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Shamanth

Peggy Anne Salz is one of the most influential and compelling speakers in the mobile marketing space, and is the chief analyst and founder of MobileGroove.

In this segment, Peggy talks about marketers working with incomplete data in the year to come.

Peggy  

Hello, I’m Peggy Anne Salz. I’m a writer, strategic content marketing consultant with four podcasts and video casts and counting, as well as contributing to Forbes and also to a variety of other media outlets where I share my insights on customer experience innovation, how brands and marketers can grow through building trust and driving loyalty. That’s why in line with these interests, my focus for 2023 is about how marketers can grow. But in this case, growing through understanding their limitations. We are dealing with incomplete datasets but what I am excited about is innovation in marketing, because marketers are developing their own blended metrics. They’re developing new metrics, and their understanding that it’s a core requirement in 2023 and beyond, to continue to do so. It’s something I’m experiencing firsthand. 

For example, many of the marketers I’ve interviewed are telling me about their approaches and how they’re looking at new metrics. I’m really excited because one of these marketers is going to be on my podcast, she has already been on the mobile heroes uncensored podcast. A special place in my ranking is Philippa Layburn from Trailmix, because she’s come up with metrics that tell her this is how player engagement is developing. 

This measures the performance of my campaign to drive CTAs. She’s come up with, for example, “hook rate” – her invention that says, when I notice that a player has been looking at a video ad for a certain number of seconds, then this is an indication to me of a behavior and something I can build on. That’s just one example. But I’ve seen a number of other marketers out there, talking about how they are blending metrics and looking at different ways to use the data because that’s where it starts. You have to accept how things are and then you can change and adapt. 

So there it is, 2023, unlock your inner data scientist, figure out some metrics that work for your app, and open the aperture of how you see data, layer on different layers and go out there and grow.

Shamanth

Reggie Singh is the Director of Partnership, Americas at Adjust and currently manages all SAN relationships to ensure product and GTM alignment. He has worked in mobile for nearly 10 years doing everything from UA to measurement.

Reggie Singh  

My name is Reggie Singh, and I’m the Director of Partnerships at Adjust. 

My prediction for 2023 is that we will be seeing a lot more companies focus much more on strategic budget planning and forecasting than we have ever seen in the past. Historically speaking, mobile marketers tend to be really focused on historical numbers such as ad spend, ROAS, user acquisition numbers, etc, vs. planning ahead and much more strategic planning. 

That being said, coming out of the pandemic, the last two years and the macro-economic environment that we’re seeing moving into 2023, I do predict that you’re going to see a resurgence of things like media mix modeling, as a way to determine the impact of marketing tactics on various business objectives. That will be coupled a lot with the historical data that we have been seeing. 

So it’s very supplementary, to the things that we have historically done. But we need to try new tactics. Not only are we seeing the macro-economic issues, but we’re also seeing a lot of changes in privacy. So that being said, we need to, as mobile marketers look at new tactics and new approaches that we have historically ever seen. And media mix modeling is a great approach in supplementing your traditional tactics. It’s a great way to also see the impact of non-traditional media channels such as TV, which we’re seeing a huge resurgence in, podcasts and other digital out of home types of marketing. 

Shamanth

Bessie Byeon is the Senior Director of Global Marketing at Liftoff. Bessie talks about how SKAN 4.0 will unfold over the next year with possibly more granular data than marketers usually work with.

Bessie Byeon  

SKAN 4.0 is here and it may give marketers more granular data than before, but it will probably take months before they can actually capitalize on these new features. So we will see more marketers prioritizing first party data to get ahead of the game in 2023. This will probably include relying more heavily on machine learning to optimize campaigns using first party data. 

So targeting the most valuable users with the best LTV is immensely benefited by implementing a first party strategy. Tools like Liftoff LTV optimize use first party data to teach ML models how to really target the same kind of users proven to convert their unique app. And they can make the most of their first party data by more accurately and effectively targeting their most valuable users. So optimizing their campaigns for the LTV windows that fits their business and generating the most revenue for their mobile campaigns. 

