Spotlight
Aside from the tremendous human cost, the COVID-19 pandemic has created arguably the biggest natural experiment in human history. It will certainly be the most well-documented.
Many companies have begun publishing data that shows what’s going on in the mobile ecosystem. Some of the takeaways are pretty obvious (e.g., travel is down, and grocery delivery is up), but a couple of examples particularly caught my eye this week.
WITHIN – Retail Pulse
WITHIN is a hybrid performance/branding agency, which means they have access to first-party data on advertising campaign performance. These reports focus on ecommerce, broken down into a few key sub-sectors (fashion, essentials, luxury).
I particularly like this dashboard for two reasons:
- It’s receiving regular updates.
- They’re posting an excellent editorial summary for each day (essentially, mini-blog posts with trends and actionable advice).
U.S. Consumer Activity During COVID-19 Pandemic
SafeGraph provides data for offline activity (e.g., visits to stores and restaurants) in North America, which gives an interesting counter-point to all the trends in digital/mobile.
This one is also getting daily updates. Everything is trending down — no surprise at all — but the data also shows interesting spikes (airports, hardware stores, Costco, etc.) in activity as people prepare to stay home.
Interesting Reads
Mobile in the Time of COVID-19 | The Branch Blog
Over the last few weeks, our team at Branch has spent a lot of time analyzing how COVID-19 is impacting app activity and collecting examples of how top companies have adapted.
In this blog post, we share a number of insights based on this investigation, and a variety of actionable tips. If you prefer video, we also recorded a webinar covering the same material.
Industry Buzz
Democrats say Google’s COVID-19 ad ban is a gift to Trump - Protocol
Here in the US, Democrats have long pushed for more restrictions on online political ads...but turns out this is a case of ‘be careful what you wish for’ — now their own ads are falling prey to just such a policy.
Leaving aside any specific political angle, this highlights that internet regulation is a complicated issue. And as so many of us are suddenly being forced to rely on the web for more and more of our daily routine, it’s a problem that will only become more challenging.
The AppsFlyer Performance Index: Edition X | AppsFlyer
AppsFlyer just rolled out the latest edition of their Performance Index report. My top takeaway is that the Google/Facebook duopoly continues to dominate paid campaigns (...which makes it even more important to invest in non-paid acquisition strategies!)
That said, this data is all Before COVID (can we call that B.C.?), and the landscape is certainly going to shift in the next few months as mobile brands continue dialing back on the growth-at-all-costs mentality.
Privacy & Security
Full Third-Party Cookie Blocking and More | WebKit
Somewhat buried in the noise, this announcement from the WebKit team at Apple is the culmination of several years of gradual iteration.
Personally, I have mixed views on this. I love my Apple devices, but at the same time, I can’t shake the impression that each new version of ITP is being cooked up inside an echochamber by a couple of rogue WebKit engineers. Restrictions like these are throwing out good along with the bad, and make things quantifiably harder for every company not named Apple.
On the flipside, ITP only applies inside the Safari app itself (it’s not enabled on WebViews), and there are rumors that Apple may finally allow users to set their own default app preferences in iOS 14. Perhaps users will soon have the opportunity to vote with their feet.
Data
A glimmer of good news, based on trends we’re seeing in China: while activity for some apps fell at the beginning of the pandemic, many have started to recover.
Coronavirus tracked: the latest figures as the pandemic spreads | Financial Times
This link isn’t technically about mobile growth, but these are some of the best data visualizations I’ve seen over the last few weeks.
They’re a masterclass in conveying complex information in a simple format, and behind-the-scenes insights on Twitter from creator @jburnmurdoch give interesting background into how each graph is being created.
Podcast
EP3: Vincent Saint-Martin
How to Continue Driving Growth After You've Been Acquired @ Ouicar
What does it take to build a leading Peer-to-Peer car-sharing company when the market is exploding with new competitors? How do you continue to drive growth after your company gets acquired? This, the stories of learning from failure, recruiting his first users one by one, and the decisions he made that ensured the product remained a market leader, in our third episode of “How I Grew This” with Vincent Saint-Martin of OuiCar.
Listen now: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher
Events
Mobile Growth Online
Panelists: T-Mobile, DraftKings, and Dropbox.
Where: virtual event.
When: Thursday, April 9, 10:00 AM (PDT).
Mobile Growth Online
Panelists: TELUS.
Where: virtual event.
When: Thursday, April 23, 10:00 AM (PDT)
Welcome to Mobile Growth News 2.0!
Hopefully the name of this newsletter rings a bell for you — we’ve been sending a monthly email since mid-2017, but this is a pretty significant reimagining of the format.
What’s changing? I’m Alex Bauer, and my day job is a Growth Adviser at Branch. For the last few years, I’ve been sending a more in-depth, and, er... ‘opinionated’ roundup email to my Branch colleagues. A regular request has been “can we have a version of this for our customers/partners?” With COVID-19 currently shaking our industry up like a marble inside a pinball machine, this has suddenly become more relevant than ever.
Mobile Growth News 2.0 is our attempt to provide a useful and interesting perspective of what’s going on each week in the mobile ecosystem. If you have feedback, good or bad, please hit the Reply button (or email growth@mobilegrowth.org) and let me know. I’ll read and respond to every message.
PS, if you want to refer a friend or colleague, you can find a subscription form at news.mobilegrowth.org.
PPS, if you don’t remember signing up, or don’t like the new format/frequency, there’s an Unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email. No one will be offended if you use it, I promise!
Alex Bauer