital advertising ecosystem. The impetus of our conversation is a newsletter that he published several weeks ago for Marketecture in which he asked, Did it have to be this way?. From that piece:
"After reading this, you’re forgiven for thinking that the web is dead. Not dead yet, but certainly in decline. Media companies have pivoted to CTV. The NY Times makes more money from games than news. The advertisers are finding more of...
2024-05-2252 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 3, Episode 13: Taming the mayhem and pandemonium of X (with Trung Phan)My guest on this week’s podcast is Trung Phan, a popular X (Twitter) personality and a host of the Not Investment Advice podcast. Trung popularized the “short-form deep dive” content format on X following its introduction of long-form posts and has developed a for posting infotainment style content that often goes viral.
In our conversation, Trung and I discuss:
How Trung’s background as a comedy screenwriter contributed to perfecting his voice on social media;
How the social media landscape has arguably been redefined since COVID;
The substantive changes that have occurred on X since Elon Musk a...
2024-05-1454 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 3, Episode 13: Taming the mayhem and pandemonium of X (with Trung Phan)My guest on this week’s podcast is Trung Phan, a popular X (Twitter) personality and a host of the Not Investment Advice podcast. Trung popularized the “short-form deep dive” content format on X following its introduction of long-form posts and has developed a for posting infotainment style content that often goes viral.
In our conversation, Trung and I discuss:
How Trung’s background as a comedy screenwriter contributed to perfecting his voice on social media;
How the social media landscape has arguably been redefined since COVID;
The substantive changes that have occurred on X since Elon Musk a...
2024-05-1454 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 3, Episode 12: All about the Digital Markets Act (with Lazar Radic)My guest on this episode of the podcast is Lazar Radic, a Senior Scholar for Competition Policy at the International Center for Law & Economics and Adjunct Professor of Law at IE University. Our conversation focuses on the EU's Digital Markets Act and the broader competition regulation landscape. Among other things, we discuss:
A brief survey of the most meaningful recent new competition laws and investigations;
The DMA workshop process;
The EC's announced investigations into three gatekeepers following the conclusion of their workshops;
The designation of iPadOS as a gatekeeper;
How the DMA might shape the digital economy in t...
2024-05-0752 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 3, Episode 11: Podcast: What is the American Privacy Rights Act? (with Alan Chapell)In this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with Alan Chapell, an attorney who specializes in digital privacy through his law firm and consultancy, Chapell & Associates, about the recently proposed American Data Privacy and Protection Act (APRA).
Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Washington, and Senator Maria Cantwell, D-Washington, unveiled the APRA last month -- the draft legislation presents consumers with broad digital privacy protections and features many similarities and several noteworthy distinctions from the ADPPA, a previous data privacy bill that was effectively killed by the last Congress.
In our conversation, Alan and I cover, a...
2024-04-3045 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 3, Episode 10: Is Pay or Okay dead in Europe? (with Mikołaj Barczentewicz)My guest on this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast is Mikołaj Barczentewicz, a law professor at, and the research director of, the Law and Technology Hub at the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom.
In this episode of the podcast, Mikolaj and I discuss the EDPB's recently published opinion on the use of the Pay or Okay model by "large online platforms." Mikolaj most recently joined the podcast in December of last year to speak with me about Meta's introduction of the Pay or Okay model. In this episode, we cover the EDPB's opin...
2024-04-2450 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Canon: The perilous mythology of Brand Marketing for digital productsMDM Canon is a new podcast series from Mobile Dev Memo in which co-hosts Eric Seufert and Stewart Johnson select an article from the Mobile Dev Memo archive and discuss it at length.
This episode focuses on an article titled The perilous mythology of Brand Marketing for digital products, first published in November 2021. The episode proposes a taxonomy of performance marketing tactics, distinguishing between Direct Response, Delayed Response, and Brand marketing. It also outlines a framework for how all three can fit together into a unified strategy.
Thanks to the sponsor of this week’s epis...
2024-04-1628 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 3, Episode 9: Cookie deprecation and Privacy Sandbox (with Paul Bannister)In this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I discuss third-party cookie deprecation in Chrome, as well as Google's Privacy Sandbox suite of tools with Paul Bannister, the Chief Strategy Officer at Raptive.
Over the course of our conversation, we cover:
The current state of third-party cookie deprecation in Chrome;
Whether publishers are generally prepared for the full rollout of third-party cookie deprecation;
Whether any components of the Privacy Sandbox are underrated, or will ultimately perform better than expected;
Whether the Privacy Sandbox achieves an optimal balance across privacy preservation and advertising...
