It’s the last dance. For the last time on Mobile Heroes Uncensored, John & Peggy are chatting about mobile growth, mobile success, and mobile challenges. In this episode, we chat about our favorite episodes, a few of our favorite guests — there’s no way we could talk about all of them — and the places they come from, and the topics they shared. It’s been 76 shows. Thank you all for the ride, and see you around social media and on many other podcasts that both Peggy and I still on.

Apologies, but we liked Brazil so much we stayed (virtually, of course). In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we chat with Guilherme Braz, Acquisition Senior Director at Mercado Libre, an e-commerce and fintech leader in Latin America. While he’s got great experience in mobile -- having worked at Wildlife Studios previously -- in another life he was a Bain consultant. And Gui, as he likes to be called, brings the kind of intellectual rigor you might expect from Bain to his marketing. We...

If the US Postal Service says “neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,” we add appendicitis! While one of our guests was having emergency surgery (and is now much better!) We soldiered on with ROAD TRIP BRAZIL. In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we chat with Christian Gaitan, formerly Performance Lead of Lemon about entering the Brazilian mobile market. Christian chats about market demographics and...

How will massive global trends in advertising impact mobile apps and games? In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we chat with GroupM global director Kate Scott-Dawkins. This is not like other MHU sessions. In addition to being a former member of the United States Archery Team, Kate is a big thinker with access to huge amounts of data. She’s currently tracking 62 markets: 31 downgraded, 21 upgraded, and 10 stayed the same. But as the global economic outlook suffers, the digital advertising...

How big will streaming TV be for mobile user acquisition in 2023? In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we chat with M&C Saatchi Performance managing partner Jonathan Yantz. Our focus: will streaming TV, connected TV, smart TV be a great place to run ads in 2023? CTV is one of the fastest growing ad markets. But it’s fragmented into multiple platforms and multiple services on each platform. How do you address it? How do you measure it? How do you design for it? We chat about this and many...

Does reverse psychology work in ads? Sure, sometimes. And sometimes, just plain old psychology. In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we chat with Philippa Layburn, UA manager for Trailmix, the games studio that makes games snackable … yet somehow nourishing. Philippa tells hosts John Koetsier and Peggy Anne Salz about her background in psychology and how that impacts her marketing and advertising, as well as her focus on science and math. We chat about creative winners and losers, Super Bowl...

Mobile marketing intelligence can tell you which are the top apps in a category, where your competitors advertise, how they monetize, what ads are working, and which apps that you’re competing with have the highest LTV. It can also reveal emerging trends. In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored hosts Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier chat with Stan Minasov, VP of Product for AppMagic. We ask Stan what trend he found first, what trends people have discovered on his platform, and how to use mobile...

In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we chat with Gessica Bicego, the CMO of Paired, an app that helps couples feel more connected. We chat about influencer marketing, about hitting singles and the occasional home run, and about whether you can engineer virality or not. We also talk about diversification of ad spend, and how Bicego ensures that she is always able to take advantage of opportunities to go viral. We chat about metrics that she uses to keep on track, and we also talk about taking...

Bootstrapping is great. Especially when you’re getting a suitcase full of awards for your app. In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we’re chatting with the founder of Rootd (pronounced “rooted”), Ania Wyshocka. Rootd is an app for people who suffer from anxiety, stress, and panic attacks, and in a classic entrepreneur story, Ania built a product based on her own experiences. In the process, she’s earned a Developer Spotlight by Apple, a “30 Under 30” win, and a selection to "Canadian...

What mobile game literally has a tombstone in one of its promo images? A super-successful one, actually: BitLife, which has tens of millions of installs and millions of reviews. In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we chat with BitLife maker Candywriter. Specifically, with VP Gabby Bradford Pigott. Our focus: mashup games: what drives success, and what works best for ad-based monetization. We also chat about ad partners, managing waterfalls, and balancing user experience and...

If segmentation sparks joy in your life you might need to get fitted for a straitjacket. Or maybe you’re just super passionate about mobile marketing, engagement, monetization, and retention. We think the latter applies to Geoff Hladik, who leads revenue and growth at FlipaClip. At least we hope so, because this is the second time we’ve chatted with him and we’re almost related now. In this episode, hosts Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier chat with Geoff about: Becoming a Mobile Hero ...

Every mobile marketer needs good ASO. The last thing you want is to acquire users, have them hit your App Store or Google Play listing, and say … nah, maybe not. So getting your app store optimization right is critical. In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we chat with AppTweak’s head of ASO Simon Thillay. He chats with hosts John Koetsier and Peggy Anne Salz about custom product pages, in-app events — the kind that people participate in, not the kind you track for KPIs — and how he sees ASO...

It’s never been tougher to make it in user acquisition and growth, but Huuuge Games director of marketing creatives Misha Syrotiuk makes it work in two diverging ways: more automation, and more human connection. In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we chat with Misha about the amount of automation needed to remove some of the drudgery and grunt work from creative creation and campaign optimization. But we also chat about the advice he’d give his younger self: investing in the human...

