Mobile Dev Memo Podcast

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Tricia Han, CEO of Mistplay, and Sampsa Jaatinen, Chief Data and AI Officer at Mistplay, to explore the rapidly evolving world of rewarded user acquisition. We dive into how the rewarded model has matured from a niche Android-focused strategy into a primary growth engine for mobile gaming across both major platforms. Among other things, we discuss:Why rewarded user acquisition has moved from a niche tactic to a cornerstone of modern mobile gaming growth strategiesHow the shift in Apple's App Store policies regarding incentivized installs has created a new frontier for iOS developersWhether the rich behavioral data sets generated by rewarded platforms provide a significant competitive advantage over traditional ad networksWhat role machine learning and reinforcement learning play in optimizing the timing and nature of user rewards and recommendationsIf the play-and-earn philosophy can be successfully exported to non-gaming industries like retail, finance, and quick-service restaurantsHow the blurring lines between mobile and console gaming will influence the way platforms compete for limited user attentionWhen the industry will fully realize the potential of direct-to-consumer web shops coupled with highly personalized reward mechanismsThanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming backInterested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:SpotifyYouTubeApple Podcasts

We discuss the transition of AI-native applications toward ad-supported monetization models. Among other things, we cover:Whether AI-native apps will follow the mobile gaming trajectory by adopting hybrid monetization models to reach massive global audiencesHow the high operational costs of AI inference necessitate a move toward ad-supported tiers to maintain sustainable profit marginsWhy the granular intent signals captured in LLM conversations offer a superior alternative to traditional search-based advertising targeting mechanismsWhat new native ad formats will emerge to integrate seamlessly into AI workflows without disrupting the core user experienceWhen the venture capital funding environment will demand more disciplined monetization strategies from AI startups over pure user growthHow established ad-tech infrastructure from the mobile gaming era can be adapted to serve the unique needs of AI developersThanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming backInterested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:SpotifyYouTubeApple Podcasts

The Prosperous Society is a three-hour, four-part series by Eric Seufert of Mobile Dev Memo that explores the political economy of artificial intelligence, grounded in the liberal tradition of the Western canon.Framed as an extended response to John Kenneth Galbraith's The Affluent Society, which serves as the intellectual foil for the series, The Prosperous Society makes the case that AI is not principally a story about intelligence, but about economics: it represents a progressive technological revolution that shifts the binding constraint on economic growth from production to distribution. In doing so, it redefines the role of digital advertising as the coordination infrastructure of an increasingly personalized economy.Last summer, when I began outlining The Prosperous Society, I set out to write an economic defense of artificial intelligence to serve as ballast for more pessimistic narratives. It was originally intended to be a short book. I pivoted to the podcast format when those narratives reached fever pitch earlier this year because I wanted to respond quickly and release new episodes on a regular cadence. But The Prosperous Society evolved into something broader: a defense of liberal political economy in the age of artificial intelligence.Over the course of three hours, I develop that thesis through four linked but distinct arguments:Part 1: Why AI makes distribution more important than production.Part 2: Why autonomous commerce is a false ideal.Part 3: Why personalization changes the economics of the long tail—and of identity itself.Part 4: Where the moral boundary lies between AI that expands freedom and AI that robs us of it.If the series succeeds, I hope it provides a rigorous intellectual case for why AI, if properly constrained and thoughtfully applied, can reaffirm the liberal tradition of Western political economy while helping to usher in one of the great periods of economic expansion in human history.

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Garrett Johnson and Shunto Kobayashi, professors at Boston University who have co-authored a paper titled "Can privacy technologies replace cookies? Ad revenue in a field experiment." The paper quantifies the impact of Google's Privacy Sandbox on publisher revenue, user experience, and market competition through a field experiment conducted in collaboration with Raptive, a digital advertising management platform.Our conversation highlights the specific challenges faced by the digital advertising ecosystem as it moves away from traditional identifiers and toward a new, more restrictive privacy regime. Among other things, we discuss:How the loss of third-party cookies specifically affects regional markets with stricter privacy regulations like the European UnionIf the adoption of privacy-enhancing technologies like the Privacy Sandbox could truly bridge the revenue gap created by the deprecation of cookiesWhat role browser vendors should play in establishing technical guarantees that satisfy both regulators and advertising stakeholdersWhy the industry tends to respond to identity restrictions by developing more complex identifiers instead of contextual alternativesWhen the concentration of traffic toward larger platforms will reach a tipping point for small-scale content creatorsHow the removal of personalization features on platforms like YouTube serves as a blueprint for future privacy-driven market shiftsWe also cover another paper by Garrett Johnson, "COPPAcalypse? The Youtube Settlement's Impact on Kids Content."Thanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming backInterested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:SpotifyYouTubeApple Podcasts

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Olivia Kory, the CMO of Haus, to discuss the recent $1BN investment in AppsFlyer by Meta, Google, Unity, and Moloco, and the shifting landscape of mobile measurement it portends. We explore the strategic motivations behind major ad platforms banding together to ensure measurement neutrality and how the industry is moving toward more sophisticated incrementality models. Among other things, we discuss:Why a consortium of major ad platforms decided to invest in a major mobile measurement partner at this timeHow the tension between platform-owned measurement tools and independent third-party services will influence advertiser trust moving forwardWhether the failure of Apple's SKAdNetwork to provide actionable insights has forced the industry back toward traditional attributionIf the entry of private equity into the measurement space changes the long-term incentives for data neutrality and transparencyWhat the rise of connected television as a performance channel reveals about the limitations of current mobile measurement frameworksWhen advertisers should prioritize long-term incrementality testing over the immediate gratification of last-click attribution data in their dashboardsWhether the consolidation of ad tech assets under single entities creates a conflict of interest that ultimately hurts performanceThanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming backInterested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:SpotifyYouTubeApple Podcasts