2024-04-1049 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 3, Episode 8: What's the purpose of a competition regulator? (with Tom Fish)My guest on this week's episode of the podcast is Tom Fish, the Head of Public Policy and Research at Gener8, a data empowerment platform for consumers. Tom is also the Director of Policy at the Coalition for Online Data Empowerment, an advocacy group.
But prior to these roles, Tom was an Assistant Director at the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which has taken an active role in competition regulation related to technology firms, which is the subject of our conversation. In our discussion, Tom spoke in a personal capacity that doesn't necessarily reflect the views...
2024-04-0240 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 3, Episode 7: The evolving eCommerce advertising landscape (with Rishabh Jain)In this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with Rishabh Jain, the CEO and co-founder of FERMÀT, an eCommerce platform designed to maximize advertising conversions for brands that recently raised a $17MM Series A led by Bain Capital.
In our conversation, Rishabh and I discuss, among other topics:
The implications for retail and eCommerce from the impending deprecation of third-party cookies in Chrome;
Whether retailers and eCommerce brands are taking third-party cookie deprecation sufficiently seriously;
Underappreciated knock-on / indirect consequences from the deprecation of third-party cookies in Chrome;
The prospects for alternative identifiers;
Who sta...
2024-03-2651 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 3, Episode 6: Consumer products and the science of emotion (with Ryan Anthony)In this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with Ryan Anthony, the CEO of DIRT, an emotion analytics platform. Over the course of our conversation, we discuss:
The science of emotion and the field of emotion analytics;
The challenges of using focus group feedback to optimize early consumer products;
The methodologies used to measure a user's emotional state;
How emotion analytics can be used in a product use case;
How the value of emotion analytics has changed as the digital privacy environment has grown more restrictive;
How PMs can use emotion to make product adaptations...
2024-03-2039 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 3, Episode 5: Measuring Out-of-Home Advertising (with Ty Tinker)I speak with Ty Tinker, the Head of Analytics at AdQuick, on the topic of Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising measurement. Among other things, we discuss:
The definition of Out-of-Home advertising
On what timeline advertisers tend to adopt Out-of-Home advertising
How Out-of-Home fits into a marketing strategy
Which product categories see the most success with Out-of-Home
Who in an organization tends to control Out-of-Home budget
The media buying process for Out-of-Home
Thanks to the sponsor of this week’s episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:
Clarisights. Go to clarisights.com/demo to try it out for free. You’ll see why thous...
2024-03-1345 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 3, Episode 4: Econometric advertising measurement (with Grace Kite)In this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with Dr. Grace Kite, the Founder and CEO of two companies: magic numbers, a consulting and advisory firm that helps companies apply econometric models to their marketing measurement, and magic works, a company that specializes in training related to the application of econometrics to marketing measurement.
In our conversation, we cover:
The use case of econometrics as a discipline in marketing;
The ways that econometrics is utilized by marketing teams to make decisions;
How marketers can navigate the “unknown unknown” problem of shifting from deterministic measurement to prob...
2024-03-0648 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Canon: Why Analytics Teams FailIn this new podcast series from Mobile Dev Memo, called the MDM Canon, co-hosts Eric Seufert and Stewart Johnson select an article from the Mobile Dev Memo archive and discuss it at length.
This episode focuses on an article titled Why Analytics Teams Fail, first published in June 2016. Specifically, the episode highlights three common issues encountered by analytics teams that can cause them to be ineffective:
1) lack of agency and authority;
2) lack of investment into infrastructure;
3) improper placement in the organization.
2024-02-2841 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 3, Episode 3: How to run an analytics team (with Russell Ovans)My guest in this week's episode of the podcast is Russell Ovans, who recently published a book, Game Analytics: Retention and Monetization in Free-to-Play Mobile Games. Russell has a PhD in Artificial Intelligence and began his career in academia before transitioning to industry and starting one of the first Western social free-to-play gaming studios.
The topic of my conversation with Russell is the structure and management of successful analytics teams at consumer technology companies. Among other things, we discuss:
What purpose an analytics team should serve, and what value it should add;
The optimal way to s...
2024-02-2152 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 3, Episode 2: The privacy benefits of on-device processing (with Dieter Rappold and Felix Krause)My guests on this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast are Dieter Rappold and Felix Krause, the founders of ContextSDK, a tool that allows app developers to optimize and personalize their products using on-device contextual signals.
