Peggy Anne Salz

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If you watch trends, then you are laser-focused on mobile gaming. The app vertical is a petri dish of unbridled experimentation spearheaded by data experts and enthusiasts who are defining the future now. Fortunately for us, many of these experience pioneers gathered at PGC London last week to share the strategies and shortcuts that keep them at the top of their game (pun intended). Watch for more workarounds that harness our behavioral breadcrumb trail of data and what Embrace CEO Eric Futoran calls the “app exhaust” of a multitude of interactions and events to shape our in-app experiences. Tapping app event stream data for deep(er) insights Embrace is a company you’ll be hearing a lot from—and that’s a good thing at a time when app store algorithms have begun to rank games based on performance metrics and can punish games […]

Where is the growth for app publishers? It’s a fundamental question and the hardest to answer. How exciting to get straight answers from my guerilla interview with Dow Jones’ Andrew Rauner and lively debate with Digital Turbine’s Shalom Mikaeli and Product Madness’ Piyush Mishra that drive home the key points that you need to make part of your marketing modus operandi. Thought-provoking. This is what you get when you match two brilliant minds (Piyush and Shalom) in a no-holds-barred debate. Four questions and four rounds with two experts who know the drill. Round 1: Power and profits The latest episode of Mobile Explorers, powered by Digital Turbine, cuts them loose to discuss how disruptive alternative distribution channels will really be in a volatile environment where app publishers are hungry for wins that will seize power from gatekeepers and give them […]

The advance of AI accelerates the pace at which companies can arrive at the Nirvana of one-to-one marketing. But the sharp focus on how AI and automation can improve, scale and tailor lead-activation campaigns (primarily through the mass production of what cartoonist Tom Fishburn calls “infinite words nobody wants”) blinds marketers to the real benefit of AI: detecting patterns to understand people better. This is because AI tools are great at delivering very smart but very similar results. And whether it's AI-generated or human-generated, sameness is not a winning strategy. The bottom line: Companies can’t break through the clutter by adding to it. That’s why I am watching the early signs of the Second Wave of AI and how AI is evolving to help companies stand out. It was also the topic of my keynote at App Growth Week, the […]

My work producing and hosting weekly podcasts, frequent webinars and masterclasses feels a little like speed dating. Every interview and interaction - from martech pioneers to marketing wizards - starts with a short briefing call where I listen to their story and help them shape a narrative that will make the content we create together shine. Sometimes, I discover a diamond in the rough and then feel committed to making that individual stand out. (I am over the moon when I can unlock that potential.) Other times, I hear a cool idea that sparks a fire in my brain. On the best days, I get both -- and reinforcement of the hard truth that marketers have to grasp. Demographics are dead - to borrow a phrase from my esteemed friend and colleague David Allison. He literally wrote the book on […]

Success in a post-privacy world is highly unpredictable. To make matters worse, the headwinds facing the global App Economy have reached gale-force speeds, turning up the pressure on marketers to conserve cash, not burn it on UA. And finally, the marketplace has become a monstrously large and massively noisy space where apps compete for audience attention. This is where a strong brand pays dividends. "Unless you've built a brand, the user journey to conversion typically remains longer due to a lack of top-of-the-mind awareness," Piyush Mishra, Head of Growth Marketing at Product Madness, Mishra told me during a recent podcast interview. Short user attention spans and limited budgets represent dangerous disconnect marketers can only bridge with a strong brand. From data-driven user acquisition (UA) marketers to performance marketing pros and from lifecycle experts to retention specialists, I have interviewed hundreds […]

You never forget your first time - and that goes double for me when I look back at my first Game Developers Conference GDC. And what a year to join the party! It was much more than a must-attend gaming developer meetup and happening. To borrow a few words from my favorite (and practical!) visionary Frans Johansson, GDC marked a tipping point in “The Great Recombination” era. It’s an exciting space where creativity explodes (and has far greater importance) because the cost and ease of access to platforms, products and services are dropping at stunning speed. As Frans puts it: “Because technical expertise matters less and less — creativity will mean far more.” Nowhere is the impact more profound than in gaming. Games industry veteran and innovator Chris Heatherly captures the zeitgeist in a post-GDC LinkedIn post. “The game-as-app era […]

Marketing teams are combining talent and tools to produce campaign creatives that are memorable and hit the metrics. It’s an arms race to develop compelling and engaging ads, and it’s an idea that is spreading like wildfire as companies realize ad creatives are the source of their competitive advantage. But are they? My interview with attention measurement pioneer and thought leader Dr. Karen Nelson-Field PhD flies in the face of everything I have heard over the past months about the power of the ad creative. The research she has produced with her team at Amplified Intelligence, where she is the founder and CEO, shows that ad creative is actually near the bottom of the hierarchy of factors that influence audience and outcomes. Image courtesy of Amplified Intelligence It comes as no surprise that marketers also need to nail audience context […]