Watch the video version of this show on YouTube »Shamanth Rao is the founder and CEO at Rocketship HQ. Shamanth also hosts the Mobile User Acquisition Show podcast, and is the lead instructor for the Mobile Growth Lab workshop series.RocketShip HQ is a boutique growth marketing firm with 8 figures in managed spend. Before founding RocketshipHQ, Shamanth led growth marketing resulting in 3 exits: Bash Gaming (sold for $170mm), Puzzle Social (acquired by Zynga), and FreshPlanet (acquired by Gameloft). Shamanth has also helped many other mobile apps grow and scale.Shamanth is passionate about teaching and sharing everything he’s learned about mobile growth. Much of his time and energy goes into the Mobile User Acquisition Show. Shamanth strives to ensure that the wisdom he’s gained reaches as many people as possible.In this episode, you’ll learn:
The history of user acquisition and algorithmic targeting
How Apple’s AppTrackingTransparency has shifted users to Android
What Apple’s new tracking policy means for developers
Are subscription apps impacted more than other apps by Apple’s tracking policy?
Links & Resources
A Brief History of App Store Monetization episode – with David Barnard

A Brief History of Device Identification episode – with David Philippson

iOS 14 & IDFA Deprecation How App Marketers Must Adapt - YouTube

Shamanth Rao’s Links
RocketShip HQ’s website

The Mobile User Acquisition Show
Mobile Growth Lab
Follow Shamanth on Twitter

Shamanth Rao’s website

Follow us on Twitter:
David Barnard
Jacob Eiting
RevenueCat
Sub Club
Episode TranscriptShamanth: 00:00:00The more signal you give to the algorithm, the better the algorithm performs, right? You know, in the post AppTrackingTransparency world, if you gain more purchases, the better the algorithm performs, obviously that would take purchases from you and everybody in the world, and it would just do better. Now, obviously it’s just taking your trial and doing much, much better.David: 00:00:38Welcome to the sub club podcast. I’m your host, David Bernard, and with me as always Jacob Eiting.Hello Jacob.Jacob: 00:00:45David, glad to be here with you, as always. David: 00:00:48Our guest today is Shamanth Rao, founder and CEO at RocketShip HQ, of the podcast Mobile User Acquisition Show, and lead instructor at the workshop series Mobile Growth. Shamanth’s company, RocketShip HQ is a boutique growth marketing agency with eight figures in managed spend. Prior to founding RocketShip HQ Shamanth growth marketing, to three exits. Hey Shamanth.Welcome to the podcast. Shamanth: 00:01:16Honored to be here. Thank you for having me, David and Jacob.David: 00:01:19Yeah. So, I wanted to start with a little bit of a history lesson. You’ve been in mobile advertising and working on mobile apps for, since very early. So, could you take just a couple of minutes and step us through the history of kind of what led us to today with app tracking transparency, and all the different ups and downs and changes that have happened over the past?Shamanth: 00:01:48Yeah. There’s been a lot of ups and downs, as you said. I see two overarching trends, but for folks who want to go into the weeds, I would actually recommend two podcast episodes. One was mine with you, David. A brief history of App Store monetization. You provide a very great perspective into how the App Store itself has changed over the years.The other one was an interview I did with David Phillips, A Brief History of Device Identification You know, we are all about brief histories, but, I think to what we talking about ATT and how essentially disrupted growth in today. There have been two forces that have led up to this point, the last decade or so I think it’s important to know and understand both of these, just to know how we got here and why it’s important, right.Because ATT just did not happen overnight. There were signs for a decade. And, you know, I think obviously a lot of this is evident in retrospect. but I think it’s helpful to