Dieter is a serial entrepreneur and investor, and he leads business operations at ContextSDK, and Felix is a well-known security researcher who previously founded Fastlane, which was acquired by Twitter and rolled into the Fabric app development platform, which was then acquired from Twitter by Google.
The topic of my discussion with Dieter and Felix is on-device processing...
2024-02-1443 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 3, Episode 1: Unpacking Apple's App Store payments changes (with David Barnard)My guest on this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast is David Barnard, who is the Growth Advocate at RevenueCat, the app subscription management platform. The subjects of our conversation are the new guidelines that Apple published, in quick succession, for alternative off-platform payments in the United States and alternative in-app and off-platform payments, as well as alternative app stores, in the EU. Fair warning, we get very granular on these guidelines.
I asked David to join the podcast because he is a high-profile independent app developer who has consistently championed the position of independent developers w...
2024-02-071h 20Mobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 2, Episode 12: Gaming’s Generative AI opportunity (with Emmanuel de Maistre)My guest on today's episode is Emmanuel de Maistre, the founder and CEO of Scenario, a generative AI platform for creating game art assets. Before founding Scenario, Emmanuel founded Redbird, a drone analytics company.
Emmanuel and I discuss the opportunity for generative AI to lead to radical personalization -- the ability of products to tailor content experiences to the tastes and behaviors of individual users. In our conversation, we cover:
The ultimate goal of personalization in consumer products;
What about gaming makes it a good candidate for radical personalization;
How gaming teams are using Generative AI f...
2024-01-3141 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 2, Episode 11: Optimizing ad spend against LTV (with Eran Friendinger)My guest on this week's episode is Eran Friendinger, the CTO and Co-Founder of Voyantis, an advertising optimization platform that calculates user-level predicted LTV in real time for targeting and conversion improvements.
The topic of our discussion is conversion optimization and customer lifetime value. Among other topics, we talk about:
The primary pitfalls that marketing teams encounter when building LTV models?;
How to avoid (or accommodate) the curse of dimensionality when estimating LTV;
How VO bidding has changed since ATT and the nuances of the different platforms that marketers should consider when using VO bidding;
Synthetic...
2024-01-241h 02Mobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 2, Episode 10: The future of device fingerprinting (with David Philippson)My guest on this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast is David Philippson. David is the CEO of Dataseat, a mobile DSP that uses contextual signals for targeting and which was acquired by the Verve Group in 2022. Before Dataseat, David was the founder of AdX, the first mobile attribution platform.
I originally invited David to the podcast to discuss the significance of the soon-to-be-released iOS privacy features that were announced by Apple at WWDC this year. But our conversation ultimately ended up being focused on the list of SDKs that Apple had recently released before we...
2024-01-161h 03Mobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 2, Episode 9: Podcast: Looking forward to 2024 in mobile gaming (with Matthew Kanterman)My guest on this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast is Matthew Kanterman, a respected gaming analyst who spent 8 years at Bloomberg covering companies in the interactive entertainment space, and who also spent time at Roundhill Investments covering the Metaverse.
I invited Matthew onto the podcast to consider the prospects for mobile gaming in 2024. In the episode, among other things, Matt and I discuss:
Alternative in-app and off-platform mobile gaming payments;
Further consolidation in mobile gaming;
Microsoft's mobile gaming ambitions;
and Netflix's strategy concerning mobile games.
2024-01-0952 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 2, Episode 8: The FTC, Google, and the state of digital privacy (with Alan Chapell)In this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with Alan Chapell, an attorney who specializes in digital privacy through his law firm and consultancy, Chapell & Associates. In the episode, Alan and I discuss, among other things:
- The current state of a potential national privacy law in the United States;
- What role, if any, the FTC can have in regulating digital privacy;
- Google's Privacy Sandbox initiative and its impact on the digital advertising ecosystem.
2024-01-0341 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 2, Episode 7: Exploring the Pay-or-Okay model (with Mikołaj Barczentewicz)My guest on this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast is Mikołaj Barczentewicz, a law professor at, and the research director of, the Law and Technology Hub at the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom.
Mikolaj is an expert on European data privacy law and this is his fourth time appearing on the podcast: in previous episodes, we discussed the European digital privacy environment broadly, the future of EU-US data transfers, and the specifics of the EU's Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act.
