What is working for app publishers in 2024 while there's so much bad news everywhere?
This is a presentation I delivered at Mobile Apps Unlocked (MAU) in Las Vegas in April.
18. Privacy shifts
across the
ecosystem
And marketers are dealing
with…
iOS14.5 & ATT
Android Privacy Sandbox
ITP & 3rd-Party Cookies
Facebook AMM deprecation
SKAN Updates (4.0+)
GDPR, DMA, CCPA
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24. [
1.7% of downloads turned into paying subscribers in their first 30 days,
which is slightly up from last report. The difference between lower
quartile (.6%) and upper quartile (4.2%) remains striking.
The top 5% of newly launched apps generate over 200x
more revenue than the bottom quartile does, 12
months after launch.
The average Realized LW per download in North America, 14 days in, is
4x the global average at $0.35 compared to $0.08. A multiple that
exists both on the App Store, as well as on Google Play.
-14°/% Share of monthly subscribers retained after 12 months
dropped by -14% last year, across categories and impacting
both the best and worst performers alike.
Over 10% of churned monthly subscribers re-subscribe within 12
months, with categories like Media & Entertainment seeing even
higher reactivation rates.
1.7%
200x
$0.35
-14%
12%
RevenueCat
31. Unified
Measurement
1. Accurate organics
31% more attributed conversions due to
better organic vs paid identification
2. Smarter measurement
43% boost in campaign ROI
3. Long cohorts
35-day post-install cohort analysis
4. Sane CPIs
No more goofy eCPIs
Hello, welcome, wow, you’re still here
Door prizes!
2nd time at MAU
Chose this title: so much bad news
But is it all really as bad as it seems?
Let’s find out
My name is John Koetsier
Longtime journalist
Still contribute at Forbes
But most of my time is consulting in adtech & growth & mobile
And most of that is with Singular, the MMP
So my job is kinda … talking to marketers
Sometimes like this
Marketer as a star
How did you end world hunger
Save the world
Restore justice and peace to Midgard
Lately, more like this
Counseling sessions
There, there
Don’t worry
It’ll be all right, I’m sure
Part of the reason
So much change
We all kinda figured everything would go back to normal
Then we discovered that yes, you can never really go home again
And everything is always changing
Including us
A lot of our weeks lately have felt like this
We’re getting future shock
Everything is changing
So my goal today …
Give you a big hug
But not in a creepy way
Let’s start big picture
What’s going on?
GDP growth is down
Our economy is not randomly getting saved
The Marvels aren’t coming
Iron Man isn’t going to fight off the alien attack
Inflation is still high
It turns out when you print $5 trillion … there’s an impact
Who knew :-)
Why didn’t anyone warn us :-)
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2024/01/30/world-economic-outlook-update-january-2024
Ad growth has been impressive
But we were fooled by a massive spike during a global pandemic
And now ad revenue growth is below GDP growth
Source https://www.groupm.com/2023-global-end-of-year-forecast/
Historically speaking, we spend a metric shit-ton on ads
That makes sense: the total addressable market for content ads can be targeted against has vastly expanded
But this is not an infinite sum game
It has limits
https://www.dentsu.com/news-releases/dentsu-forecasts-2024-global-ad-spend-to-grow
Which is why growth rates for ad spend are down
And yes, it helps no-one when we’re killing people all over the place
So that’s the big picture right now
What about the growth ecosystem?
Mobile marketing?
As necessary as privacy is … and I 100% mean that
It’s been a disaster for modern marketing machines
Lost signal … yep
But worse: bad signal
SKAN and non-SKAN numbers don’t add up to real-world totals
Organics and paid mingled
Duplicated counting of installs
Can’t trust channel performance numbers
And all this joy is soon to arrive on Android
To make matters worse
We’ve seen massive job losses
Unity, Amazon, Riot, Microsoft, Niantic, Sega
Sure, there was overhiring during Covid
Sure there are lots of reasons
But that doesn’t make it any easier
Web3 was going to save us
But the crypto crash cratered web3 games
Can anyone think of a big web3 game?
