The Mobile User Acquisition Show

Shamanth Rao
  • 5.0 (38)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Biweekly

Welcome to the Mobile User Acquisition Show, in which we talk about how to use mobile user acquisition strategies to grow your app quickly and capital-efficiently. Each episode includes strategies, tips and pointers from the leading edge of mobile user acquisition that can help you unlock tremendous growth for your app.The Mobile User Acquisition Show is produced by the team at RocketShip HQ. With 8 figure UA spends managed and over 10,000 ads produced, we deliver profitable growth for breakthrough B2C apps & help them navigate the brave new world of privacy-first, post-identifier marketing. See also: our live workshop series on marketing in a post-identifier world: https://mobilegrowthlab.com/

  1. 1d ago

    From ASO to paywall optimization: mastering app monetization, with Steve P. Young

    When I interviewed Steve P. Young in 2019 the topic was getting featured by Apple. Today he runs App Masters, an agency that started in app store optimization, and his focus is paywalls, onboarding and monetization, both for clients and for a growing portfolio of apps he buys and operates himself. This conversation covers what changed, and the numbers behind it. Video Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 03:01 Why an ASO expert moved to paywalls and monetization 06:40 The tentacle strategy: building an app around a keyword a giant can't own 09:55 How a $2.99 app became an $8,000 to $10,000 a month app 11:35 What to build when anyone can build an app with AI 14:50 Viral formats vs viral content: the before and after feature 18:35 How to buy an app and how it gets financed 22:37 The real numbers: profit by month and why distribution matters 25:11 The hard paywall test that proved Steve wrong 28:11 Running an agency and his own apps: the team and giving back 30:50 Spending on his own apps vs client budgets 32:26 Wrap-up and where to find App Masters Topics covered: Why an app store optimization expert moved to paywalls, onboarding and monetization - The tentacle strategy: finding the keyword a giant like Calm can't own - How a $2.99 one-time app became an $8,000 to $10,000 a month app with no additional downloads - How he financed an app purchase and what the monthly numbers looked like - The hard paywall test: 13% vs 6% trial activation, 35% trial-to-paid both ways - Why health and fitness has the highest revenue per install Learn more: Episode page: https://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/episode/from-aso-to-paywall-optimization-mastering-app-monetization-with-steve-p-young/ App Masters: https://appmasters.com/ Steve on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevepyoung/ Newsletter: https://intelligentartifice.kit.com

  2. Sep 28

    How to win with deep customer research for mobile ad creative strategy & user acquisition (without focus groups or calls): with Karina Tukanova

    Most creative strategists treat audience research as a box to check before the real work starts. Karina Tukanova, freelance creative strategy consultant, treats it as the actual work. Karina is a freelance creative strategy consultant working with health, wellness, fitness, and lifestyle apps. She made the jump from performance marketing manager to creative strategist right around the iOS 14 shift, back when creative strategist wasn't even a defined role. In this episode, Karina breaks down how she found an entirely untapped audience for a stretching app by scrolling TikTok, Instagram, and Reddit instead of running customer interviews, why the comments section is the most underrated research source most teams ignore, how she uses AI as a second brain to store and surface insights, and how AI uncovered a hidden script formula running across hundreds of UGC ads that would have taken forever to spot by hand. We also get into why she thinks Meta's push for constant net-new creative volume (the Andromeda era) isn't sustainable on a human level, why handing 100% of ad production to AI just produces slop, and where she thinks AI genuinely earns its place in a creative workflow versus where a human still has to sit in the loop. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 02:27 The iOS 14 shift and the rise of creative strategy as a role 04:12 The stretching app that found a new audience in older users 07:21 How to surface real audience insights without endless customer calls 08:39 Why ad and organic comments are an underrated research goldmine 09:39 Using AI as a second brain to store and surface creative insights 10:44 How AI spotted a hidden script formula across hundreds of UGC ads 13:22 What makes UA and creative teams work well together 16:17 Deciding what's worth making before you spend anything 18:34 The Andromeda craze and the myth of 100 new concepts a week 20:19 Fighting Meta's sameness penalty with visual variety 22:18 Where AI should and shouldn't touch ad production 24:31 Advice for bridging the UA/creative skills gap 26:44 Closing: how to find and work with Karina Connect with Karina on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karinatukanova/ About RocketShipHQ: Newsletter: https://intelligentartifice.kit.com rocketshiphq.com Full episode and transcript on the Mobile User Acquisition Show: https://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/episode/how-to-win-with-deep-customer-research-for-mobile-ad-creative-strategy-user-acquisition-without-focus-groups-or-calls-with-karina-tukanova-freelance-creative-strategy-consultant/