In this episode of the podcast, Mikolaj unpacks th...
2023-12-1958 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 2, Episode 6: Understanding Interoperable Private Attribution (with Ben Savage)My guest on this episode of the podcast is Ben Savage, who works at the intersection of advertising and privacy at Meta. Ben is Meta's representative to the W3C in forums like the Private Advertising Technology Community Group and the Privacy Community Group.
At Meta, Ben has been heavily involved with a framework called Interoperable Private Attribution, or IPA, which is a distributed attribution and aggregation protocol that exists as a joint proposal between Meta and Mozilla. IPA has gained a great deal of attention as a potential solution for privacy-safe advertising attribution, and it is t...
2023-12-1340 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 2, Episode 5: How to measure a marketing campaign (with Olivia Kory)My guest on this episode is Olivia Kory, the Head of Go-To-Market at Haus, a marketing decision science platform. Before Haus, Olivia held senior marketing roles at Netflix, Quibi, and Sonos.
Olivia and I discuss a wide range of topics within the subject of advertising measurement in this episode, including:
The role of causal inference in marketing measurement;
The common skillset gaps that Olivia witnesses when observing companies making the transition to probabilistic measurement;
The unforeseen challenges in transitioning to probabilistic measurement for marketing teams;
The amount of coaching required for the non-marketing teams within the o...
2023-12-0643 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 2, Episode 4: How to build a brand (with Joy Howard)My guest on Episode 4 of Season 2 of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast is Joy Howard. Joy is the CEO of Early Majority and is a remarkably accomplished marketer, having held CMO and other executive-level marketing positions at some of the world's most recognized brands, including Sonos, Patagonia, and the Coca-Cola Company, among others. I invited Joy onto the podcast to discuss all things Brand Marketing, including:
What constitutes a brand;
How a company builds a brand;
The difference between brand development and brand advertising;
How a company measures the value of its brand;
Also: some of my tweets.
2023-12-0555 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 2, Episode 3: Exploring the CTV advertising opportunity (with Peter Hamilton)In this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with Peter Hamilton, the Senior Director of Ad Innovation at Roku, about the digital advertising opportunity on CTV. Among other topics, Peter and I discuss:
The high-level promise of CTV for advertisers
Creative strategy for CTV
The availability and efficacy of targeting on CTV
The verticals that tend to experience the most success with CTV
And the most common ways in which CTV inventory is purchased.
The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Google Podcasts
About Peter:
2023-11-2844 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 2, Episode 1: The Creative Realignment (with Alex Collmer)In this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with Alex Collmer, the CEO of VidMob, about the power of creative in the modern advertising landscape.
In Episode 1, Season 2 of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, among other things, Alex and I discuss:
How the role of creative optimization has changed over time as the privacy environment has grown more restrictive;
How creative experimentation and creative concept construction align with audience development;
How a productive relationship between the creative team and the media buying team can be structured;
And the skillsets that Alex see most co...
2023-11-2048 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastSeason 2, Episode 2: The journey to probabilistic attribution (with Michael Kaminsky)In Episode 2 of Season 2 of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with Michael Kaminsky, the co-founder and CEO of Recast, on the topic of media mix modeling and probabilistic marketing measurement more broadly. Among other things, our conversation touches upon:
How a marketing team can get started with adopting probabilistic measurement;
The unforeseen difficulties that teams face when adopting probabilistic measurement methodologies;
How much longer pseudo-deterministic solutions can be relied upon;
How the measurement methodology utilized by a marketing team changes its media buying behavior.
About Michael:
Michael Kaminsky is a co-founder and co-CEO...
2023-11-1448 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 38 - The Future of Digital Advertising Measurement (with Maor Sadra and Julian Runge)This episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast focuses on The Future of Digital Advertising Measurement. I am joined by two very esteemed guests, Maor Sadra and Dr. Julian Runge:
Maor Sadra is the CEO of INCRMNTAL, an incrementality testing platform. Prior to INCRMNTAL, Maor was the CEO of Applift and held executive positions at a number of digital advertising and interactive media firms before that. As a disclaimer: I am an investor in INCRMNTAL;
Dr. Julian Runge is an Assistant Professor at Northeastern University and before that was a Visiting Scholar at Duke University. Julian's research focuses...