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Venkat Prabhu, Director of Product for Shop Campaigns at Shopify, to discuss the platform's evolution into a comprehensive marketing operating system for eCommerce merchants. We explore the major announcements from Shopify's Spring Editions, specifically focusing on how the platform leverages commerce data and AI to simplify advertising for businesses of all sizes. Among other things, we discuss:How AI-driven automation empowers small businesses to participate in the digital marketing ecosystemWhether centralized platforms like Shopify can solve the persistent problem of cross-channel attributionIf risk-free advertising models will become the standard for merchants entering the digital economyWhy the integration of commerce data into advertising algorithms creates a unique competitive moatWhat happens when a commerce platform evolves into a holistic marketing operating systemHow deep integration with AI agents like ChatGPT will redefine discovery for online shoppersThanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming backInterested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:SpotifyYouTubeApple Podcasts

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Peter Stuart, the co-founder of Velora, an AI operating system for specialist publishers. Peter returns to the podcast to discuss the rapidly evolving landscape of AI in journalism and to explore how editorial teams are integrating these tools into their daily operations. Among other things, we cover:How AI tools like LLMs can effectively augment journalistic research and fact-checking processes without compromising editorial integrityIf the increasing efficiency of AI content pipelines will ultimately diminish the perceived value of human-led investigative reportingWhy some media organizations remain hesitant to integrate AI while others aggressively leverage it for content curation and distributionWhen the line between AI-assisted writing and pure machine generation becomes indistinguishable to the average consumer of digital newsHow AI platforms can help journalists reclaim time for high-value reporting by automating mundane administrative and formatting tasksThanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming backInterested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:SpotifyYouTubeApple Podcasts

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Adam Epstein, the co-founder and CEO of Gigi, to talk about Amazon's strategic advertising advantages. Among other things, we discuss:The value of Amazon's deterministic identity spine, which spans ninety percent of US householdsWhether Amazon can successfully transition its e-commerce data dominance into non-endemic categories like automotive and pharmaceutical servicesThe risks faced by independent demand side platforms like Trade Desk as tech giants internalize inventoryWhat role agencies will play in a future where AI agents manage cross-channel programmatic media buying autonomouslyWhen shoppable TV transitions from a niche consumer behavior to a primary driver of performance marketing resultsHow the integration of Amazon's retail data with AI chatbots might permanently displace traditional search-based product discoveryThanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming backInterested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:SpotifyYouTubeApple Podcasts

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Danny Frankel, the founder of Punchup Live, a digital platform and ticketing ecosystem built for stand-up comedians. We explore how the economics of content distribution and audience building are being fundamentally rewritten. Danny provides a unique perspective on the shifting landscape of social media, the rise of clipping farms, and the digitization of live entertainment markets. Among other things, we discuss:How clipping farms and Discord communities are distorting organic distribution algorithms for independent creators across social media platformsWhether the extreme efficiency of AI-driven content recommendation engines is leading to user burnout and eventual platform rejectionWhy the traditional touring model is inverted for comedians compared to musicians and how that affects audience building strategiesWhat the phenomenon of blue dot fever reveals about shifting consumer behavior and transparency in the secondary ticketing marketIf the current fragmentation of the live entertainment ecosystem prevents artists from accurately predicting and capturing true market demandHow the lack of audience portability across major social platforms forces creators to adopt direct-to-fan communication tools like emailWhen the innovator's dilemma will force legacy platforms to choose between advertiser needs and the long-term health of creatorsThanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming backInterested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.

The Prosperous Society is a podcast series by Mobile Dev Memo that articulates an AI Bull Thesis for the digital economy. It argues that the pervasive application of AI to the digital economy will be broadly economically expansionary, leading to increased individual prosperity, expanded consumer choice, and greater human agency.In Episode 4, the conclusion to the series, I outline the AI-enabled flywheel to the Prosperous Society and make the case that it results in a more differentiated, more personalized, and economically expansive new digital economy:AI increases productive possibility, andAdvertising increases matching precision, andMatching precision increases specificity, andSpecificity increases expressive individuality, soSociety becomes more differentiated, not less.But I also consider the existence of an acceptable boundary for this personalization. At what point do siloed, wholly unique digital experiences become corrosive to social cohesion? And how should that boundary inform the investments that are currently being made into AI infrastructure, such that they are put to the best possible use?Thanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming backInterested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:SpotifyYouTubeApple Podcasts

