Interesting Reads
WWDC 2022 Recap: What's New for Mobile Growth?
It's been a few weeks now, but if you're a bit delayed in getting up to speed on all the WWDC 2022 news, here's your source for a convenient summary.
Key topics: improvements to SKAdNetwork, the latest on AppTrackingTransparency compliance, and pasteboard access changes.
Pop-ups are dead, long live pop-ups: or, the bait-and-switch hidden in today’s cookie announcement
There are two reasons to read this blog post:
- You enjoy exquisitely-composed, sharp-as-a-scalpel technical writing. In that case, read this simply for the joy of its craft (I added it to my 'Excellent Storytelling Examples' folder).
- You want an early heads-up about pending privacy regulation in the UK. In this case, it's an example of how the details of a news story don't always match the headlines…and yet another cautionary tale about what happens when regulators start getting prescriptive about tech-related topics they likely haven't thought all the way through.
Industry Buzz
Marketers Have One Year To Migrate To The New Google Analytics – But It’s Already A Mess
GA4 got a lot of airtime this week after Google announced an end-of-life date for the previous version, Universal Analytics.
This is not exactly a mobile story, but the parallels to what's going on with post-ATT measurement in mobile are striking: much less user-level visibility, a lot more modeling, and major changes to the overall paradigm of reporting.
As the story explains, getting this migration underway is a massive problem…imagine the IDFA Apocalypse, except instead of savvy mobile brands, Google is having to deal with small businesses that might not even remember exactly why they had Google Analytics in the first place.
Google, Apple, and Amazon Stifle Innovation When They Favor Their Own Products
The US congress is currently considering a new law that would ban self-preferencing from dominant tech platforms.
Obviously, that could mean a lot of things. This article explores some of the details around how this bill could impact various companies, if it passes.
Walled Gardens
Distributing apps using a third-party payment provider in South Korea
Speaking of legal requirements, South Korea is ahead of the curve when it comes to in-app payment methods, and Apple now grudgingly allows apps there to use other providers (Google also did this starting last fall).
If this seems like a déjà vu moment, that's because it is: Apple already allows the same thing for dating apps in the Netherlands.
And both are examples of Apple's 'take my toys and go home' response strategy to these situations.
I've said it it before and I'll say it again: this is the worst outcome for everyone involved. Yes, there are many issues with walled garden app stores, but there are also major benefits. This scorched-earth approach and unwillingness to engage in any sort of thoughtful compromise might allow the major platforms to delay the inevitable for a little while, but it's also a direct cause of these regulations in the first place. Longer-term, it will only lead to these examples of 'product roadmap by regulation' becoming a whole lot more prescriptive.
Data and Definitions
To continue the regulation theme, Apple's AppTrackingTransparency policy is coming under anti-trust scrutiny in more places…most recently in Germany.
This article is an in-depth analysis of why Apple's position is so self-preferential.
Privacy & Security
FCC commissioner tells Apple, Google to remove TikTok from app stores
TikTok might be the most popular app in the world right now, but it's also a political hot potato…and has been for years.
Who knows how this latest round of potato-throwing will turn out (TikTok has already provided additional assurances of change), but a big underlying issue is that the infrastructure of these platforms is simply too complex to be understood by anyone who isn't intimately involved in building or maintaining it.
For an example of this, we need look no further than this BuzzFeed exposé from a few weeks ago: despite what was clearly an exhaustive and extensive research process, this reporter (who, 'in a previous life, held policy positions at Facebook and Spotify' and is therefore presumably far more savvy on these things than a typical regulator) clearly struggles to understand how all the pieces fit together…or even what questions to ask.
Tips & Techniques
Choosing Optimal SKAdNetwork Conversion Values
Last week, Singular and Rovio put on a very informative webinar about what a winning SKAdNetwork strategy looks like at one of the world's leading game mobile studios.
If you have an hour and don't mind handing over your email address, it's definitely worth your time to watch the whole thing.
But if you just want some actionable tips on how to think about your SKAdNetwork conversion-value strategy, another great option is to read this blog post, inspired by the webinar.
App Developers, Watch Out For These CTV Advertising Blunders
Everyone in mobile is looking for new app acquisition channels, especially as the impact of ATT becomes clearer. CTV campaigns are emerging as one of the popular options.
If you're considering a CTV experiment, definitely read this first…it might help you bypass the first few 'tutorial levels' as you get started.
UX
The World's Most Satisfying Checkbox
When is a checkbox not just a checkbox?
Answer: when an Apple Design Award winner turns it into a 3D model, adds a ton of animation, designs a new sound clip, and layers on a unique haptic feedback effect.
A Short History of iOS App Icons
There are two groups of people:
- Those who learned about a squircle for the first time and immediately thought 'ahhh…I KNEW something was wrong before, and I will never be able to un-see this'.
- Those who still have no idea what a squircle is, and why it's not just a square with rounded corners.
I'm 100% in the former camp (if you are too, feel free to skip this article and instead go here to read about why the squircle feels so satisfying).
Data
Measuring campaigns on iOS
By now, most of us have accepted this reality: measurement in a post-ATT world will be different. Last-touch attribution isn't going away, but new tools are coming to fill in the gaps.
But it's still too soon to be sure what some of these next-generation tools will be. And to make matters even more confusing, two of the leading contenders — incrementality measurement and media mix modeling — often end up getting described in very similar language.
That confusion is unfortunate, because these are two different tools for two different purposes. But both require a paradigm shift in thinking for anyone who comes from the world of last-touch attribution.
If you're still getting your head around what incrementality testing IS, or even just want a peek at what the dashboard reports look like, here's a piece for you.
This Week in Apps #120 - Let's Roam Around the Cabin
'Revenge travel' is in full swing this summer.
That, of course, means download spikes for travel apps of all types (as we discussed in the last newsletter issue, many travel industry mobile websites are a not-so-great experience at best).
Events
Who’s Hiring?
Do you have a mobile growth role you’d like to share with the community?
Just fill out this form — it’s free!
- Digit | Lifecycle Marketing Manager — San Francisco, CA or remote
- Arc’teryx | Customer Lifecycle Marketing Lead — Vancouver, BC, or remote
Here in the US, the recent slew of Supreme Court decisions has kicked off waves of civil debate. Of these, the most vigorous is certainly around abortion rights.
This is a deeply important issue, and compared to events out in the real world, nothing in this newsletter really moves the needle. Even when it comes to the intersection with tech, there are far more important voices — please go read them instead, especially if it's a choice between that and the next few pages!
But if you're still here, there is something related to apps that's worth touching on: many people are suddenly reconsidering the privacy issues related to in-app data collection. Specifically, in this case, of period tracker apps.
Of the media articles I've read, almost all seem to focus on the most intuitive, first-order risks: 'based on the data tracked in an app like this, a malicious party could infer that an individual app user became pregnant and then was no longer pregnant…which could be used as evidence'. The threat vectors here could involve hacks/database leaks, or legal maneuvers to compel an app to provide raw data.
Technically, both of those are certainly possible. And it makes sense these are the risks getting airtime, because they're definitely the easiest angle for a layperson to understand. But there are also other, far less straightforward surveillance risks related to mobile app data collection, and these aren't new.
People tend to vastly underestimate the difficulty of parsing through massive datasets like this to find patterns in metadata, but that doesn't make the concerns any less significant or legitimate. Ultimately, events like these are an important reminder: even though privacy improvements often cause short-term pain and disruption for the mobile industry, it's still extremely important for all of us to make progress.
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PS, for readers in the United States: happy Fourth of July weekend!
Alex Bauer