Mobile Dev Memo Podcast

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by my friend Nebojsa Radovic, the Senior Director of Mobile User Acquisition at Zynga and a battle-hardened mobile marketing veteran. In the course of our conversation, we discuss the evolution of mobile user acquisition from the era of manual campaign configuration to the contemporary operating environment of automated, AI-driven workflows. We reflect on how the industry has shifted from highly technical, high-headcount operations toward lean, specialist teams focused principally on creative optimization and signal engineering. Among other things, we cover:
How AI-driven automation will permanently redefine the technical requirements for marketing roles
Whether the consolidation of major ad networks will eventually stifle innovation within independent mobile gaming studios
Why high-volume creative production has become the primary lever for performance in an algorithmic buying environment
If traditional media buying expertise is becoming obsolete in the face of sophisticated signal engineering strategies
What future organizational structures will look like as marketing teams become smaller and more specialized
When the industry will reach a saturation point regarding the effectiveness of cross-channel attribution models
Thanks to the sponsors of this week’s episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:
⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.
⁠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
Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.
The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:
Spotify
YouTube
Apple Podcasts

The Conversions API, or CAPI, represents a revolutionary development in the digital economy: it allows any platform with sufficient scale to extend its advertising scope beyond local context into the broader and more commercially valuable function of behavioral advertising, entirely outside of the purview of a browser or operating system. In this episode, I provide a history of the CAPI and its role in the Everything is an ad network phenomenon. I also explore the fundamental shift in the digital advertising landscape driven by the transition from browser-side pixels to the server-to-server CAPI, moving beyond the immediate impacts of Apple's App Tracking Transparency to a more permanent structural change in how commercial data is shared and utilized.
Articles cited in this episode:
Everything is an ad network
The App Tracking Transparency recession
Is CAPI future-proof?
The privacy shuffle (part one, two, three, four)
Privacy manifests, fingerprinting, and Apple’s intentions
Podcast: Meta’s Renaissance
Does Apple police fingerprinting?
Google embraces IP-based fingerprinting
Apple’s privacy “nuclear option”

Thanks to the sponsors of this week’s episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:
⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.
⁠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

Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.
The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:
Spotify
YouTube
Apple Podcasts

This week's podcast episode is a long-form companion piece to an article I published last week: The privileged position of chatbot advertising. In this episode, I make the case for why the chatbot advertising model is differentiated from those of both search and social media, feed-based display, and why it benefits from greater targeting scope through the optionality and flexibility it can utilize in determining which signals should inform that targeting, based on the context of a conversation.
Articles cited in this piece:
OpenAI’s advertising opportunity
Google's Gambit and Google’s Gambit, Part 4: The end of Static Search
Obviously, OpenAI will monetize with ads
Digital Advertising, Demand Routing, and the Millionaires’ Mall
Search is the wrong mental model for chatbot advertising
The prosperous society
Thanks to the sponsors of this week’s episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:
⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.
⁠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
Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.
The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:
Spotify
YouTube
Apple Podcasts

For the eighth installment of the MDM Mailbag series, I am joined by independent app growth consultant and advisor Thomas Petit. As a reminder: guests for MDM Mailbag episodes of the podcast are practitioners, and questions are sourced directly from the MDM community.
Thomas and I discuss the current state of measurement, the necessity of incrementality testing, and the challenges of scaling creative production in an automated environment. We also dive into the technical and ethical considerations of web-to-app funnels, as well as the ongoing legal battles surrounding app store commissions.
Among other topics, the questions Thomas fields pertain to:
Whether incrementality testing will ever completely replace deterministic last-click attribution models for large-scale mobile advertisers and networks
How the proliferation of media mix modeling vendors affects the quality of measurement insights available to smaller app developers
Why the mobile industry continues to struggle with ad fraud detection despite the availability of sophisticated third-party verification services
If the current trend toward massive creative volume is actually delivering diminishing returns for performance marketing campaigns on Meta
What the long-term impact of AI-generated video creative will be on the traditional role of performance marketing creative agencies
When the friction of web-to-app onboarding funnels becomes a secondary concern compared to the benefits of merchant flexibility
Whether Apple's proposed fifteen percent commission on external links will effectively stifle the growth of independent web-to-app payment ecosystems
Thanks to the sponsors of this week’s episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:
⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.
⁠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
Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.
The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:
Spotify
YouTube
Apple Podcasts

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Brian Albrecht, the Chief Economist at the International Center for Law and Economics. We explore the complex intersection of generative AI and labor economics, alongside a deep dive into the regulatory and economic implications of personalized pricing models. The podcast is tethered to two articles that Brian recently published: You are not a horse, from his Substack, Economic Forces; and Eliminate ‘personal pricing’ and you risk harming consumers, which he published as an op-ed in the Financial Times.
Among other things, we discuss:
Whether humans will face the same economic obsolescence as horses after the introduction of the internal combustion engine
How the redistribution of consumer savings from automated services creates new employment opportunities in diverse service sectors
If the historical stability of labor's share of income can survive the rapid advancement of generative artificial intelligence
What long-term productivity gains from previous technological revolutions reveal about the potential economic trajectory of modern AI
Why government policy responses to automation might inadvertently hinder productivity by imposing restrictive taxes on data and computation
How personalized pricing models actually improve market efficiency by reducing the deadweight loss associated with traditional discounting methods
When the public's perception of fairness in pricing conflicts with the economic reality of supply and demand for scarce resources
Thanks to the sponsors of this week’s episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:
⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.
⁠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
Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.
The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:
Spotify
YouTube
Apple Podcasts