Interesting Reads
Coronavirus has changed dating apps “irreversibly”
Meeting an unknown stranger, in person, to share food/drinks, in a public place? None of those are really compatible with social distancing guidelines.
…which is why dating apps have been rushing to add things like video chat functionality (and time limits, because it’s hard to make a convenient excuse to leave a bad date when everyone knows you’re just stuck at home). But it turns out users like some of these new features so much that we’re likely to see the changes become permanent:
“The current normalisation of video communication is in one way irreversible,” says Philip Jonzon Jarl, the cofounder of Swedish dating app Relate. “There might be a new kind of pre-date step being born.”
Dark Patterns: Past, Present, and Future
This is a longer read (and my goodness...actual footnotes!), but worth it.
Here’s the premise: what happens when campaign optimizations and growth hacks go too far? When does something become an unethical dark pattern? There are plenty of examples in this piece, and it’s a reminder that great power comes with great responsibility.
Industry Buzz
Walmart says it will discontinue Jet, which it acquired for $3B in 2016
This shouldn’t really be a surprise — word on the street has long been that Walmart acquired Jet not for the brand, but rather for the expertise (case in point: today’s announcement that Walmart and Walmart Grocery are now merged into a single app).
As one comment on this article neatly summarizes:
I saw this as inevitable. When Walmart bought Jet they very quickly cannibalized a ton of their team to work on the Walmart and Walmart Grocery app. It is because of this acquisition that Walmart is where it is today in digital.
COVID probably hastened the decision though…
Uber is trying to buy Grubhub
Like ridesharing and electric scooter rentals, there’s nothing inherently differentiated about food delivery. From a consumer’s perspective, third-party food delivery services are already commoditized, but without most of the benefits (i.e., finding your favorite restaurant without needing to check five different apps).
Consolidation is probably inevitable, and Uber seems to be getting the process started with some coronavirus-supplied momentum.
Walled Gardens
New York Times phasing out all 3rd-party advertising data
Translation: The New York Times — joining Vox and The Washington Post — feels it has achieved critical mass to create its own walled garden for ad targeting, and no longer needs to rely on third-party data.
Privacy & Security
IDFA Deprecation? It May Not Be Long.
It’s time for your semi-regular reminder that Apple might get rid of the IDFA eventually. Maybe even this year…
I’m cautiously optimistic about the ecosystem changes that this will trigger, if and when it happens. That it’s taking so long to announce hopefully indicates Apple is being thoughtful about this, unlike the ongoing ITP trainwreck.
Tools
Introducing Developer Tools: Linting and CLI
Keeping user data standardized and clean is an obnoxious problem, and it only gets worse over time. Having been on both the marketing and the engineering sides of the issue, I know it can be hard to keep everyone aligned.
These new, open-source (yay!) developer tools from mParticle look like a really promising way to automate away a lot of that pain.
Tips & Techniques
How to Use Facebook Messenger One-Time Notifications to Reach Customers for Free
Back in February, Facebook launched the beta of a new API for One-Time Notifications, designed to let users sign up for a follow-up alert via Messenger (for example, to be notified when an out-of-stock item is available again).
This helpful walkthrough from MobileMonkey describes how to use the new feature. With all the disruption going on at the moment, I imagine these alerts could be a helpful way to let customers sign up for news and updates, such as when a restaurant or local business reopens. They could also be an interesting, low-overhead way to replicate some of the famous launch waiting lists we’ve seen in the app ecosystem.
UX
Many people instinctively take a screenshot when they want to share in-app content, not realizing there are usually better options.
Here’s a great way to help them out: detect the screenshot in progress and offer to add a deep link!
Webby Awards: Apps, Mobile, and Voice
The annual Webby awards have arrived, which means lots of great mobile/app examples to look at for inspiration!
Though that’s assuming you can figure out how to navigate the Webby website itself, of course...good luck.
Data
On the Branch platform, we saw the overall number of app installs jump slightly in March and April, but we’ve since returned to almost exactly the same place we were at the beginning of the year.
However, the top-line number hides some pretty significant shifts in HOW those new users are downloading. See the whole series of new graphs.
Podcast
IMVU: Lomit Patel
Creating A Lean Marketing Team Powered by AI
How do you achieve growth when the system is full of obstacles? With today’s guest, Lomit Patel, we talk about choosing to take decisive action towards your goals whether that’s in your own career or with your product. From working his way up the ladder to his dream job to having the foresight to push for utilizing AI at a time when it was still very new, Lomit has proved to be a catalyst for immense growth.
Episode Highlights
- 5:47 - Early in Lomit’s career, he took a front desk temp job while he searched for a full-time job. He found unlisted job openings at his company and cold emailed a hiring manager who got him a data analyst job 2 days before his visa expired!
- 8:37 - Lomit has a bias for taking action, instead of waiting to hear back from a traditional application he always found ways to get in touch directly with hiring decision-makers which helped him advance a lot in his career.
- 11:21 - After realizing the data at IMVU being siloed held them back from getting better decisions Lomit integrated all the data sources together. They then went to their advertising partners and applied AI to their campaigns and set up an automation that would allow the budget to increase only if certain goals were met and vice versa.
- 22:32 - On advice in the pandemic, Lomit advised not to let a job define your worth. He also shared how he got his job at Roku in 2008, he cold emailed companies who were still raising money and Roku eventually offered him a job after he emailed them.
Listen Now
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | SoundCloud | Stitcher
Events
Mobile Growth Online: India
Panelists: BigBasket and LBB.
Where: virtual event.
When: Thu, May 28, 3:00 PM (IST).
A request: please consider filling out the 2020 Mobile Growth Survey. It’s 38 questions (31 of them are multiple choice) and takes 5-10 minutes.
Why? That’s a great question. Let me try to convince you…
Each spring, our team at Branch publishes The Mobile Growth Handbook. I know I’m biased, but this one of the best resources in the industry (seriously, go check out last year’s version if you haven’t already — it’s over 150 pages full of tips and techniques and has been downloaded thousands of times).
The MGH isn’t a piece of content marketing for Branch. Yes, we compile it, but contributions from the Mobile Growth Community (yes, that means you!) are what make it great. This year, our goal is to create a ‘COVID mobile response kit’ containing useful data insights, growth hacks, and actionable recommendations for the massive global disruption we’re all facing.
Please share your perspective. Think of it as your good deed for the day, because you really will be helping thousands of app developers all around the world.
PS, our co-founder Mada is donating $5 to she++ for each of our first 100 responses!
Alex Bauer