2023-08-081h 14Mobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 37 - The future of EU-US data transfers (with Mikołaj Barczentewicz)In this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with returning guest Mikołaj Barczentewicz, an expert on European data privacy law, about the recent $1.3BN fine that the Irish DPC issued to Meta over its transmission of EU residents' data to the United States. We discuss the history of data transfer frameworks between the EU and the US and why they've all been invalidated, the core motivations of EU protectionism related to data transfer, and the implications for all technology companies of the Irish DPC's decision.
2023-06-141h 13Mobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 36 - A practical approach to probabilistic marketing measurement (with Shamanth Rao)In this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with Shamanth Rao, the CEO of Rocketship HQ, a mobile performance marketing agency. We discuss Shamanth's practical approach to integrating probabilistic marketing measurement, and especially media mix modeling, into his clients' reporting workflows:
How to sell probabilistic measurement to key stakeholders;
How to use probabilistic measurement to guide marketing investment decisions;
How to adapt the media buying approach to be best captured with probabilistic measurement methods.
Our discussion touches on many of the topics I have covered recently in essays like The Emerging Marketing Economist and...
2023-05-1247 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 35 - The post-ATT eCommerce landscape (with Rishabh Jain)In this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with Rishabh Jain, the CEO and co-founder of FERMÀT, an eCommerce platform designed to maximize advertising conversions for brands. Prior to FERMÀT, Rishabh spent nearly six years at Liveramp, most recently as its Vice President of Innovation.
In our conversation, Rishabh and I discuss, among other topics:
Rishabh's journey from a PhD in solid state physics to ad tech;
The necessity of financial literacy for eCommerce media buying;
How the media buyer role has changed following ATT, and the optimal marketing channel mix;
Wh...
2023-04-181h 10Mobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 34 - A deep dive on the Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act (with Mikołaj Barczentewicz)My guest on this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast is Mikołaj Barczentewicz, an expert on European data privacy law. Mikołaj is a law professor at, and the research director of, the Law and Technology Hub at the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom, and he joined me just a few weeks ago in A deep dive on European data privacy law to discuss recent developments in Europe related to data privacy and GDPR enforcement.
In this episode, Mikołaj outlines the legal impact of both of these pieces of legis...
2023-04-111h 03Mobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 33 - The history of mobile product management, and the dating app dilemma (with Brad Richards)My guest in this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast is Brad Richards, the Managing Director & Chief Product Officer at LOVOO, the most popular dating app in the German-speaking world.
Brad and I discuss the Product Management role for mobile-first companies:
What a product manager does;
The path to becoming a product manager;
The role of A/B testing in product management, and how it can do more harm than good.
We also discuss the Dating App Dilemma: how the success of the product's core use case actually creates churn for the product.
2023-04-041h 05Mobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 32 - A deep dive on European digital privacy law (with Mikołaj Barczentewicz)My guest in this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast is Mikołaj Barczentewicz, an expert on EU digital privacy law. Mikołaj is a law professor at, and the research director of, the Law and Technology Hub at the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom, and he has research affiliations with the Stanford Law School and the University of Oxford, from which he received his Ph.D.
I learned of Mikołaj after reading a piece he co-wrote titled GDPR Decision Against Meta Highlights that Privacy Regulators Don’t Understand ‘Necessity’. I invited Mikołaj onto th...
2023-03-011h 14Mobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 31 - The promise of Generative AI in 2023 (with Thomas Petit and Ketty Slonimsky)In this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I discuss the promise of Generative AI for marketing and product development with Thomas Petit and Ketty Slonimsky. Thomas is a well-known consultant and the author of the MADV newsletter, and Ketty Slonimsky is the Chief Growth Officer of Palta, the publisher of the popular Lensa app. The subject of the episode was intended to be predictions across the mobile space for 2023, but we ended up hovering over the topic of Generative AI for most of the conversation. In the episode, we unpack the potential for Generative AI across a...
2023-01-2447 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 30 - A brief history of digital privacy legislation (with Jessica Lee)In this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with Jessica Lee on the topic of digital privacy legislation. Jessica is a Partner and serves as the Chair of the Privacy, Security, and Data Innovations practice at Loeb & Loeb, a New York-based law firm. Jessica’s practice focuses on emerging media, technology, advertising and promotions, privacy, and intellectual property, and she has represented clients in a variety of fields, including Internet, film, music, sports, telecommunications, and consumer products.
Over the course of the podcast, Jessica and I discuss the history of digital privacy, the prospect of...
