Mobile Dev Memo Podcast

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 d...

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 ...

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 hist...

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 adve...

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 hist...

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...

In this week's episode of the podcast, I speak with Thomas Petit, a well-known mobile growth consultant, for the third installment of the MDM Mailbag series.

Questions for MDM Mailbag episodes are sourced from the MDM community; in this episode, among other things, we discuss:

• The evolution of app-to-web user acquisition following Apple's recent policy change in the US;
• Optimizing Meta ad campaigns;
• The best platforms for non-gami...

In this episode of the podcast, I argue that the total automation of digital advertising through AI enablement presents a radically economically expansive opportunity that, while certainly disruptive for certain segments of the digital advertising ecosystem, will ultimately confer significant benefits on consumers, advertisers, and advertising platforms alike.

I term the complete, end-to-end automation of digital advertising Commerc...

In this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with returning guest Mikołaj Barczentewicz on the current state of DMA enforcement, including the recently-released text of the European Commission's April decision on Meta's Pay or Okay business model. Mikołaj returns to the podcast for his fourth appearance — he’s a professor of law at the University of Surrey and holds a PhD in Law from the University of Oxford. He ...

This week’s episode of the podcast is in the MDM Mailbag format. I recruited Rishabh Jain, the CEO of eCommerce experience platform FERMÀT, to answer questions submitted by the MDM community. Among other topics, those questions related to:

• the "universal truths" of user acquisition
• a viable "self-learning path" for acquiring data analytics / data science skills
• the role of technical media buyers going forward
• th...

My guest on this podcast is Maor Sadra, the CEO and co-founder of INCMRNTAL, an advertising measurement company. Full disclosure: I was one of the first investors in INCRMNTAL.

The impetus for this conversation was a blog post that Maor recently published: I Measured Incrementality. Now What?. In this episode, among other things, we discuss:

1. Why discrete, one-off experiments are not the optimal way to measure incrementality
2. T...

In this episode of the podcast, I speak with Matt Steiner, Meta's Vice President of Monetization Infrastructure, Ranking & AI Foundations, about the application of AI to the company's advertising platform.

Among other things, we discuss:

• How ad ranking and selection are done at Meta
• The evolution and functionality of Meta's various AI-enabled ranking and selection tools, from Lattice to Andromeda to GEM
• The core...

My guest on this episode of the podcast is Brian Albrecht, the Chief Economist at the International Center for Law and Economics (ICLE). Brian holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Minnesota and is an expert on antitrust and consumer protection.

In this episode, Brian and I deliberate on the importance and application of antitrust law, as well as the current state of antitrust enforcement in the United States. Among ot...

where he covers Apple. The topic of our conversation is Patrick's new book, Apple in China, which I reviewed last week.

In the episode, Patrick provides a history of Apple's manufacturing activities in China, why Apple became so dependent on China for the production of its products, and how Apple shaped the trajectory of China as meaningfully as China shaped Apple.

Thanks to the sponsors of this week’s episode of the Mobile ...

My guest on this week's episode of the podcast is Andrew Covato, a veteran of the largest digital advertising platforms -- including Meta, Google, and Snap -- and the founder and managing director of Growth by Science, an advertising measurement and technology consultancy.

Andrew and I discuss the topic of advertising measurement broadly, including:

• The misconceptions that advertisers have about how the largest walled garden...

My guest on this episode of the podcast is Nilay Patel, the head of product at Kohort, a cohort analytics platform (full disclosure: I'm an advisor to the company). In our conversation, we discuss the profound power of cohort analysis in decision-making, not just related to marketing spend but across all disciplines within a digital-first company. Among other topics, we cover:

• The aspects of LTV estimation that companies mos...

My guest on this episode of the podcast is Olivia Kory, the Chief Strategy Officer of Haus, an advertising measurement platform. Against the backdrop of tariffs and economic uncertainty, Olivia and I discussed how firms can think about assessing the efficiency of their marketing spend. Among other topics, we cover:

• Why the open web is so foreign to many performance advertisers;
• The right way to conceive of platform A/B testing to...

This week's episode of the podcast is in a new format: MDM Mailbag. I recruited Taylor Holiday, the CEO of eCommerce advertising agency Common Thread Collective and a prominent voice on DTC Twitter, to answer questions submitted by the MDM community. Among other topics, those questions related to:

• Any visible weakness in consumer spending related to tariffs;
• The viability of AppLovin and Pinterest for eCommerce advertising;
• Th...

My guest on this week’s episode of the podcast is Daniel McCarthy, who is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. The topic of our conversation is a draft paper for which Daniel is a co-author: Evaluating the Impact of Privacy Regulation on E-Commerce Firms: Evidence from Apple’s App Tracking Transparency. I cited this paper in Could ATT be rolled back?, and we unpack ...