Apptivate For The Record Awards - Edition I

We’ve compiled a list of our best-performing and most engaging Apptivate episodes to acknowledge the inspirational people behind the podcast mic in 2024. The show would be nothing without the brilliant minds of those who take time out of their schedules to share their insights, tips, tricks, and personal journeys. You’ll find the full results below, along with links to conversations you may have missed.

Apptivate has a dedicated listener base of mobile marketers, app developers, and digital advertising professionals who tune in from all corners of the globe to hear about the latest goings on in ad tech. The show published 26 episodes in 2024, welcoming guests from top-ranking apps, brands, and agencies, to measurement partners, industry publications, and data platforms.

Here’s an overview in numbers:

The Apptivate For The Record Edition I includes podcast episodes published on remerge.io during the period from January 1 to December 31, 2024. The results are based on unique listens and downloads from Remerge’s podcast management and analytics platform, along with post performance metrics provided by LinkedIn.

This award goes to the top three Apptivate episodes with the highest number of combined downloads and listens in the first four weeks after its publication date. Congratulations to our winners!

• Roy Yanai, VP of Product at AppsFlyer
• Toby Espinosa, VP of Ads at DoorDash
• Allison Schiff, Managing Editor at AdExchanger

In Episode 188, Roy Yanai explains what happened when Apple launched its App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework in 2021 and analyzes the events that have followed in the years since it shook the mobile app ecosystem. What does the latest opt-in data tell us? How does Google’s Protected Audience API work? What does Apple’s new AdAttributionKit change? Get the answers in this episode.

Remerge Co-founder and CEO Pan Katsukis interviews Toby Espinosa on stage at the App Growth Summit in San Francisco to learn about the rise of DoorDash, one of the largest on-demand companies in the world. Hear about its humble beginnings in Palo Alto, how it flipped the paradigm for helping restaurants and small businesses to grow through their advertising platform, and where they are today with their retail media network.

Staying on top of Apple's and Google’s privacy updates is crucial for advertisers and essential for the future of the entire marketing industry. Allison Schiff offers her take on the state of mobile privacy and how to prepare for what’s ahead. Tune in to learn more about the impact of ATT and the Android Privacy Sandbox.

This award recognizes the Apptivate episodes with the highest engagement rates on social media. Congratulations to our top 3, whose launch posts on LinkedIn racked up an impressive number of impressions, comments, reactions, and shares:

• Kevin Kawai, Lead Growth Marketer at Newsbreak
• Josh Peleg, Head of Business Development and Mergers & Acquisitions at BlueThrone
• Sylvain Etard, Senior Gaming Growth Manager at Tilting Point

With so many factors to consider when bringing a new app to market, where should marketers focus their time and attention to maximize return on investment? To answer this question, Taylor Lobdell interviewed Kevin Kawai, a seasoned growth marketer with over ten years of experience. In this episode, Kevin shares tips on how to build lifecycle and paid user acquisition strategies, manage paid advertising, and analyze performance metrics.

Josh Peleg spills the beans on how to increase the odds of an app being acquired, what acquisition companies might be looking for in an app, and what to think about when evaluating potential buyers.

Increased competition and sky-high seasonality costs have made getting a mobile game in front of new users on Google, Meta, and other major advertising networks incredibly hard. In this episode, Sylvain Etard shares how he manages this challenge by working with alternative vendors and channels, such as Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs), CTV, and rewarded networks.

This award is exclusively for mobile gaming-focused episodes. It goes to the episode with the highest number of combined downloads and listens in the first 4 weeks after its publication date. Congratulations to our top 3 most popular mobile gaming episodes:

• Richard Eiseman, former Marketing Tech Operations Specialist at DraftKings
• Günay Azer, Co-founder of Gamelight
• Gokce Oguz, Co-founder of Playable Factory

In episode 189, Richard Eiseman discusses the current landscape of ad attribution, touching on Apple’s AdAttributionKit, learnings from early tests of SKAN 4, the possible end of fingerprinting, and a whole lot more. Listen for insights from Draftkings, one of the world’s biggest fantasy sports betting companies.

Gamelight is a user acquisition platform for mobile game developers and a game recommendation platform for gamers. Hear from Günay Azer as she explains how UA managers are leveraging tech to pair users with mobile games that they’ll love.

Gokce Oguz is the co-founder of Playable Factory, a company creating playable ads for gaming studios and app businesses. Tune into this episode to learn how to use playable ads and the best ways to take a mobile ad strategy to the next level.

A special mention to one of our favorite Apptivate moments from 2024. This award goes to the episode featuring some of the best advice and takeaways for app marketers.

How do you know you’re on the best path to growing your app? Michelle Murcia, the Head of Growth at Storybeat (a comprehensive image-editing app for social content), unpacks this question for mobile marketers. Michelle discusses the stages, frameworks, and methodologies that she considers essential for driving growth and revenue on mobile.

The Remerge team would like to extend a huge thank you to all of our amazing Apptivate guests who brought their knowledge and expertise to the show. You'll find their stories directly below or via your preferred streaming platform.

• Lana Dubinskiy: Getting started with AI for e-commerce app marketers
• David Murphy: Learning from mobile marketing’s humble beginnings
• Seif Hassan: Acquisition strategies to beat seasonal dips
• Laura Schwarz: Women in mobile: Closing the tech industry’s gender gap
• Janos Perei: How the Subway Surfers game handles user privacy
• Catherine Perloff: Inside the mobile marketing industry’s no-ID world
• Amadeus Norén: Building your in-app community
• Gaylord Zach and Trenton Starkey: Pioneering on-device bidding - Android Privacy Sandbox
• Thomas Kriebernegg: Next-level ASO - How AI is revolutionizing app discovery
• Diego Salazar and Daniela ‘Dani’ Aschentrupp: Full-funnel strategies for mobile marketing
• Paul Kovalski: The science behind media mix optimization
• Peter Hamilton: CTV and the next frontier in app growth marketing
• Alex Song: Overcoming marketing signal loss by testing audiences
• Drew Hampton: App marketing with data-based storytelling

Josh Peleg from Bluethrone was a fantastic guest. Very knowledgeable with high energy, which made for a really entertaining and engaging discussion. My conversation with Josh was very informative. For instance, I wasn't aware that a cottage industry existed around buying and selling privately owned apps.

I'm looking forward to more thought-provoking conversations with leading brands and tech providers in 2025.

I haven't had a bad guest on the podcast and it's too hard to pick an absolute favorite. I really enjoyed Toby Espinosa's episode though. Toby has worked at DoorDash for a long time and it was great hearing the origin stories of the company and how it has evolved over time.

Ad tech is such a fast-changing industry, so I like asking how everyone learns. Most people recommended really helpful websites, blogs and industry newsletters (shoutout to Mobile Dev Memo, Business of Apps, and MarketingDive). I liked what Alex Song from Proxima had to say on the show: “I think the main difference in my learning curve really came from the speed at which I was willing to be wrong and then to learn from it."

I’m looking forward to continuing great conversations with the top minds in the mobile industry and also bringing some new fun segments to the show.

With over 200 episodes under its belt, the Apptivate podcast by Remerge has become a reference point for marketers worldwide. We invite experts and influencers from all verticals and regions to chat about the hottest tech trends and developments, as well as their experiences navigating the mobile industry.

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