Crypto has since somewhat recovered
But NFTs, which many thought would be a cool way to monetize games and apps … have not
As the ad TAM grows
People get increasingly hostile to ads
Or … just blind
And yeah … Apple Vision Pro isn’t gonna save us
Even Oculus isn’t
Subscriptions are tough too
They’re not insulated from the overall economy
Retained subscribers: down 14%
Across the board
RevenueCat 2024 subscription report https://www.revenuecat.com/state-of-subscription-apps-2024/#h-price-points
So we arrive here
In 2024
WTF
What is the path forward?
First off, get in the fight
Participate
You might laugh at participation trophies
But those who aren’t engaging can’t win
And it turns out … top growth marketers are spending
Source:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MzGGlCaY_jCoKAKfmm1HpITyHz5cOQuB1DE8uMJ7S0s/edit#gid=1281955719
Some verticals more than others
Plenty of verticals seeing significant growth
And guess what …
A ton of it is outside of games
Business
Medical
Entertainment
Sports
Health/fitness
So participation is winning now
Source:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Yo9LxhShlThwelIiX6vSkuMY3h7PwVIyoEL8Wag7SOg/edit#gid=123100319
Vertical
Growth
Business
31.09%
Medical
30.89%
Entertainment
27.85%
Sports
24.43%
Lifestyle
23.08%
Health & Fitness
16.97%
Education
7.46%
Games
7.07%
Food & Drink
5.08%
Social Networking
0.91%
Shopping
-2.20%
Productivity
-2.54%
Finance
-4.95%
Travel
-18.88%
2: measurement accuracy is improving
Even under privacy
We just talked about it
Cohorts are gone
Organics and paid are all mixed up
Duplicated install counts from different sources and attribution methods
SKAN is here to stay
You need a solution that gives you the best data possible
Unified Measurement is an approach that uses multiple measurement methodologies
At the same time
Combined
To achieve significantly better results
SKAN by itself isn’t enough
IDFV by itself, not enough
IDFA …
Any other single method
Using Unified Measurement for the new Unified iOS Report, we’re seeing accurate de-duping of SKAN and MMP attribution
Much more accurate partner performance
Actual organics
Better ROI
Sane eCPIs
And … 35-day post-install cohorts
You cannot rely on one source of data for marketing measurement anymore
You need multiple, unified
Transparent
3: go beyond last click
Sure, the customer journey for a mobile game maybe isn’t as complex as this one
You’re not buying a car, after all
But there’s a heck of a lot more going on that 1 ad view, 1 click, 1 install, 1 open
And … huge ROI
Have to go beyond last click
Source: https://gustdebacker.com/
That means getting serious about MMM
A year ago: 3% of marketers “MMM is not worth it”
16% on the fence
25%: already doing MMM
60%: on their way
More signals, done well, boosts decision accuracy
Wasted spend: client always wondered about 1 network
Fraud resistant: bad guys can game other KPIs
Industry shifts: see if a change you’re experiencing is just you or whole industry
(Russia’s invasion of Ukraine)
Sanity check: is this spend really incremental? ROI over time by channel
Relatively easy … out of the box, ready to go … all your data is already there
4. Test new partners
Moloco
Ranked on every single category (geo/vertical)
Others that ranked: Meta, Google, TikTok ironSource, AppLovin
Who will be Moloco in 2025?
Only way to know …
Test
Also: more partners
Every time I’ve checked the data … 2X in the last 6-7 years at Singular
Once at TUNE close to a decade ago
Marketers who are testing more networks grow faster
5. Test entirely new channels, not just new partners
Recently put together Singular’s ROI Index
Some things don’t hit the big numbers
But they make a significant difference for specific apps
UA spend for CTV is up 46% year over year for Singular clients
I keep hearing good things about out of home
Custom SMS
Email
Newsletter
Lockscreen ads
No-store direct install
YMMV … try things that make sense for your vertical, your target customer
So yeah … we’re operating in challenging circumstances
But there are still some reasons for optimism