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Julian Togelius, a professor of computer science at NYU and director of the NYU Game Innovation Lab. We delve into how games serve as the perfect sandbox for AI development, the potential for generative tools to revolutionize production workflows, and how the future of play might involve infinite, procedurally generated worlds that adapt to every player's unique style. Among other things, we discuss:How AI researchers leverage the inherent fun and learning mechanisms within video game environmentsWhether the financial markets function as a complex game requiring the same reinforcement learning strategies used in digital playIf consumer backlash against AI-generated assets will ultimately give way to the promise of faster and more ambitious development cyclesWhat possibilities exist for truly open-ended games that utilize real-time world generation to create infinite, personalized player journeysHow the role of the game developer shifts toward system architecture and critical thinking as coding becomes increasingly automatedWhen and if world models will transition from impressive tech demos to foundational tools for interactive entertainmentThanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠⁠⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming backInterested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Phil Black, one of the co-hosts of the Game Economist Cast, a podcast dedicated to game economy design, and a consultant with Game Economist Consulting. Previously, Phil held game economist and analytics roles at Amazon Games, DICE, and Scopely. Phil is also a panelist on the This Week in Games (TWIG) podcast. Phil joins me on this episode to examine the shifting dynamics of the mobile gaming economy, from the consolidation of high-revenue genres to the strategic adoption of AI and direct-to-consumer models. Among other things, we discuss:How the concentration of mobile gaming revenue into puzzle and 4X genres reshapes the competitive landscape for independent developersWhether the integration of hyper-casual mechanics into core loops represents a fundamental evolution of the modern mobile gaming economyWhy the transition from visual AI outputs to deep personalization remains the primary value proposition for future game monetizationWhat the divergence between Android and iOS installation gates reveals about the health of the global mobile marketing ecosystemIf the rise of third-party web shops and direct-to-consumer models can effectively counteract the platform fees of major storesHow the emergence of warbonds and sampling-based monetization strategies signals a shift away from traditional battle pass reward structuresWhen the mobile gaming industry will move beyond post-ATT recovery strategiesThanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠⁠⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming backInterested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:YouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Andrew Lipsman to discuss the evolving landscape of agentic commerce and retail media. Andrew is an independent analyst and consultant who runs the Media, Ads + Commerce blog, which covers the retail media landscape. Prior to this, Andrew held roles at eMarketer and comScore. This is Andrew's third appearance on the podcast.In our conversation, Andrew and I take stock of the evolution of the concept of agentic commerce since we last spoke six months ago, moving from the initial hype of autonomous AI agents to a more grounded reality of AI-assisted shopping experiences. Our conversation examines the failure of independent instant checkout experiments, the strength of established retail ecosystems like Amazon and Walmart, and the emerging opportunities in performance television and in-store digital advertising. Among other things, we discuss:Whether the failure of instant checkout experiments signals a permanent preference for direct retailer relationships over AI intermediariesHow the paradox of choice and the need for basket building hinder the efficiency of single-option agentic transactionsIf the success of Amazon's Rufus proves that AI utility belongs on retail platforms rather than independent LLM interfacesWhy the western market's fragmented ecosystem makes the development of a Chinese-style shopping super app highly improbableWhat the massive investment in AI infrastructure means for the competitive landscape against established giants like Amazon and GoogleWhen performance TV and in-store retail media will finally become a core priority for brand-focused chief marketing officersHow Shopify's role as an audience network might evolve as direct-to-consumer brands seek diversification beyond Meta and GoogleThanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠⁠⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming backInterested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:YouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify

The Prosperous Society is a podcast series by Mobile Dev Memo that articulates an AI Bull Thesis for the digital economy. It argues that the pervasive application of AI to the digital economy will be broadly economically expansionary, leading to increased individual prosperity, expanded consumer choice, and greater human agency.In Episode 3, I make the case that artificial intelligence stands to erode the Pareto Principle as it applies to production, as AI-enabled distribution efficiencies will enable firms to reach niche, specific audiences profitably. This will result in a wider diversity of goods being produced, creating a compounding effect on economic expansion and allowing consumers to better explore and define their own preferences and tastes.Thanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming backInterested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:SpotifyYouTubeApple Podcasts

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Dan Taylor, the Vice President of Global Ads at Google. We discuss the profound impact of generative AI on search behavior and the technological evolution required to support the next era of digital advertising. Among other things, we discuss:How the shift from keyword-based search to conversational intent will redefine the core mechanics of performance marketing attributionWhether the increased monetization of long-tail conversational queries can offset the potential traffic loss for traditional web publishersWhat role LLM-based ad ranking plays in reducing irrelevant placements and improving the overall efficiency of digital campaignsIf the consolidation of advertising tools into automated systems like Performance Max represents the final end of manual controlWhy the emergence of universal commerce protocols might eventually allow AI agents to handle the entire checkout process autonomouslyHow the return to marketing mix modeling and first-party data signals a broader renaissance in rigorous measurement techniquesThanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠⁠⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming backInterested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:YouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Ben Sperry, a senior scholar at the International Center for Law and Economics, to explore the shifting landscape of social media litigation. We dive deep into recent court rulings in California and New Mexico that challenge the historical protections of Section 230 by focusing on product design rather than hosted content (see a recent piece by Ben, "Treating Speech as a Bug, Not a Feature," for more background). Among other things, we discuss:Why the shift from content-based liability to product design claims might permanently dismantle the protections afforded by Section 230How the threat of punitive damages may force platforms to implement aggressive age-gating and collateral censorship measuresWhether applying product liability standards to algorithmic recommendation features creates friction with First Amendment principlesWhether smaller tech entrants and startups can survive a legal environment defined by constant litigation and high compliance costsWhat the recent jury verdicts against Meta and Google signal for the future of algorithmic curation across the broader internet ecosystemWhen the focus on addictive design features like infinite scroll will begin to impact other services like streaming platformsHow generative AI and large language models will be categorized under speech laws if Section 230 remains inapplicableThanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠⁠⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming backInterested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.

The Prosperous Society is a podcast series by Mobile Dev Memo that articulates an AI Bull Thesis for the digital economy. It argues that the pervasive application of AI to the digital economy will be broadly economically expansionary, leading to increased individual prosperity, expanded consumer choice, and greater human agency.In Episode 2, I argue that the Western political economy treats commerce as a primary mechanism of individual expression, and that artificial intelligence has the capacity to make commerce more expressive as an outward representation of the individual. In this way, the personalization promise of AI should be embraced and amplified, and applications of AI that subsume commerce, or treat it as a chore, are misaligned with the core benefits of AI. By contrast, advertising aligns incentives, incorporates private value through bids, and scales across heterogeneous products and margins, making it the more durable and effective model for product discovery in an AI-driven economy.