Blockchain and gaming? Check IDFA, ATT, and Privacy Sandbox on Android? Check Influencer advertising on TikTok? Check Today is agency day on Mobile Heroes Uncensored, and we’re chatting with three all-stars. Jonathan Yantz at M&C Saatchi Performance, Dave Riggs from Apex Growth (used to be Customer Acquisition), and Eddie Yoon at NP Digital (yeah, that’s Neil Patel’s company) join Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier to talk about all the hot stuff. From multi-million dollar monthly...

Is data-driven marketing actually impossible today? Do we have too much data … so much we have to shift to AI-driven marketing? In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored we chat with Agustin Ochoa, a former Googler and now Performance Senior Manager at Winclap, a growth marketing consulting partner. Ochoa chats with hosts John Koetsier and Peggy Anne Salz about events to pay attention too — hint: far more than most do now — and how AI is better than humans at certain things like that. We also chat...

3 billion app downloads is no small feat. Wildlife Studios, however, has achieved that and has very quietly become a top 10 games studio on the planet, beginning from Brazil and expanding across the globe. In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we chat with Carolina Guimarães, Senior Director of Performance Marketing, and Anel Ceman, VP of Ad Monetization, about the twin challenges of UA and monetization. Get more quality users as cheaply as possible Monetize them without destroying the game...

Apple’s app tracking transparency was great … if you were primarily monetizing via ads on Android. In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored hosts John Koetsier and Peggy Anne Salz chat with long-time SmartNews marketing leader Fabien-Pierre Nicolas, now an advisor. We chat about ad monetization, using old-fashioned linear TV for mobile user acquisition ads, and automating hyperlocal organic and paid reach on Facebook. And, of course, as always, much, much more! Timestamps 0:00 Unicorn...

What can 250M users and 30 billion games played reveal about mobile games, winning IP, and monetization? In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored we chat with Amy Huang, the CEO of Mattel163. She’s led the company to take iconic games like UNO and Skip-Bo mobile, leading to a quarter of a billion users and 30 billion games played. If that’s not enough, she’s also an accomplished rock climber. Hosts Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier chat with Amy about focus, growth, hybrid monetization...

Apple’s SKAdNetwork has accelerated 10 years worth of CPM growth in just a year, according to our guest, Giulia Porter, VP of Marketing at RoboKiller. In this episode, we dig into what that means, how marketing a utility is different from marketing a game, and a new approach to both channels and attribution in the age of privacy. Plus, hosts John Koetsier and Peggy Anne Salz chat with Giulia about the TikTok video on her app that got 20 million views, kickstarted a huge number of app...

How do you get to 8 million monthly average users with $0 in marketing spend? That’s the core question we ask Geoff Hladik, Head of Revenue & Growth at Visual Blasters. Part of the answer: product-led growth. Hosts John Koetsier and Peggy Anne Salz also chat about getting featured by Apple, the pros and cons of building an app for kids, and when Hladik plans to turn the paid user acquisition on. Timestamps 0:00 8M MAU with no spend? 2:00 Visual Blasters 2:40 Organic growth 5:25 App...

Can you make better games by understanding player psychology? By knowing what people’s primary (and secondary) motivations are in mobile games? According to GameRefinery’s Joel Julkunen, absolutely. And understanding these motivations has led, he says, to multiple hit games over the past few years. In this Mobile Heroes Uncensored we chat with Julkunen. He’s played over 500 games, and that’s a core part of his work, believe it or not. From that and a huge amount of data from thousands of...

Why stick with a potential audience of millions if you could have billions? It’s not the right move for every app, but for apps that don’t rely on geographical boots-on-the-ground in terms of inventory, warehouses, or fulfillment, going global can unlock runaway growth. But there are a few things to keep in mind, says Bessie Byeon, Senior Director of Global Marketing at Liftoff. In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored, we chat about her recent guide to scaling mobile apps...

From crazy success to favorite flops, we chat with veteran DoubleDown Interactive marketer Faith Price. Price tells us about soft launches, MVPs, app store featuring, and advice for a younger self, and talks about how getting the “grand tour” in marketing gigs was the perfect set-up for what she’s doing now … and maybe our privacy-safe future. Hosts Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier also quiz Price on one of her favorite success stories in mobile marketing: a declining game turned around by...

Scaling ad spend seems easy: boost buys, increase bids, add partners. But it’s really easy to lose massive amounts of efficiency and instead of driving results, simply increase ad blindness. In this episode of Mobile Heroes Uncensored we chat with mobile growth marketer and consultant Alper Taner, who has worked with over 50 apps in 10 verticals and helped brands scale users 5X to 50X. We chat about: How to scale quickly When to add new channels Which channels work best Typical...