🥁How to balance appealing to algorithms vs. humans ⛳️

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 100:45 Jacob: start with 10 to 15 screens, not 10002:00 Elise on why funnel length is vertical-specific04:00 Andrey on Noom's 120 to 140 screen funnel07:00 Platform hell: MMP, ad networks, and Google Analytics09:30 Mike on picking a source of truth, using SKAN as a check11:00 Andrey on optimizing for ROAS over conversion rate11:45 Down-funnel accountability for UA teams12:30 Jacob on cohort-quality guardrails (activation, D1, D7)14:20 Mike on tying campaign data to attribution and events15:30 Elise on creative-quality health checks17:00 Quick-fire: paywall and pricing wins18:30 Quick-fire: standout creative wins20:00 Closing advice from all 5 panelistsTopics 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 trialsLearn 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/

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 format02:40 The one shift teams have not priced in07:50 Andrey on the 82% off-store payments finding09:52 Mike on measurement across web and app, platform hell11:45 Elise on creative: lift-and-shift vs TikTok-native15:54 Patrick on the search space, 4K to 10K ads a month18:07 Jevons paradox: cheaper ads, bigger creative team19:30 Elise on where AI helps and where taste is still human21:39 What separates web-funnel winners from teams that quit25:27 Andrey on iteration pace correlating with revenue27:00 Who should not try web funnels: payments complexity28:42 Jacob on the $1M threshold and the learning-phase budget29:36 Common learning phase mistakes and how to short-circuit them32:00 Part 2 drops next weekTopics 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 appLearn 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/

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 Introduction00:36 Pre-2014 vs post-2014: how automation changed acquisition02:42 The seven-day conversion window ceiling04:11 Why marketers and CFOs define a "good user" differently07:00 Predictions, confidence, and the timing tradeoff11:11 What actually feeds a prediction: the marathon analogy16:26 Why proxies like "level 5" break down17:42 How much data you need to build a model20:15 Value-based bidding and the accuracy misconception23:12 Managing outliers without breaking the strategy25:11 Real client story: Google Search Partners going haywire28:11 Whales vs outliers, and why hyper-whales backfire32:03 Signal engineering vs RTB34:05 User-level data, privacy, and reading the user mix back38:57 How Black Friday and seasonality hit signaling40:48 Why casual gaming is tricky for PLTV41:16 Three questions to ask before investing in a prediction model45:32 Where to find Itai and VoyantisTopics 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 needleLearn 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

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 format02:40 The one shift teams have not priced in07:50 Andrey on the 82% off-store payments finding09:52 Mike on measurement across web and app, platform hell11:45 Elise on creative: lift-and-shift vs TikTok-native15:54 Patrick on the search space, 4K to 10K ads a month18:07 Jevons paradox: cheaper ads, bigger creative team19:30 Elise on where AI helps and where taste is still human21:39 What separates web-funnel winners from teams that quit25:27 Andrey on iteration pace correlating with revenue27:00 Who should not try web funnels: payments complexity28:42 Jacob on the $1M threshold and the learning-phase budget29:36 Common learning phase mistakes and how to short-circuit them32:00 Part 2 drops next weekTopics 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 appLearn 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/

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 Introduction03:00 Losing the paid ad budget on a dating app06:00 Four hours of TikTok a day for two months11:00 The VSC framework14:00 Why memes converted nothing18:00 Russian creators on Kwork20:00 Moving to Sora 2 and Seedance22:00 The CapCut plastic-skin filter23:00 The five-second hallucination limit26:00 Why lip sync breaks scale31:00 The phone farm38:00 Which products should not run organic TikTok39:00 Organic, then UGC, then paidTopics 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 TikTokLearn 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

How does an ASO specialist with 10+ years of experience think about AI visibility in 2026?In this episode of Intelligent Artifice, Simon Thillay from AppTweak shares what the data actually shows about how AI tools like ChatGPT are discovering and recommending apps today. ChatGPT owns the platform. Grammarly is outranking it inside its own answers. Simon knows exactly why.This conversation covers what is actually changing in app store optimization, how AI visibility works differently from traditional ASO, and why the gap between apps that show up in AI-generated answers and those that don't is already opening up.AppTweak's research found that the most cited domain in ChatGPT answers for app-related queries is the App Store itself. Simon's team tested the same intent across ten different phrasings and found Grammarly consistently outranking ChatGPT for business writing app recommendations inside ChatGPT. The difference was not product quality. It was how Grammarly positioned itself for specific user contexts across its app store presence.Simon also points to one specific part of the App Store listing that most ASO teams have never touched, and explains why it is now one of the strongest levers for AI visibility in 2026.Video Chapters:00:00 – Introduction & Podcast Technical Mishaps 00:46 – How AI is Changing App Store Visibility 01:42 – Pre-searching Apps via LLMs (ChatGPT Traffic) 02:14 – The Role of App Store Optimization (ASO) in AI Answers 02:40 – Optimizing Long Descriptions for AI Search 03:19 – Writing for Humans vs. Writing for AI (User Personas) 04:08 – Structuring Content & Entity-Based Writing for AI 05:07 – Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) & The Open Web Ecosystem 06:26 – How to Audit Your App's AI Visibility (Intent vs. Prompts) 07:11 – Case Study: Grammarly Outperforming ChatGPT on Niche Intents 07:54 – Measuring AEO Impact: Coverage, Rank, and Sentiment 09:02 – Where to Find Simon ThillayTopics covered:App Store optimization and AI visibility in 2026How ChatGPT and LLMs discover and recommend appsAEO strategy for mobile appsEntity-based writing for app store listingsMeasuring AI visibility across coverage, rank, and sentimentAppTweak research on AI-driven app discoveryLearn more: https://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/episode/aso-for-ai-simon-thillay/- Episode pagehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-thillay-58b95997/- Connect with Simon on LinkedIn