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Felix The, SVP of Product and Engineering - Advertising at Unity, to discuss the inner workings of Unity's Vector product and the strategic integration of engine-level data into the advertising ecosystem. We explore how Unity is rebuilding its machine learning infrastructure to provide more granular predictions and better performance for mobile gaming advertisers. Among other things, we discuss:How the integration of real-time game engine signals can improve user acquisition performance for mobile game advertisersWhy the shift toward massive unified models represents a fundamental departure from the traditional fragmented approach to machine learningWhether the use of runtime data provides a decisive competitive advantage over traditional software development kit signals for predictive modelingWhat the transition from manual creative production to generative exploration means for the long-term sustainability of performance marketing budgetsIf the ability to test core gameplay loops through playables before full development can significantly reduce traditional soft launch riskHow personalized creative units tailored to micro-cohorts will solve the persistent challenge of declining engagement in broad audience targetingThanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠⁠⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming backVoyantis. Voyantis uses predictive AI to transform customer value into high-impact signals that boost ROAS across Google, Meta, and more.Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Christina Augustine, the COO of Bloomreach, to discuss the rapidly evolving landscape of AI-enabled personalization in digital marketing and e-commerce. We explore how the shift from predictive models to generative agents is fundamentally changing how brands interact with consumers across multiple touchpoints. Among other things, we discuss:How agentic commerce tools will redefine the traditional customer journey beyond simple search and browse functionsWhether real-time behavioral signals can replace static cohort-based segmentation for truly individualized marketingWhat role Answer Engine Optimization will play in the future of organic discovery as search habits shiftWhy data quality remains the primary bottleneck for brands attempting to deploy sophisticated AI personalization at scaleIf conversational shopping interfaces can significantly reduce product return rates by improving consumer purchase confidenceHow marketers should balance the high cost of personalized SMS with the broader reach of email campaignsWhen the industry will transition from defensive data siloing to a more integrated cross-channel signal environmentThanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming backInterested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:YouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Michael Komasinski, the CEO of Criteo, to explore the rapidly evolving landscape of agentic commerce and the critical role of recommendation systems in the AI era. We delve into how Criteo is positioning itself as a commerce intelligence layer for AI assistants and the technical distinctions between large language models and purpose-built recommendation engines. Among other things, we discuss:Criteo's recently announced advertising partnership with OpenAIWhether agentic commerce will transition from assisted shopping to fully autonomous purchase decisions without human oversightHow recommendation systems based on purchase data outperform large language models in providing accurate product discoveryIf retailers will eventually trust AI agents to manage complex fulfillment and brand trust in conversational environmentsWhy the integration of semantic language models and high-volume reward algorithms defines the future of digital commerceCriteo GO, Criteo's automated advertising platformHow the partnership between specialized advertising technology and generative AI platforms will reshape the global discovery layerThanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming backInterested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Joost van Dreunen, the CEO of Aldora, an adjunct professor at NYU, and the author of the SuperJoost Playlist blog as well as the book One Up. We dive into the profound impact of generative artificial intelligence on the video game industry, exploring the immediate market reactions to new tools and the long-term implications for creative production. Among other things, we discuss:How generative AI models like Google's Genie will actually transform the fundamental mechanics of interactive game enginesWhy public markets reacted so aggressively to experimental AI tools by devaluing established gaming and advertising stocksWhether the reduction of production costs through AI will lead to a surplus of mediocre content for consumersIf game companies are making a mistake by prioritizing technical metrics over the cultural and creative aspects of developmentWhat happens to the cost of gaming hardware when AI companies compete for the same high-end chipsets and resourcesHow a move toward smaller, local language models could eventually disrupt the institutional power of large technology corporationsWhen the focus will shift from simple cost efficiency to utilizing AI for creating genuinely new consumer demandThanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming backInterested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.

The Prosperous Society is a podcast series by Mobile Dev Memo that articulates an AI Bull Thesis for the digital economy. It argues that the pervasive application of AI to the digital economy will be broadly economically expansionary, leading to increased individual prosperity, expanded consumer choice, and greater human agency.In Episode 1, I argue that AI production tools will catalyze dramatic growth in output, rendering content distribution as the primary binding constraint for commercial traction. This will accelerate growth in total digital advertising spend in support of product discovery and result in a proliferation of free software, more relevant ads, and higher levels of value offered to consumers through digital experiences.Thanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming backInterested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:YouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify

In the latest installment of the MDM Mailbag series, I speak with Matej Lancaric, a well-known mobile gaming user acquisition consultant, a co-host of the two & a half gamers podcast, and the author of the Brutally Honest blog.As a reminder: MDM Mailbag episodes center on a guest Q&A, with questions sourced directly from the MDM community.Matej and I discuss a wide variety of topics over the course of our conversation, including:Creative strategy, including Matej's recent primer on integrating AI tools into the creative production processWeb onboarding and web-based user acquisition for mobile gamesThe analytics and reporting tools Matej sees used most commonlyApproaches to competitor analysisThe current mobile gaming conference landscape and which conferences Matej considers to be "can't miss."Thanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming backInterested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:YouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify

In this episode of the podcast, I discuss the long-term effects of brand advertising with Carl Mela and Ross Link. Carl Mela is the T. Austin Finch Foundation Professor of Business Administration at Duke University and one of the leading academics in the field of quantitative marketing and consumer choice. Ross Link is the CEO of Marketing Attribution, having previously served as the President of Global Marketing ROI Solutions at Nielsen. Carl and Ross provide a balanced perspective on brand marketing and measurement from both academic and industry lenses. Among other things, our discussion covers:What firms get wrong about brand measurement, both from an analytical and a conceptual standpointThe most common internal political issues that Ross sees arise around marketing measurement within organizationsThe non-obvious stakeholders for marketing measurement within an organizationHow marketing teams can implement the two brand-performance measures that Carl introduced in his seminal Harvard Business Review piece, If Brands Are Built Over Years, Why Are They Managed Over Quarters?The differences in approaches to marketing measurement taken across verticals for successful companiesThe benefits and drawbacks of the various established methods of measuring long-term marketing effects  The tools available to a CMO to make the case for the long-term effects of brand advertising for a nascent brandThanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming backInterested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:YouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify

My guest on this week's episode of the podcast is Rishabh Jain, the CEO and co-founder of FERMÀT Commerce, an eCommerce advertising optimization platform. I invited Rishabh back to the podcast to discuss OpenAI's recent announcement that it will bring advertising to ChatGPT.Among other things, we cover:The commercial potential for ads in ChatGPT.OpenAI's decision to launch ChatGPT ads essentially as a "brand unit," with CPM pricing and little targeting or measurement functionality.How quickly ChatGPT advertising is likely to evolve past its launch form.What success looks like for ChatGPT advertising in one year's time.Thanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming backInterested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:YouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify

My guest on this episode of the podcast is Karl Stillner, the CEO and co-founder of BrightCanary, an app that allows parents to glean insights from their children's digital activities. Note that I am an investor in BrightCanary through Heracles Capital.In this podcast, we discuss the challenge of protecting children from digital harm. Among other topics, we cover:The concerns that parents face in the current digital landscapeThe specific issues that arise with teens' use of social mediaThe tools that parents have to manage the risks faced by their children from digital productsWhether being too restrictive as a parent with digital products is a genuine riskHow active US regulators have been in creating digital protections for childrenWhether any consensus exists around the "right age" for a child to be given a smartphoneThanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming backInterested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.