  3. Sep 21

    He left the CMO track to build an AI-Native health brand: with Vivek Girotra (Founder & CEO, SurpassMD)

    Most telehealth founders think AI's job is to write the ad copy faster. Vivek Girotra doesn't. He used it to figure out what his company actually stands for before he wrote a single line. Vivek is the co-founder of SurpassMD, a metabolic health telehealth company that launched with GLP-1 medications and plans to expand into HRT, TRT, longevity treatments, and peptides. Before founding SurpassMD, he spent over a decade leading marketing teams on the agency and client side. The compound is the same for everyone. What isn't the same is the brand, the trust, and the full experience wrapped around it. That is where Vivek thinks AI actually earns its keep. In this episode, Vivek breaks down how he used AI to interview himself into a brand mission, how he coded platform, clinical, and operational compliance directly into his AI workflow, why his first batch of social creatives took 15 rounds of revision, and why a nurse's unscripted hospital video beat anything his team generated with AI. If you are building an AI-native company inside a regulated industry, or trying to figure out where AI should and shouldn't touch your brand, this episode is the most practical breakdown available. Vivek is offering Intelligent Artifice listeners 20% off their first SurpassMD subscription (any duration, US only). Use code ROCKETSHIP at checkout. Episode page rocketshiphq.com Newsletter Full episode and transcript on the Mobile User Acquisition Show: https://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/episode/he-left-the-cmo-track-to-build-an-ai-native-health-brand-with-vivek-girotrafounder-ceo-surpass-md/

  4. Jul 30

    How to Design a Web-to-App Funnel That Converts

    Noom's onboarding funnel runs 120 to 140 screens. Some 3-screen funnels convert above 10%. "The length does not matter. Bigger is not always better," as Jacob Rushfinn put it. Part 2 of the FunnelFox panel gets tactical on how web-to-app funnels actually get built. Part 2 of the FunnelFox webinar panel, with Rocketship HQ as partner. Shamanth Rao moderates Jacob Rushfinn (CEO, Botsi), Andrey Shakhtin (CEO, FunnelFox), Patrick Stuart-Constant (CEO, Sociaaal), Mike Gadd (VP Customer Success, Singular), and Elise Zareie (Head of Paid Social, Lingokids). If Part 1 was about the shift, Part 2 is about the mechanics. Elise Zareie on why longer funnels convert better in weight-loss and health but fail on kids apps, where a parent just wants to hand the phone over. Andrey Shakhtin on Noom's 120 to 140 screen funnel as the industry ceiling. Mike Gadd on why your MMP, your ad network, and Google Analytics will never agree, and why that is fine once you pick a source of truth. Jacob Rushfinn on cohort-quality guardrails: ROAS alone gets gamed, so you need activation rate, D1, D7, and trial-cancel rates on the same chart. Patrick Stuart-Constant on a Liquid Death-inspired ad that mocked confused users and ran profitably for months. Video Chapters: 00:00 Recap of Part 1 00:45 Jacob: start with 10 to 15 screens, not 100 02:00 Elise on why funnel length is vertical-specific 04:00 Andrey on Noom's 120 to 140 screen funnel 07:00 Platform hell: MMP, ad networks, and Google Analytics 09:30 Mike on picking a source of truth, using SKAN as a check 11:00 Andrey on optimizing for ROAS over conversion rate 11:45 Down-funnel accountability for UA teams 12:30 Jacob on cohort-quality guardrails (activation, D1, D7) 14:20 Mike on tying campaign data to attribution and events 15:30 Elise on creative-quality health checks 17:00 Quick-fire: paywall and pricing wins 18:30 Quick-fire: standout creative wins 20:00 Closing advice from all 5 panelists Topics covered: - Funnel length: when longer converts better, when it kills conversion - Platform hell: MMP as source of truth, SKAN as check - ROAS over conversion rate as the campaign KPI - Down-funnel accountability and cohort quality guardrails - Creative wins from social listening and negative comments - Paywall wins: intro offers, multi-page paywalls, paid trials Learn more: - Original webinar recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYPDZlwLhNA - FunnelFox (webinar host): https://funnelfox.com - Rocketship HQ (partner): https://rocketshiphq.com - Jacob Rushfinn (Botsi): https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacob-rushfinn/ - Andrey Shakhtin (FunnelFox): https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrey-shakhtin/ - Patrick Stuart-Constant (Sociaaal): https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-stuart-constant/ - Mike Gadd (Singular): https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-gadd-27a16427/ - Elise Zareie (Lingokids): https://www.linkedin.com/in/elise-zareie/ - Shamanth Rao (Rocketship HQ): https://www.linkedin.com/in/shamanthrao/