How does a growth operator who built and managed large teams at Twitch and Discord work today as a solo fractional CMO?In this episode of Intelligent Artifice, Shamanth Rao sits down with Justin Gerrard, fractional CMO and former growth lead at Twitch and Discord, to talk about how he uses Claude day to day to plan his week, build GTM plans, and deliver work for multiple startups at once. Justin shares where AI genuinely saves time, where human judgment is still the difference maker, and why letting AI run on autopilot is a trap most teams fall into.If you work in growth, GTM, or performance marketing, this is a practical and honest look at what working with AI actually looks like in 2026.Chapters:00:00 Intro: Justin's background at Twitch and Discord01:21 Building performance marketing at Twitch03:22 AI Speed: Weeks of work vs. a few hours05:54 AI as an Operating System06:33 Justin's Monday Morning AI routine08:05 The 60/70 Rule for AI productivity09:12 Why 100% AI work is a hiring red flag10:11 Case Study: A localized GTM plan14:52 Creative Strategy: Automated UGC at scale16:30 The Trap of Autonomy in AI content18:13 Brand Safety: The 18 Curses story19:15 The Librarian vs. The Author21:35 Human Creators vs. AI Avatars A/B Test24:55 Where to find Justin onlineKey things we cover in this episode:✅ How Justin structures his Monday morning using Claude Desktop and MCP connectors✅ Why he caps AI contribution at 60 to 70% on every GTM plan✅ Why AI is a fast librarian but not an author✅ How he A/B tested AI creators vs human creators in a paid ad campaign and what the results showed✅ Why fully automating content output does not drive real results✅ What experienced operators still bring to the table that AI cannot replicateLearn more:https://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/episode/ai-gtm-strategy-justin-gerrard/https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-gerrard/ - Connect with Justin on LinkedIn

Web funnels are like teenage hex.Everyone claims they are crushing it. Almost nobody really has a clue.Elise Zareie spent last year actually building them.She has been in UA since 2019. Last year she became a part-time product manager just to ship funnels herself. That meant learning Figma, coordinating designers, front-end developers, back-end developers, and analytics teams. Running QA. Shipping it. Then using AI to test faster than she ever could before.In this episode she talks through what the process actually involves, the three levers that move the needle in any funnel, the one benchmark she watches obsessively on landing pages, how she uses Claude to generate full funnel copy from screenshots of top-performing creatives, and why AI visuals are making consumers more suspicious, not less.Key topicsWhy web funnels are harder to build than most people think and what the process actually looks likeHow to identify the dominant funnel in a vertical before building anythingThe 40% page-one to page-two benchmark and what to do when you fall below itHow to match landing page copy to ad creative using UTM tagsHow Elise uses Claude to generate funnel copy and assessment questions from top-performing creativesHow AI helped her launch a male-specific funnel in two weeks for an app with 80% female usersWhy AI-generated visuals are creating consumer suspicion and what to do about it

In this episode, I'm joined by David Barnard — indie app developer, RevenueCat Developer Advocate, and host of the Sub Club podcast — to talk about what happens when someone with 18 years of App Store experience picks up vibe coding for the first time.David has launched 30+ apps, sold four, and seen every major shift in the App Store since day one. Now he's building a new app entirely on his own — no contractors, no coding partners — just Claude Code, Codex, and decades of product intuition.This conversation goes deep on what's actually changed, what still requires human judgment, and why distribution matters more than ever in a world where anyone can ship an app.What we cover in this episode:- Why vibe coding finally clicked for David — and what changed in the last 12–18 months- How 18 years of App Store experience shapes what you can build with AI- Claude Code vs. Codex — how David uses both and plays them off each other- Why product intuition is still the hardest thing to replicate with AI- The real cost of building an app in 2025 vs. 2020- Why distribution is the new moat — and how David is thinking about it- RevenueCat's Rico: talking to your business, not just your data- Why "if you build it, they will come" has never been true on the App StoreWhether you're an indie developer, founder, or operator, this episode will reshape how you think about building and shipping in the AI era.Content Update: Rico is no longer just in beta! You can now access these insights directly in your RevenueCat dashboard.Learn more: — Podcast hub🌐   https://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/ — Podcast hub🌐 revenuecat.com — Subscription infrastructure for mobile apps🎙️ https://www.youtube.com/@SubClubHQ - App business insights from the people building them

🚀 In this episode, I’m joined by Patrick Stuart-Constant, who has been building AI-driven creative systems long before it became mainstream.Patrick breaks down how his team scaled from producing hundreds to thousands of ads per month using generative AI — and why more AI actually required more humans, not fewer.He explains why “AI slop” isn’t an AI problem but a creativity problem, how to balance automation with human taste, and why the future of marketing belongs to teams that can combine velocity with originality.If you're running paid acquisition, building creative systems, or thinking about scaling with AI, this episode is packed with practical insights and hard-earned lessons.🎙️ What we cover in this episode:✅ Why early adoption of generative AI created a compounding advantage✅ The real reason most AI ads fail (and why it’s not the AI)✅ How to scale from 4,000 → 10,000+ ads per month✅ Why adding AI increased the need for human creativity✅ How “unicorn ads” actually emerge from experimentation✅ Using Bayesian models to find signal in creative testing✅ AI agents for pre-ranking ads before spending budget✅ Why creative velocity is the new moat in paid acquisitionWhether you're a founder, growth leader, or creative strategist - this conversation will change how you think about scaling ads in the AI era.🔗 Learn more:🌐 rocketshiphq.com - Growth systems for high-spend advertisers🌐 http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.com - feat. all things mobile user acquisition