Mobile Video Monthly #25 – June 2022

App News

October 13, 2022

June started with Apple’s yearly event: the 2022 edition of their WWDC. And this month may have brought us sunshine and heat waves, but it also brought the end of TweetDeck’s mac app and the departure of Sheryl Sandberg, a figure at Meta (formerly Facebook). Let’s dive into all the latest news!

Apple’s 2022 WWDC

Unlike the two previous editions, WWDC 2022 did not hold a lot of announcements for ASO professionals and app marketers. Here’s what was announced:

  • New features for the SKAdNetwork API to better measure ad performance while preserving user privacy
  • Developer Mode with iOS 16 to prevent sideloading or as Apple calls it “inadvertently installing potentially harmful software on their devices”
  • Apple Pay Later allows users to pay in installments
  • Improvements for App Clips, they’ll be easier to develop and test
  • New benchmarks in App Store Connect to compare your app’s performance to similar apps
  • App Intents framework to make your app accessible for systems such as Siri and Shortcuts

iOS 16’s developer beta is already available, the public beta should become available in July. The OS itself will become public in September at a still unknown date. 

Play Store’s upcoming deadlines

Google published a report on mobile games

Google published a report filled with insights on mobile games. In it, you can find a lot of interesting information about mobile gamers’ behaviors. 

For starters, while most gamers start playing a game because they’re bored or have some spare time, 21% of them do it because they saw a post on social media. Meaning that paid UA on socials is pretty useful to drive people to your game. 27% of them start playing because they’re in the mood for competition, meaning that if your game has a special competition event going on, you could use that knowledge to acquire more users. Showcase it with in-app events or LiveOps, talk about it on social media, and let people know about it!

There is more interesting data such as how localization of a game’s content is important for 90% of gamers. You can apply that knowledge to your app’s listing pages. Don’t be scared to localize!

They’ve also wondered how mobile gamers discover games, and for 37% of them, it’s through the app stores. Right behind with 35% are social media ads and mobile game ads with 34%. It’s time to brush up on your UA and ASO skills!

Not only that but 41% of gamers try a new game because the story is interesting. As we’ve said in a previous post, storytelling is the key to successful mobile game video ads! In addition to that, 32% of mobile gamers are convinced by trailers and/or screenshots. So give your visual assets some love!

Moreover, only 14% of mobile gamers are not interested at all in the in-game ads they see. The rest of them are at least slightly interested. Take that opportunity to bank on that interest to boost your downloads. 

Mobile ad spend is back on the rise

Mobile ad spend is getting over the ATT hurdle.  According to a new study from Tenjin and Growth FullStack, 65% of mobile advertisers are planning to increase their ad spend in 2022, even though half of them (55%) reported that it had become more difficult in 2021 following ATT.

When it was launched, ATT caused an estimated 39 percent revenue loss for mobile advertisers in 2021. They were all concerned about the future of their business. A year later, they are adapting either with other tools (such as fingerprinting or SKAN) or by deploying in-house data research. 

Mobile ad spend is expected to reach $350 billion in 2022, $50 billion more than the previous year. Meanwhile, the German antitrust watchdog has launched an investigation over Apple possibly giving its own apps an advantage by exempting them from ATT. 

Airship acquires Gummicube

Airship, a marketing company that specializes in generating custom messages addressed to consumers and customer analytics, acquired Gummicube. Airship’s CEO, Brett Caine, praised Gummicube’s “industry-leading enterprise-class ASO technology and expert services”. This acquisition will help them provide their clients with a bigger opportunity and help them optimize their ASO. 

Gummicube’s co-founders, Dave Bell and Anh Nguyen, will now be VPs and co-general managers of the Gummicube business unit at Airship.

News from the Dutch front on Apple vs dating apps

Apple finally provided an acceptable solution to the conundrum that’s been going on since the beginning of the year. The Dutch watchdog (ACM) had stated previously that Apple’s refusal to allow alternative payment methods was anticompetitive and had fined the Cupertino firm €5 million a week for ten weeks.

Apple had offered several solutions that were not deemed acceptable by the ACM (the first one implied that dating app developers would need to build an entirely separate app which is an unnecessary hassle). They’ve finally agreed to allow alternative payment methods to comply with the ACM’s requirements

Dutch dating app developers will now be able to choose “whether they want to offer an alternative payment method combined with Apple’s in-app purchases”. However, they will still need to pay a fee for these payments. 

Netflix’s bet on mobile games is paying off

The streaming company announced its desire to bring over 50 mobile games to its platform by the end of the year. So far they’ve published 24 titles which would give them 6 months to double their offer. 

The announcement tweet teased a few games, both new, based on their tv show or not, and games already existing on other platforms that Netflix will bring to mobile. For the latter, I suggest trying out Spiritfarer once it’s available, it’s a gem!

So far their published games have attracted 13 million downloads worldwide across the App Store and the Play Store. Their top title is Stranger Things 1984 which has been downloaded 2 million times. Their other Stranger Things-themed game is hanging out near the podium too. 

Stranger Things’ 4th season boosted the popularity of their two games based on the show. Stranger Things 1984’s downloads shot up 2.6x during the first week of season 4.

Outside of mobile gaming, the company is looking into adding an ad-supported tier to win back lost users. 

Facebook too wants to be a TikTok clone

The Verge obtained a leaked memo from Meta discussing Facebook’s future. Tom Alison, the executive in charge of Facebook laid out the plan: Facebook’s feed will start recommending posts “regardless of where they come from” and stop prioritizing posts from followed accounts, just like TikTok. Messenger will also be brought back into Facebook. 

In addition to that, they’re planning an emphasis on Reels, their TikTok-like feature, in hopes to “reverse the app’s stagnant growth and potentially lure back young people”. 

The trick will be to attract a younger audience without alienating the older one. We’ll see how that works for them. 

Sheryl Sandberg steps down from Facebook

On the first day of June, Sheryl Sandberg announced she was stepping down from her position of Chief Operating Officer at Facebook/Meta. She joined the company in 2008 and has been ever since one of the main figures of the company next to Mark Zuckerberg. 

Meta’s Chief Growth Officer Javier Olivan will replace her.

Instagram keeps trying to implement a full-screen scroll on the homepage

After the very unfriendly welcome beta tester reserved for Instagram’s full-screen test, it was a global relief when the homepage went back to normal. Not for long though. Zuckerberg himself announced a new full-screen test. 

Instead of all post-types being in full-screen, only videos will be shown in full-screen while scrolling on the homepage. It would be a mix between the regular homepage and the failed test. 

This test homepage should become available to selected users soon.

Numbers of the month

June’s App Marketing Snack episodes

What we talked about

More about App News

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