  5. Jul 30

    How to Build a Web-to-App Funnel Without Torching $20K

    82% of top-grossing apps now take payment outside the app store. Patrick Stuart-Constant's team at Sociaaal ships 4,000 video ads a month, scaling to 10,000. The shift to web-to-app monetization isn't coming. It already happened. Part 1 of a two-part panel from a FunnelFox webinar, with Rocketship HQ as partner. Shamanth Rao moderated the conversation with Jacob Rushfinn (CEO, Botsi), Andrey Shakhtin (CEO, FunnelFox), Patrick Stuart-Constant (CEO, Sociaaal), Mike Gadd (VP Customer Success, Singular), and Elise Zareie (Head of Paid Social, Lingokids) on how paid acquisition teams design the path after the click. Andrey Shakhtin on why off-store attribution beats SKAN on speed, and how 2-5% payment fees unlock room to iterate. Patrick Stuart-Constant on scaling ad volume as a search space problem, and why cheaper AI creative grew his team instead of shrinking it (Jevons paradox). Elise Zareie on why web funnels only work with dedicated ownership inside the UA team. Mike Gadd on why the first renewal is the metric most teams miss. Jacob Rushfinn on the $1M revenue threshold before web funnels pay off, and the 10K to 20K monthly loss to budget for the learning phase. Video Chapters: 00:00 Introductions and format 02:40 The one shift teams have not priced in 07:50 Andrey on the 82% off-store payments finding 09:52 Mike on measurement across web and app, platform hell 11:45 Elise on creative: lift-and-shift vs TikTok-native 15:54 Patrick on the search space, 4K to 10K ads a month 18:07 Jevons paradox: cheaper ads, bigger creative team 19:30 Elise on where AI helps and where taste is still human 21:39 What separates web-funnel winners from teams that quit 25:27 Andrey on iteration pace correlating with revenue 27:00 Who should not try web funnels: payments complexity 28:42 Jacob on the $1M threshold and the learning-phase budget 29:36 Common learning phase mistakes and how to short-circuit them 32:00 Part 2 drops next week Topics covered: - The shift to web-to-app monetization and off-store payments - AI creative production at scale, 4,000 to 10,000 ads a month - Web funnels: dedicated ownership vs side project - The $1M revenue threshold for going off-store - Learning phase mistakes on acquisition, funnel, and paywall - Measurement complexity across web and app Learn more: - Original webinar recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYPDZlwLhNA - FunnelFox (webinar host): https://funnelfox.com - Rocketship HQ (partner): https://rocketshiphq.com - Jacob Rushfinn (Botsi): https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacob-rushfinn/ - Andrey Shakhtin (FunnelFox): https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrey-shakhtin/ - Patrick Stuart-Constant (Sociaaal): https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-stuart-constant/ - Mike Gadd (Singular): https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-gadd-27a16427/ - Elise Zareie (Lingokids): https://www.linkedin.com/in/elise-zareie/ - Shamanth Rao (Rocketship HQ): https://www.linkedin.com/in/shamanthrao/