My guest on this week's episode of the podcast is Alfred Succer, the founder of Nova Nuggets, which provides private, end-to-end secure operating environments for AI applications.The topic of our conversation is sovereign AI, or the importance of controlling the environment on which AI-based applications, but especially chatbots, operate. Among other things, we discuss:The definition of a sovereign AI systemThe privacy vulnerabilities inherent in web-scale LLMsThe purpose of hosting an LLM on-premises or within a company's own data environmentThe use cases that most necessitate private model training or hostingThe cost profile of private model hosting and trainingThe liabilities that companies face in sending sensitive data to publicly-accessible LLMs in their workflowsThanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming back

My guest on this week's episode of the podcast is Francesco D'Orazio, the President and Chief Product Officer at Pulsar, an audience intelligence and insights platform. The topic of our conversation is the use of AI to develop an understanding of a product's existing audience for feature planning, marketing, and optimization. Among other things, we discuss:How AI is being applied to audience development and audience insights currentlyThe difference between audience analysis for existing users and audience analysis for advertising targeting, and whether these two use cases convergeHow a team should balance efforts across optimizing a product for an existing audience versus optimizing the product to onboard new, previously unserved audiencesWho in an organization typically owns audience insights, and whether that's optimalHow audience insights combine with user-level personalizationThanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming backInterested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact ⁠⁠Marketecture⁠⁠.The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:YouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify

My guest on this episode of the podcast is Jonathan Moffie, the Head of Agentic Product at Magnite, the largest independent SSP. Moffie joined Magnite when it acquired Streamr.io, which he founded, last year.The topic of our conversation is the application of generative AI to creative production for CTV. Among other things, we discuss:How GenAI is currently being used for ad production for CTV channels, and how it compares to socialWhether a higher quality bar is applied to GenAI-produced creative for CTV than for other channelsHow well-integrated with the specific CTV platforms GenAI creative production tools must beWhether specific aspects of CTV -- such as the opportunity for dynamic, in-stream product placements -- lend themselves to GenAI creativeThe most substantive barriers to entry for CTV for advertisersThe most pervasive misconception that advertisers have about CTVThanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming backInterested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact ⁠⁠Marketecture⁠⁠.The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:YouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify

My guest on this week's episode of the podcast is Amanda Engelman, Shopify's Director of Product for Advertising. The topic of the episode is the recently announced Shopify Product Network, which allows merchants to insert recommendations for products they don't sell into their own storefronts, sourced from other Shopify Merchants.But don't call it an ad network! In our discussion, among other things, we cover:An overview of the Shopify Product Network (SPN)How Shopify merchants have reacted to SPN since its launchHow payment works for merchants that host product recommendationsHow product exclusion and targeting are managedThe ultimate distribution potential for SPN and whether it serves as a complement to third-party ads or could replace them altogether for some merchantsWhether SPN could be expanded to third-party surfaces.Thanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.⁠Universal Ads⁠ is Comcast's self-serve TV ads platform that lets you launch campaigns in minutes across premium inventory from NBC, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, Roku, and more.Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact ⁠⁠Marketecture⁠⁠.

In this week's episode of the podcast, I speak with Peter Stuart, the founder of Velora Digital, which publishes Velora Cycling, a new media outlet focused on the sport of cycling. Velora Digital has adopted an AI-first philosophy and integrates AI tools thoughtfully and fundamentally into its publishing process. I've known Peter since we both studied at University College London many years ago — he has spent his career in publishing, most recently serving as the editor of Cyclingnews, the world's largest road cycling and pro cycling website.In this episode, we discuss:⁠⁠What it means to be an AI-first media companyWhat core editorial principles Velora is organized aroundVelora's editorial processAt what point in the editorial process it is necessary to have a human in the loopThe role that disclosure of AI-generated content / assets playsThe skepticism that Velora has faced since launching.Thanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.⁠Universal Ads⁠ is Comcast's self-serve TV ads platform that lets you launch campaigns in minutes across premium inventory from NBC, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, Roku, and more.Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact ⁠⁠Marketecture⁠⁠.The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:Apple PodcastsSpotify

In this episode of the podcast, I speak with Anindya Ghose from NYU and Vilma Todri from Emory University about their recent paper, The Impact of Visual Generative AI on Advertising Effectiveness, which is available in pre-print. In the paper, Anindya, Vilma, and the other authors assess the performance efficacy of three types of ad creative: Creative entirely crafted by humans;Creative crafted by humans but modified by generative AI;Creative entirely created by generative AI. The authors also quantify the impact of disclosing that creative was produced by generative AI tools. In the paper, the authors run a field experiment (buying display impressions on Google Display Network) as well as a lab study where they collect qualitative data. We discuss the results of these in the podcast.In addition, we cover:The genesis of this paper and the motivation to explore this topic;The four research questions the authors pursue in the paper;The methodology used to interrogate those questions;The principal conclusions from the studies the authors ran;The authors' finding that lower creative constraints on the genAI tool led to better results;Possible explanations for why a Generative AI tool benefits from total control with the visual modality whereas textual generation performs better with a structured, chain-of-thought process.Thanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.⁠Universal Ads⁠ is Comcast's self-serve TV ads platform that lets you launch campaigns in minutes across premium inventory from NBC, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, Roku, and more.Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact ⁠⁠Marketecture⁠⁠.