2022-12-1451 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 29 - The state of eCommerce advertising and the impending eCommerce credit reckoning (with Taylor Holiday)In this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with Taylor Holiday, the CEO and founder of the Common Thread Collective, an eCommerce growth agency. Taylor and I discuss the general state of eCommerce advertising, what happened within the eCommerce category in Q3 and what he sees happening now in Q4.
We also speak about the coming reckoning in the eCommerce advertising debt market (with background on what this is!), misconceptions about how Apple's App Tracking Transparency (ATT) privacy policy impacts eCommerce advertising, and the nature of setting direct response advertising budgets.
Common...
2022-11-2347 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 28 - SKAdNetwork 4.0 is live. What does that mean for mobile advertising? (with Alex Bauer)My guest for this episode is Alex Bauer, the Head of Product and Market Strategy at Branch. On Monday, October 24th, alongside the release of iOS version 16.1, Apple released its long-awaited major update to SKAdNetwork, its privacy-safe app advertising attribution framework for iOS, with SKAdNetwork 4.0. The industry was first made aware of SKAdNetwork 4.0 at WWDC this summer and we only saw public documentation for this fundamental and substantial upgrade to the framework with the release of iOS 16.1.
In this episode, Alex and I cover four major topics related to SKAdNetwork 4.0:
First, the new timer system th...
2022-10-2646 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 27 - What is an SSP? (with Liat Barer)My guest on this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast is Liat Barer, the VP of Product at Odeeo, an audio SSP. Liat has deep expertise in mobile ad tech, having worked at Yahoo and StartApp prior to Odeeo. I invited Liat on the podcast to discuss a topic that has taken on increased importance within mobile ad tech since the introduction of Apple's App Tracking Transparency (ATT) policy, which is yield management, and how SSPs assist app publishers with maximizing the revenue they derive from in-app advertising.
Liat provides an expert overview of the way...
2022-07-2535 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 26 - The Economics of Infinity: a conversation with Matthew BallI had the great pleasure last week of speaking with Matthew Ball, a prolific writer, investor, and respected thinker in the interactive media space. The backdrop of our discussion is Matthew's upcoming book, The Metaverse: And How it Will Revolutionize Everything, which is currently available for pre-order and will be available for sale on July 19th.
In this podcast, I speak with Matthew about the economics of the Metaverse: what are the parameters of commerce when resources are infinite and the only constraints to production and economic output are human ingenuity? In our conversation, we also discuss...
2022-07-1844 min
Mobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 25 - Live from Las Vegas: What is the future of alternative payments on mobile?This episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast was recorded live from the Mobile Apps Unlocked conference in Las Vegas on June 8th, 2022.
In this episode of the podcast, I discuss the future of alternative payments on mobile with Allison Schiff, the Managing Editor of AdExchanger; David Barnard, Developer Advocate at RevenueCat; and Josh Burns, the Senior Director of Business Development at FunPlus. We consider how the platform operators will adapt to regulatory and legal intervention into their payments policies, whether alternative payments systems can ever gain traction over the native systems, and how developers can best f...
2022-06-2644 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 24 - Advertising strategy in a recession (with Maor Sadra)In this episode of the MDM podcast, I speak with Maor Sadra, the CEO of INCRMNTAL and a returning guest to the show, about how advertisers should respond to the slowdown in growth across mobile that is being experienced as a result of the combined effects of:
Apple's ATT privacy policy, which has deteriorated the efficiency of mobile advertising;
a COVID overhang, which is producing altered consumer behaviors relative to what advertisers had grown accustomed over the past two years;
a potential economic slowdown.
2022-06-2043 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 23 - Privacy Updates from WWDC 2022: SKAdNetwork expansion and Fingerprinting (with Alex Bauer)My guest for this episode of the MDM Podcast is Alex Bauer, the Head of Product and Market Strategy at Branch, the mobile measurement and linking company. We speak about the revelations from Apple's WWDC conference last week that are most important for mobile advertisers: 1) the expansion of Apple's SKAdNetwork measurement framework, 2) Apple's prohibition of aggregated measurement solutions, and 3) Apple's very clear and strident proclamation that Fingerprinting is Never Allowed.
This interview assumes quite a bit of knowledge on the part of the listener. For background, see these articles:
Dear Apple: These changes will improve...