Another trending strategy for next year will be differentiated ad creatives. So in a privacy centric era, we are really limited in the insights we get and most of which are really upper funnels. So most impactful things and upper funnel metrics like CPM, IPI CPI are actually created, because they’re the first things users see. 

As a marketer, the better the creative performs, the more results you will get. With SKAN 4.0, The more installs you get, the more granular data that will give you and more installs really means lower censorship rates. 

Shamanth

Alex Bauer is the Head of Product & Market Strategy at Branch. In today’s episode, he tells us about how measurement is going to change in the next year. 

Alex Bauer  

My prediction for 2023 is that we’ll see a growing split between in channel and holistic measurement solutions. Over the last couple years, we’ve seen measurement and user privacy becoming increasingly inseparable. This has been driving a shift away from universal unique identifiers like GAIDs or IDFAs or even third party cookies. And I think this will continue in 2023. 

So some of the key things to keep an eye on are the SKAdnetwork, Google beginning testing on Android with Privacy Sandbox and of course, more regulations and enforcement, particularly in the EU, for example. As a result of this, I think we’ll start to see a separation between in channel measurement techniques and holistic measurement solutions. By channel, I mean, frameworks like SKAd network. These are great for tactical uses within the single marketing channel, like how much do I pay my ad network this week, but they really don’t help marketers understand how their relative investments across different channels are performing. 

So new integration around holistic measurement solutions is what’s going to bring back that cross channel view that marketers need in order to make strategic investment decisions. An early contender here that has been getting a lot of attention is next generation media mix modeling. But I think it’s still early days and there’s a lot to be uncovered here.

Shamanth

Nataliia Drozd is the Marketing & UA Lead at Fabulous, a health platform based in Paris. In this segment Nataliia talks about how data use will change, the role of Facebook going forward and how a lot of apps are going creative-first.

Nataliia Drozd

Hello, this is Natalia Drozd, and I’m happy to share a couple of my thoughts about UA in 2023. First of all, privacy is here to stay and a privacy centric world is the new reality we have to live in. iOS has already done their change with IDFA depreciation and Google is on its way to do so as well. So it’s crucial for us as marketers to know and to learn how to live in the data driven environment and how to work with multiple traffic sources and data sources. Unfortunately, we don’t have only first party data, you need to know all the caveats of the data you have and come to work with them. 

Second, in terms of the general outlook of the industry, Facebook is still here, and it’s working relatively well. It suffered a lot after Apple’s iOS 14. But it’s still the biggest player in the game. Tiktok on the other hand, is becoming a standard channel in the channel mix for many advertisers and we don’t have cheap inventory there anymore. The benefit of all the pioneers is already over and people need to work hard to make things work as well. 

We also have a recession, we have company layoffs and a pretty tougher marketing environment. 

So 2023 will be a year for many companies to actually think if their products bring quality. People cannot rely anymore on just acquisition without retention, just because it’s getting easier to manage your subscription payments. People are not that easily trapped into subscription problems they used to have, especially back in the days before iOS 13. 

So for 2023 first of all, all UA people have to be data driven and data literate. Secondly, creative is becoming more and more important because with less data on user performance, after the install, it’s very important to capture users attention, creative eyes, we’re also shifting more from static images to videos, just because this type of consumption of content is also growing rapidly. 

Therefore, even companies where aesthetics has always been their primary and dominant type of placements are switching to animation and video content. In terms of video content, it can be super diverse from some beautiful animations and high quality made videos up to UGC which is also getting very popular and actually very low, very accessible with different platforms where we can buy high quality user generated content for cheap. 

We have to be super resilient, because a lot of changes are coming with a lot of uncertainties here. But after a recession, there’s usually an increase. It’s just a question for us as marketers, what we will learn from this new challenging period you’re facing today.

Shamanth

Daniel Tchernahovsky is AppLovin’s Vice President of International Business Development. In this segment he tells us how game developers and publishers are finding ways to monetize their user base through ads and IAPs.

Daniel Tchernahovsky  

Hey, everybody, my name is Daniel Tchernahovsky, I’m the VP of global BD at Applovin. Applovin is a company that helps developers and publishers grow and monetize their apps and businesses using our market leading solutions.