My guest on this episode of the podcast is Rishabh Jain, the CEO and co-founder of FERMÀT Commerce, an eCommerce advertising optimization platform. Rishabh most recently joined the podcast in June for an episode of the MDM Mailbag.In this episode, Rishabh and I discuss the impact of chatbot discovery on eCommerce sales, including over Black Friday. Among other things, we speak about:The current state of AI search with respect to eCommerce, and how are chatbots are influencing eCommerce purchases nowThe likely trajectory of "agentic commerce" over the next 12-18 monthsHow eCommerce retailers are adapting to chatbots and other forms of AI searchChatGPT's Instant Checkout and whether that reflects a durable business opportunity for OpenAI or other companiesThanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.⁠Universal Ads⁠ is Comcast's self-serve TV ads platform that lets you launch campaigns in minutes across premium inventory from NBC, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, Roku, and more.Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact ⁠⁠Marketecture⁠⁠.The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:Apple PodcastsSpotify

My guest on this episode of the podcast is Mikołaj Barczentewicz, a professor of law at the University of Surrey and the author of EU Tech Reg, a blog dedicated to following developments in the EU regulatory machinery. In this episode, Mikołaj and I discuss the digital omnibus package that was recently proposed by the European Commission and which aims to reform and simplify, among many other things, the GDPR. A draft version of the digital omnibus had been leaked a few weeks before we spoke, but we waited until the formal version was unveiled by the EC to record this podcast.Among other things, we cover:The genesis of the Digital Omnibus package: why was it proposed in the first place, and what it aims to achieve;The specific changes to the GDPR proposed in the package;The scope of the opposition to GDPR reform;The implications of digital omnibus reforms on the EU's domestic AI industry;Whether any genuine progress been made against the recommendations made by last year's Draghi report;The current status of Pay or Okay in the EU and in the UK;Whether the DMA might be softened in response to pressure from the Trump administration.Thanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.⁠Universal Ads⁠ is Comcast's self-serve TV ads platform that lets you launch campaigns in minutes across premium inventory from NBC, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, Roku, and more.Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact ⁠⁠Marketecture⁠⁠.The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:Apple PodcastsSpotify

My guest on this episode of the podcast is Simon Whitcombe, the Vice President, Global Business Group at Meta. We discuss Meta's Business AI and the Meta AI business assistant, both of which were announced ahead of this year's AdWeek. I unpacked the potential of these tools to help advertisers cross the "ad-product divide" in Can Meta cross the ad-product divide?; in this episode, Simon and I deliberate on the non-advertising opportunity with platform AI tools like these.Among other things, we cover:How Meta is bringing AI to bear for its advertising clients in non-advertising use cases;Other potential ways that Meta's AI tools can be used for optimizing advertisers' products or understanding of advertising performance;Meta's recent whitepaper on GEM, and whether Meta's attitude toward transparency with these types of systems has changed over time (especially in light of recent speculation about its Q3 update to Andromeda);How advertisers are using creative generation tools to expand creative diversity (versus merely increasing output volume);The tenor of feedback that Meta is getting from advertisers about Meta's AI business tools, and whether that feedback differs by company size, company category, geographic region, etc.;How the digital advertising landscape has evolved since COVID.Thanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.⁠Universal Ads⁠ is Comcast's self-serve TV ads platform that lets you launch campaigns in minutes across premium inventory from NBC, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, Roku, and more.Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact ⁠⁠Marketecture⁠⁠.

In this episode of the podcast, which is a companion to ⁠Affiliate links, personalized ads, and chatbot revenue optimization⁠, I discuss the need for OpenAI to discover a scalable, durable revenue model, given its status as the avatar for artificial intelligence as a transformative economic and social force. I then make the case for why personalized, conversion-optimized advertising is a superior business model for chatbots than affiliate distribution.Thanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:Xsolla. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.INCRMNTAL⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Universal Ads is Comcast's self-serve TV ads platform that lets you launch campaigns in minutes across premium inventory from NBC, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, Roku, and more.Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact ⁠Marketecture⁠.

My guest on this episode of the podcast is Luca Fiaschi, a machine learning expert who previously held executive data science roles at MistPlay, StitchFix, and HelloFresh. Luca is now a Partner for the Generative AI vertical at PyMC Labs, a consultancy that specializes in the application of Bayesian methods to business problems and which maintains the open source PyMC library for Bayesian statistical modeling as well as the open source PyMC Marketing media mix modeling library. The subject of my discussion with Luca is PyMC Labs' recent paper, LLMs Reproduce Human Purchase Intent via Semantic Similarity Elicitation of Likert Ratings. I found the paper fascinating and wrote an overview on LinkedIn; the paper's authors (from PyMC Labs as well as Colgate) use an LLM to score product concepts, finding that the distribution of LLM-produced scores can be comparable to that produced by human panels.Among other things, the podcast episode covers:Background on the paper, and how the partnership with Colgate-Palmolive came about.An overview of the LLM querying methodologies used in the paper and how they produced score distributions.The approaches used in the paper for calculating similarities between the LLM-produced and human-produced scores.The conclusions / findings of the paper.What the implications of the paper are on marketing creative ideation and the use of LLMs for evaluating product and advertising concepts.Thanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:Xsolla. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.INCRMNTAL⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Universal Ads is Comcast's self-serve TV ads platform that lets you launch campaigns in minutes across premium inventory from NBC, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, Roku, and more.Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact ⁠Marketecture⁠.

The sixth installment of the Mobile Dev Memo mailbag features app monetization expert Sylvain Gauchet. Sylvain formerly served as Babbel's US Director of Revenue Strategy and now works with a number of subscription apps on revenue growth as an advisor and fractional executive. Additionally, Sylvain runs the GrowthGems newsletter, for which he scours the internet for valuable content related to growth and surfaces the most relevant and actionable insights from it.Thanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:Xsolla. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.INCRMNTAL⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Universal Ads is Comcast's self-serve TV ads platform that lets you launch campaigns in minutes across premium inventory from NBC, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, Roku, and more.Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact ⁠Marketecture⁠.