2022-06-1357 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 22 - Is panel data the future of marketing audience discovery? (with Rameez Tase)In this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with Rameez Tase about the applicability of panel data in the new advertising environment in which device-level and user-level identifiers are not available for use in creating behavioral profiles. Rameez and I speak about the use case for panel data in developing marketing audiences for both product testing and development (for whom is this product being built?) and advertising targeting (to whom should we show this product's ads?). Without the direct feedback loop of behavioral targeting and conversions measurement, both product managers and marketers must rely on much...
2022-05-0953 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 21 - Are ads in console games inevitable? (with Adam Lieb)In this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, Adam Lieb and I discuss the prospects for advertising in console games, following news that both Microsoft and Sony will pursue advertising programs for their game consoles. In our conversation, we consider what ads might look like in console games, what types of developers and games are capable of integrating ads in a way that is gratifying for players, and how advertising might transform the commercial landscape of console gaming. Adam Lieb is the CEO of Gamesight, a Seattle-based marketing platform for PC, console, and web3 games.
2022-05-0242 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 20 - How will Google's deprecation of the GAID impact mobile advertising?In this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with Yevgeny Peres, the VP of Growth at ironSource, about Google's announcement that it will deprecate the GAID as well as its introduction of the Privacy Sandbox for Android. I unpacked Google's announcement of its Privacy Sandbox and the deprecation of the GAID in a post that was published shortly after the announcement.
But my thinking was mostly out of alignment with the commentary delivered by other outlets. Popular sentiment following the announcement characterized the deprecation of the GAID as the Android equivalent of Apple's App T...
2022-04-1238 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 19 - The economics of advertising auctions with Garrett JohnsonIn 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...
2022-02-2852 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 18 - The promise and challenge of Web3 gamingIn 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...
2022-01-1248 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 17 - Advertising fingerprinting and bad incentivesIn 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.
2021-11-2251 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastATT, one month in: the iOS 14.6 adoption rate with Alex Bauer of Branch (ep. 3 of 3)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...
2021-06-0359 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastATT, one month in: SKAdNetwork standards with Paul Bowen of AlgoLift (ep. 2 of 3)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...
2021-05-3152 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastATT, one month in: privacy thresholds with Rich Jones of Dataseat (ep. 1 of 3)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...
2021-05-2648 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastUnpacking Tim Cook's comments about ATTOn 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.
2021-04-0734 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastiOS 14, Privacy, and the Future of Digital Advertising (presentation)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.
2021-03-0434 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 16 - The future of advertising attribution on mobileIn 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?
2021-03-0152 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 15 - Why doesn't Google have to show the ATT prompt?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...
2021-02-1756 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 14 - IDFA, TURTLEDOVE, and the Future of Privacy with Paul BannisterIn this episode of the MDM Podcast, I discuss the future of privacy as it relates to digital advertising with Paul Bannister, the Chief Strategy Officer at CafeMedia. Paul and I consider why the platforms -- but especially Apple -- are developing new privacy frameworks, how Google's privacy sandbox initiative may perform relative to user-based targeting, and what is meant when we use the word "privacy" to describe how a user behaves or interacts with properties online.
2021-01-2751 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 13 - When does it make sense to outsource user acquisition to an agency?In this episode of the MDM podcast, I speak with Grant Harbin, the founder and CEO of Headlight, a marketing agency. We discuss the topic of user acquisition outsourcing and when and why that might be relevant for an app developer.
2020-12-1654 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 12 - The economics of game streamingIn this episode of the MDM podcast, I speak with Stephen Ellis, the founder and CEO of Pipeline.gg, about the economics of game streaming and the future of the games streaming landscape.
As a former professional gamer and then an employee at Facebook working on the company's games streaming product, Stephen witnessed first-hand just how difficult it is to aggregate and monetize and audience as a streamer. In this podcast, Stephen and I discuss his journey from gaming enthusiast to professional gamer to entrepreneur, as well as the games streaming ecosystem, the relationship between games streamers...
2020-11-3052 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 11 - Contemplating the next 18 months of mobile advertisingIn this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with David Philippson and Nebo Radovic about the near-term future of mobile advertising.
How will the deprecation of the IDFA -- and of mobile advertising identifiers more generally -- change:
the way teams are constructed;
demand for various media sources;
the degree to which programmatic media buying is viable;
...and other topics that will be relevant for mobile marketers over the next 18 months.
2020-11-111h 12Mobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 10 - How to win with subscriptions on mobileIn this episode of the MDM podcast, I chat with Thomas Petit -- better known to those operating in mobile as @Thomasbcn -- about all things subscriptions. We discuss product strategy for subscription products, how to price test, the future of the subscription model (including hybrid IAP / subscription monetization), and a number of other aspects of building a successful subscription business on mobile.