  6. Jul 16

    How to win with signal engineering: Itai Kafri

    Most mobile UA teams think the algorithm is something you set and surrender to. Itai Kafri doesn't. He engineers the signal. Itai leads product growth at Voyantis, a predictive LTV and signal engineering platform for mobile apps. He has been in mobile user acquisition since before Meta introduced oCPM, back when advertisers controlled every bid manually. Since then, he has spent years figuring out what actually replaced that control. The answer is not the model. It is the signal strategy built on top of it. In this episode, Itai breaks down signal engineering for mobile UA: how to send predictive LTV signals to automated channels like Meta Advantage Plus, Google UAC, and TikTok in a way that actually moves performance. Why timing matters more than accuracy. Why the channel needs rank, not dollar precision. And the three questions every growth team should answer before investing in a predictive LTV media strategy at all. If you run paid user acquisition for a mobile app and you are thinking about PLTV, value-based bidding, or tROAS optimization, this episode is the most practical breakdown of signal engineering available. Video Chapters:   00:00 Introduction 00:36 Pre-2014 vs post-2014: how automation changed acquisition 02:42 The seven-day conversion window ceiling 04:11 Why marketers and CFOs define a "good user" differently 07:00 Predictions, confidence, and the timing tradeoff 11:11 What actually feeds a prediction: the marathon analogy 16:26 Why proxies like "level 5" break down 17:42 How much data you need to build a model 20:15 Value-based bidding and the accuracy misconception 23:12 Managing outliers without breaking the strategy 25:11 Real client story: Google Search Partners going haywire 28:11 Whales vs outliers, and why hyper-whales backfire 32:03 Signal engineering vs RTB 34:05 User-level data, privacy, and reading the user mix back 38:57 How Black Friday and seasonality hit signaling 40:48 Why casual gaming is tricky for PLTV 41:16 Three questions to ask before investing in a prediction model 45:32 Where to find Itai and Voyantis Topics covered: - Signal engineering for mobile user acquisition - Predictive LTV and value-based bidding on Meta, Google, and TikTok - Confidence thresholds, latency trade-offs, and signal timing - How automated channels use signals: Advantage Plus, UAC, PMax - When D7 ROAS is already your best signal and PLTV will not move the needle Learn more: Episode Page : https://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/episode/how-to-win-with-signal-engineering-itai-kafri/ Connect with Itai on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ekafri/ Voyantis gap analysis - https://www.voyantis.ai/signal-engineering-gap-analysis

  7. Jul 7

    How to Build a Web-to-App Funnel Without Torching $20K

    82% of top-grossing apps now take payment outside the app store. Patrick Stuart-Constant's team at Sociaaal ships 4,000 video ads a month, scaling to 10,000. The shift to web-to-app monetization isn't coming. It already happened. Part 1 of a two-part panel from a Funnelfox webinar, with Rocketship HQ as partner. Shamanth Rao moderated the conversation with Jacob Rushfinn (CEO, Botsi), Andrey Shakhtin (CEO, FunnelFox), Patrick Stuart-Constant (CEO, Sociaaal), Mike Gadd (VP Customer Success, Singular), and Elise Zareie (Head of Paid Social, Lingokids) on how paid acquisition teams design the path after the click. Andrey Shakhtin on why off-store attribution beats SKAN on speed, and how 2-5% payment fees unlock room to iterate. Patrick Stuart-Constant on scaling ad volume as a search space problem, and why cheaper AI creative grew his team instead of shrinking it (Jevons paradox). Elise Zareie on why web funnels only work with dedicated ownership inside the UA team. Mike Gadd on why the first renewal is the metric most teams miss. Jacob Rushfinn on the $1M revenue threshold before web funnels pay off, and the 10K to 20K monthly loss to budget for the learning phase. Video Chapters: 00:00 Introductions and format 02:40 The one shift teams have not priced in 07:50 Andrey on the 82% off-store payments finding 09:52 Mike on measurement across web and app, platform hell 11:45 Elise on creative: lift-and-shift vs TikTok-native 15:54 Patrick on the search space, 4K to 10K ads a month 18:07 Jevons paradox: cheaper ads, bigger creative team 19:30 Elise on where AI helps and where taste is still human 21:39 What separates web-funnel winners from teams that quit 25:27 Andrey on iteration pace correlating with revenue 27:00 Who should not try web funnels: payments complexity 28:42 Jacob on the $1M threshold and the learning-phase budget 29:36 Common learning phase mistakes and how to short-circuit them 32:00 Part 2 drops next week Topics covered: - The shift to web-to-app monetization and off-store payments - AI creative production at scale, 4,000 to 10,000 ads a month - Web funnels: dedicated ownership vs side project - The $1M revenue threshold for going off-store - Learning phase mistakes on acquisition, funnel, and paywall - Measurement complexity across web and app Learn more: - Original webinar recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYPDZlwLhNA - FunnelFox (webinar host): https://funnelfox.com - Rocketship HQ (partner): https://rocketshiphq.com - Jacob Rushfinn (Botsi): https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacob-rushfinn/ - Andrey Shakhtin (FunnelFox): https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrey-shakhtin/ - Patrick Stuart-Constant (Sociaaal): https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-stuart-constant/ - Mike Gadd (Singular): https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-gadd-27a16427/ - Elise Zareie (Lingokids): https://www.linkedin.com/in/elise-zareie/ - Shamanth Rao (Rocketship HQ): https://www.linkedin.com/in/shamanthrao/