In this week's episode of the podcast, I speak with Daphne Tideman, a product growth expert who runs the Growth Waves newsletter. The topic of our conversation is "zero-to-one growth": the tactics developers can utilize to validate and optimize their product to ultimately enable scaled user acquisition.Among other things, we cover:The purpose of early audience validationHow monetization can be validated without actually being implemented in a productHow developers can assess product-market fit at various points in the development cycleHow a developer can recognize that their optimal audience isn't being servedHow user feedback can contribute to a developer's understanding of product-market fitWhether and how a developer can quantify the scale of their product's opportunityHow to recognize product-market fit in the soft launch / beta stageThanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:Xsolla. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.INCRMNTAL⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Universal Ads is Comcast's self-serve TV ads platform that lets you launch campaigns in minutes across premium inventory from NBC, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, Roku, and more.Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact ⁠Marketecture⁠.The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:Apple PodcastsSpotify

In this week's episode of the podcast, I speak with Kate Minogue, a fractional CPO and advisor for consumer and ad tech companies. Kate also runs the AI Leadership Lab, an AI leadership course. Previously, Kate worked in marketing measurement at Meta. This episode is the fifth installment of the MDM Mailbag series, in which I bring experts onto the podcast to answer questions fielded from the Mobile Dev Memo community.The questions posed to Kate related to:The nature of being a fractional executive (including incentive alignment, compensation, and time commitment)Ad monetization for chatbotsHow companies can establish defensible moats when development costs are eroded through AI toolsThe capabilities needed to optimize AI-native productsHow AI-native apps should design for engagementThanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:Xsolla. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.INCRMNTAL⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Universal Ads is Comcast's self-serve TV ads platform that lets you launch campaigns in minutes across premium inventory from NBC, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, Roku, and more.Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact ⁠Marketecture⁠.

My guest on this week's episode of the podcast is Dan Pantelo, the CEO and founder of Marpipe, a platform that enables eCommerce companies to build dynamic product ads. In our conversation, we discuss:The necessity of exhaustive creative experimentation in eCommerce advertisingWhether and how advertisers can create an effective feedback loop between advertising creative and product design / product conceptingCurrent best practices with ad creative testingHow AI can be applied to creative production currentlyThe general health of the D2C ecosystemThanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:Xsolla. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.INCRMNTAL⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Universal Ads is Comcast's self-serve TV ads platform that lets you launch campaigns in minutes across premium inventory from NBC, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, Roku, and more.Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact ⁠Marketecture⁠.The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:Apple PodcastsSpotify

In this episode of the podcast, I speak with The Wall Street Journal's Tim Higgins about his new book, iWar: Fortnite, Elon Musk, Spotify, WeChat, and Laying Siege to Apple's Empire. iWar traces a series of campaigns launched against Apple's control of the iOS App Store, including those from Spotify, Epic, Meta, and Elon Musk. Higgins chronicles the rise of the App Store from its launch in 2008, contextualizing Apple's vigorous defense of its iOS business practices with its broader pattern of testing the boundaries of legal and ethical standards.Thanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:Xsolla. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.INCRMNTAL⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Universal Ads is Comcast's self-serve TV ads platform that lets you launch campaigns in minutes across premium inventory from NBC, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, Roku, and more.Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact ⁠Marketecture⁠.

In this episode of the podcast, I speak with Daniel McCarthy on the topic of Customer Lifetime Value (LTV / CLV). This is Daniel's second appearance on the podcast; he first joined me in April to discuss his paper, Evaluating the Impact of Privacy Regulation on E-Commerce Firms: Evidence from Apple's App Tracking Transparency.In this episode, Daniel provides an overview of the CLV / LTV metric. Among other topics, we cover:The concept of LTVThe commonalities observed across companies that utilize LTV successfullyThe analytical challenges in deriving LTVWhich functional team within an organization should own the LTV metricThe right dimensionality / granularity of user segmentation to use in calculating LTVThe ways in which companies overcomplicate the LTV calculationHow the LTV metric can be kept currentWhether improvements to LTV through product or marketing optimization over time should be assumed when calculating LTVThanks to the sponsor of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:INCRMNTAL⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Universal Ads is Comcast's self-serve TV ads platform that lets you launch campaigns in minutes across premium inventory from NBC, Paramount, Warner Brothers Discovery, Roku, and more.Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact ⁠Marketecture⁠.The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:Apple PodcastsSpotify

In this episode of the podcast, I speak with Adam Singer about the general trend of brands pivoting their marketing strategies into anodyne and agreeable positioning (and why brands succeed when they don't). Adam is the VP of Marketing at AdQuick and runs the Hot Takes blog.Among other things, Adam and I discuss:The "blandification" of marketingWhy AI output won't displace creativityWhat David Ogilvy would think of the current state of marketingThe role of a CMO and how it should be evaluated The backlash from marketers against the recent American Eagle ad campaignWhat went wrong with Crack Barrel's rebrandThanks to the sponsor of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:INCRMNTAL⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact ⁠Marketecture⁠.

In this episode of the podcast, I speak with Andrew Lipsman, an independent analyst in the retail media space and the author of Media, Ads + Commerce. Andrew and I discuss the prospects for -- and the futility of -- agentic commerce. Among other things, our conversation covers:The definition of 'agentic commerce'The 'fundamental flaws' in agentic commerce from a conceptual and commercial standpointWhether independent agents can capably fulfill commercial transactions if platforms like Amazon and Shopify block themWhether open web advertising is a useful analog for agentic commerceWhether agentic commerce is fundamentally at odds with consumers' interestsAmazon's own implementations of commercial agentsThanks to the sponsor of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:INCRMNTAL⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact ⁠Marketecture⁠.