So my prediction for 2023 is that we’ll see more and more developers and publishers come up with more creative ways of monetizing their user base, combining both ad revenue and IAP revenue in the same game. Today, for context, if we look at the charts, we’ll see top grossing charts, which are dominated by developers that exclusively monetize with ads, and we’ll see top downloaded ranks, where most apps are exclusively monetized with ads. At the same time, some of these users that are downloading these ad driven games are willing to spend money on IAPs. And some of the user base that is playing these IP games won’t ever spend money by IAP, but could still be monetized with ads. 

Now, hybrid monetization isn’t per se, a new topic in our industry, and has been a buzzword for quite a few years. But the rapid growth that we’ve seen in industry has led to us historically sticking to our guns, which is what we’ve seen in the charts today. The conversation that we’re now having with publishers has shifted in tone, maybe also because of the obstacles that many have faced in 2022. So when we talk to these publishers, what we’re hearing now more and more is them asking for advice on the IP side, for example, on how to leverage the knowledge and best practices of ad revenue players and figure out how to monetize their user base that isn’t willing to spend money. At the same time, historically ad driven game developers are now trying to figure out new loops that are more complex in nature and are led to more IP purchases. 

So it’s gonna be an interesting development to see and I think it’s only been encouraged by some of the biggest hits this year. Look at some of the biggest games such as Survivor or stumble guys. Both of those have hybrid monetization, so I expect more of those to come in the next year. Now naturally, our industry always differentiates itself by being not just incredibly creative, but also highly experimental and data driven. 

So I’m very excited to see what the new year is going to bring and I’m looking forward to some of these new creative titles.

Shamanth

Marianne Clerc is the Director of Operations at Adikteev, handling all operations in EMEA and APAC regions.  

Marianne talks about how retargeting is going to gain favor among marketers and also throws some light on Google’s Privacy Sandbox.

Marianne Clerc  

Hi, I’m Marianne Clerc, and I’m Director of Operations at Adikteev. So what’s going to happen in 2023 for the mobile space? I’ll try to answer the two following questions. 

The first one is why retargeting is critical in the current market context. And the second one is about Google Privacy Sandbox, what it is and how we can best prepare for it? 

Retargeting would help all advertisers to retain their most valuable users, the highest spenders, allowing them to spend less on user acquisition, lose less money and potentially higher acquisition cost. 

The second point is about allowing app marketers to focus on high spending users rather than relying on unknowns, so new users whose LTV hasn’t been yet tested in the app. 

Third point regarding why retargeting is critical right now is about, they might be potentially few of your competitors in the market. So it means that there is less competition for users who recently installed the app. 

Last point is that iOS is going a little bit better at the moment. For example, in May 2021, opt-in rates were at 16%. Now that number has grown to 25%. 

Moving on to Google Privacy Sandbox. First of all, I’d like to say that Adikteev and Google are very close partners and we’ve been working together for a while now. But what is Privacy Sandbox? We can describe it as an abstract of the audience retargeting system that lets advertisers still run retargeting but without knowing who is whom, within the user list. 

Also, we move from basically a device ID to an audience targeting capability. 

Right now, how can you best prepare for it? You first need to discuss and build a prototype with your media buyers to know how it works, and plan to prepare the best you can for it. 

Also, the Privacy Sandbox is still in beta so anyone can use it to learn about how it will affect their business and how it works, when it will be mandatory etc. Lastly, make sure you have a resource for it internally in your company to be able to be ready when it will be released. 

I wish you all the best for 2023 and I’m sure you will all rock it.

A REQUEST BEFORE YOU GO

I have a very important favor to ask, which as those of you who know me know I don’t do often. If you get any pleasure or inspiration from this episode, could you PLEASE leave a review on your favorite podcasting platform – be it iTunes, Overcast, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast fix. This podcast is very much a labor of love – and each episode takes many many hours to put together. When you write a review, it will not only be a great deal of encouragement to us, but it will also support getting the word out about the Mobile User Acquisition Show.

Constructive criticism and suggestions for improvement are welcome, whether on podcasting platforms – or by email to shamanth at rocketshiphq.com. We read all reviews & I want to make this podcast better.

Thank you – and I look forward to seeing you with the next episode!