  8. Jun 23

    How to Scale TikTok to 50 Million Views and Produce 200 TikToks a Day: with Ankit Nayal,Founder & CEO of Flamme

    How Ankit Nayal scaled organic TikTok to 50 million views with an AI content factory, and why half of them were wasted until conversion came first. Most founders who burn through their paid ad budget pivot to organic with one or two accounts and hope something works. Ankit Nayal pivoted to organic and went to 150 to 200 TikToks a day. He runs this for his app Flamme. He has crossed 50 million views. He told me more than half of those views were wasted, because conversion was not in his framework yet. The episode is about what he built once that became obvious. The path there started in a cave. After losing his ad budget in 2025, Ankit scrolled TikTok for four hours a day for two months. He compared it to having McDonald's every meal. Out of that came the VSC framework. Viral: an under-5,000-follower account with a 100K-view post that is still picking up trend score. Scalable: a format that replicates cleanly across accounts. Convertible: a video that actually pulls downloads. Memes pulled 0.1% conversion. A girl reacting to a hook pulled 0.5%. A 100K-view reaction beat a 2M-view meme on bang for buck. The system around the framework is more cumbersome than most posts about it admit. He started by filming himself and concluded that a brown man with an Indian accent was not the best fit for the American market. He moved to Russian creators sourced through Kwork.ru at one dollar a minute and twenty-five cents per ten-to-fifteen-second reaction. ChatGPT translation overhead killed that workflow. He moved to Sora 2, then to Seedance. Every clip gets broken into five-second blocks because the model starts hallucinating past five seconds. A CapCut filter layer with ten effects scrubs the plastic skin off AI faces. Phones get lined up on physical farms because the TikTok API gets content flagged. The funnel sequence he ends on is the part that stuck with me. Organic first, then UGC, then paid. Most founders run it backwards. Video Chapters:   00:00 Introduction 03:00 Losing the paid ad budget on a dating app 06:00 Four hours of TikTok a day for two months 11:00 The VSC framework 14:00 Why memes converted nothing 18:00 Russian creators on Kwork 20:00 Moving to Sora 2 and Seedance 22:00 The CapCut plastic-skin filter 23:00 The five-second hallucination limit 26:00 Why lip sync breaks scale 31:00 The phone farm 38:00 Which products should not run organic TikTok 39:00 Organic, then UGC, then paid Topics covered: - Organic TikTok at scale for consumer apps - The VSC framework: viral, scalable, convertible - AI UGC production with Sora, Seedance, and CapCut - Creator sourcing on Kwork and the limits of real UGC - Phone farms and TikTok content flagging - Why B2B founders should not run organic TikTok Learn more: https://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/episode/[slug]/ - Episode page  https://www.linkedin.com/in/annayal/ - Connect with Ankit on LinkedIn  https://www.annayal.com/ - Ankit's website  https://intelligentartifice.kit.com - Newsletter

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About

Welcome to the Mobile User Acquisition Show, in which we talk about how to use mobile user acquisition strategies to grow your app quickly and capital-efficiently. Each episode includes strategies, tips and pointers from the leading edge of mobile user acquisition that can help you unlock tremendous growth for your app.The Mobile User Acquisition Show is produced by the team at RocketShip HQ. With 8 figure UA spends managed and over 10,000 ads produced, we deliver profitable growth for breakthrough B2C apps & help them navigate the brave new world of privacy-first, post-identifier marketing. See also: our live workshop series on marketing in a post-identifier world: https://mobilegrowthlab.com/

Information

  • Creator
    Shamanth Rao
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2026
  • Episodes
    286
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Mobile User Acquisition Show
  • Show Website
    The Mobile User Acquisition Show

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