In this episode of the podcast, I examine Google's Gambit: its effort to transition Search from a distribution intermediary to an engagement sink. Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode products seek to retain users in the Search experience, rather than forwarding them to external destinations. Many publishers claim that their inbound traffic from Google Search has plummeted, with expectations that this traffic will eventually decline to zero.I've described Google's ambitions with AI Overviews and AI Mode as Google's Gambit: an attempt to utterly reform the core Search experience through AI functionality while not alienating users. In this episode, I unpack Google's motivations behind this gambit and attempt to outline its broader impact on the open web. I also consider this product strategy within the broader context of consumer engagement shifting from web-based content to LLM-empowered chatbots.

In this episode of the podcast, I speak with Itai Kafri on the topic of signal engineering. Itai is the Head of Product Growth at Voyantis and previously held senior roles at TikTok and ironSource. I've defined signal engineering as "the process of designing and capturing high-quality outcome proxies (eg., pLTV) so they can be reported back to ad platforms in real time such that those platforms optimize campaign targeting for them." Given the rise of platform-integrated automation, signal engineering is an emerging and increasingly critical tactic in digital marketing.In my conversation with Itai, we consider:The purpose and goal of signal engineering.How platform automation (eg., ASC, PMax) has intensified the value of signal engineering.Whether signal engineering is best accomplished using existing events or by experimenting with new, purpose-built events.Who within the organization is best positioned to manage the signal engineering experimentation process.What a team should aim to proxy with signal engineering.The different approaches that various types of advertisers take with signal engineering, eg., mobile games vs. ecomm vs. subscription apps.The commonalities that exist amongst the companies that have seen the most commercial success with signal engineering.Thanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:INCRMNTAL⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.ContextSDK. ContextSDK uses over 200 smartphone signals to detect a user's real-world context, allowing apps to deliver perfectly timed push notifications and in-app offers.Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact ⁠Marketecture⁠.The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:Apple PodcastsSpotify

In this episode of the podcast, I speak with Chris Hewish, the President of Xsolla, a payments and merchandising platform for video games. Chris previously held senior roles at Skydance, DreamWorks, and Activision.In our discussion, Chris and I discuss the recent changes to mobile platform payment policy implemented by both Apple and Google as a result of Epic's lawsuits. Among other topics, our conversation covers:The history of off-platform payments on mobile.How interest in off-platform payments has changed as a result of Apple's recent App Store policy updates.The types of products for which off-platform transactions convert best.The "trust premium" that a developer must possess to implement off-platform payments successfully.The most common mistakes developers make with off-platform payments.How conversion rates tend to change with off-platform payments relative to native payments.The best practices for off-platform storefront management.Thanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:INCRMNTAL⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.ContextSDK. ContextSDK uses over 200 smartphone signals to detect a user's real-world context, allowing apps to deliver perfectly timed push notifications and in-app offers.Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact ⁠Marketecture⁠.

In this week's episode of the MDM podcast, I speak with Adam Epstein, the CEO of Gigi, an AI-enabled automation tool for the Amazon DSP. Following Amazon's announcement in June of identity partnerships with both Roku and Disney (which I cover in Amazon is CTV's data engine), Adam and I focus our conversation on Amazon's strategic positioning with its advertising business across Amazon Prime Video, sponsored on-site advertising, and the Amazon DSP. Among other topics, we discuss:An overview of the partnerships that Amazon announced with Roku and Disney at CannesWhy Amazon's dataset is a natural fit for CTV, and whether its audience data alone can be a principal driver of growth in that marketHow Amazon's AI-enabled automation products, Brand+ and Performance+, differ from those offered by Meta and GoogleWhether Amazon is fundamentally supply-constrainedThe ecosystem of advertising-focused AI toolsThe non-obvious ways that Amazon is approaching growth in non-endemic advertisingMisconceptions related to Amazon's advertising business?Thanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:INCRMNTAL⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.ContextSDK. ContextSDK uses over 200 smartphone signals to detect a user's real-world context, allowing apps to deliver perfectly timed push notifications and in-app offers.Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact ⁠Marketecture⁠.

In this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Ari Paparo, whose new book, Yield, is currently on pre-sale (see my review here). Yield follows Google's growth in the "open web display market", starting with its acquisition of DoubleClick and ending with the company being found guilty of abusing its monopoly power in the "ad tech" antitrust suit brought against it by the Department of Justice.But Yield also documents the history of modern digital advertising, from the advent of the advertising exchange to cookie targeting to yield management. The book provides a fascinating and engaging chronology of the events that shaped the internet economy, anchored to the characters that participated in them.In this episode, among other things, Ari and I discuss:The atmosphere in early 2000s-era New York as programmatic advertising took shapeHow and why Facebook's business model diverged from Google'sThe flaws in the open web advertising business model and whether the current state of the open web was pre-ordainedAdditionally, we discuss Ari's current venture, Marketecture, which is hosting its next event, Marketecture Live, in New York in October. I'll be presenting a keynote at the event, and tickets are currently available for purchase.Thanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:INCRMNTAL⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.ContextSDK. ContextSDK uses over 200 smartphone signals to detect a user's real-world context, allowing apps to deliver perfectly timed push notifications and in-app offers.Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact ⁠Marketecture⁠.The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:Apple PodcastsSpotify

In this week's episode, I speak with David Barnard, a well-known independent app developer, the host of the Sub Club podcast, and the Growth Advocate at RevenueCat. This is the fourth installment of the MDM Mailbag series, where questions for guests are sourced from the Mobile Dev Memo community.Among other things, we discuss:The viability of link-out following Apple's policy change and how developers are integrating it;How independent app developers can build sustainable businesses;Retention strategies for subscription apps;When developers should utilize subscription monetization versus other forms.Thanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:INCRMNTAL⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.ContextSDK. ContextSDK uses over 200 smartphone signals to detect a user's real-world context, allowing apps to deliver perfectly timed push notifications and in-app offers.Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact ⁠Marketecture⁠.