2020-10-261h 21Mobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 9 - A 13-minute analysis of the anti-trust case against GoogleIn this episode of the MDM podcast, I try to unpack the underlying mechanics of the accusations being made against Google from a commercial perspective (in 13 minutes)
2020-10-2113 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 8 - What does it mean to be a quantitative marketer?In Episode 8 of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with Conrad McGee-Stocks, the Director of Growth at Uken Games, which is the Toronto-based studio behind mobile hits like Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and Jeopardy World Tour.
In the podcast, we talk about what it means to be a quantitative marketer, and how that role is evolving, especially on mobile, as product and user acquisition converge.
2020-10-071h 05Mobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 7 - Surfing in a Squall: the future of mobile without an IDFA, with Maor SadraIn this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with Maor Sadra about why the deprecation of the IDFA (announced at this year's WWDC event) should not have been surprising to people who follow the mobile ecosystem, why deterministic app install attribution wasn't as reliable as people thought in the first place, and what the future of mobile looks like without the IDFA.
2020-07-0855 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 6 - How a Bid becomes an Install with David Philippson, CEO of DataseatIn this podcast, I speak with David Philippson, the CEO of Dataseat and former co-founder of Ad-X, which was acquired by Criteo, about the underlying mechanics of mobile advertising. David walks through the process of How a Bid Becomes a DAU (inspired by the Schoolhouse Rock animation, How a Bid becomes a Law). We also talk about the future of advertising identifiers and programmatic in-housing.
2020-05-2855 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastMDM Podcast Episode 5 - Is the App Store fair to developers?In this episode of the MDM Podcast, I speak with David Barnard, a vocal developer advocate on Twitter, about whether the App Store's closed nature and its treatment of developers is fair.
2020-05-011h 06
The Mobile User Acquisition Show💭How to model out an app's DAU - with Eric Seufert(Founder at Heracles, Quantmar & MobileDevMemo)👥This episode features Eric Seufert, founder at Heracles, founder at QuantMar, and founder at MobileDevMemo.com . Eric is perhaps one of the smartest people in mobile user acquisition today - in this episode Eric walks us through how to model out an app's DAU. Key highlightsWhy systematic modeling of growth is crucial to an app.What inputs Eric recommends for systematic modeling of growth.How to think about the DAU gap to be closed – and the UA effort required to close it.How granular or high-level should a model be? How Eric recommends th...
2019-11-1313 min
The How Things Grow PodcastA brief history of mobile user acquisition - with Eric Seufert(Head of Platform at N3twork & Founder at MobileDevMemo)My guest today is Eric Seufert. Eric is the Head of Platform at N3twork, the founder of MobileDevMemo.com, author of the book ‘Freemium Economics’ - and one of the foremost experts on mobile user acquisition today. Eric started his career as an analyst at Skype, and went on to work with gaming companies like Digital Chocolate, Grey Area and Wooga - before heading up user acquisition for Rovio, in which capacity he headed up much of the launch activity for Angry Birds 2, which launched with over 25 million installs in the first week after its launch. Eric has also...
2019-05-1447 minMobile Dev Memo PodcastEpisode 4: Legal sports betting on mobile with Matt RestivoIn the 4th episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with Matt Restivo, the Chief Product Officer at the Action Network, about the impact that the Supreme Court's recent decision to allow States to offer legal sports betting will have on sports fanaticism, social media, and mobile.
2018-07-2323 min
Mobile Dev Memo PodcastAlgorithms, Ad Targeting, and Democracy - a Conversation with Dr. Sandra MatzA conversation with Dr. Sandra Matz of Columbia Business School about ad targeting, the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and how to protect our Democratic institutions from algorithmic content serving
2018-04-0248 min
Mobile Dev Memo PodcastWhy are mobile growth roles so hard to hire for? With Andy CarvellIn the second episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with mobile growth expert Andy Carvell about the difficulty of hiring people into mobile growth roles and what might be the cause of that.
2017-04-1029 min
Mobile Dev Memo PodcastInfluencer Marketing's Jerry Maguire Moment: An interview with Adam HadiIn this interview, Mobile Dev Memo's Eric Seufert speaks with Adam Hadi, a mobile influencer marketing expert, about growing a mobile user base with influencer marketing.
2017-03-0540 min