In the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence, user acquisition has emerged as a vital factor for success. Vitalii Chukhlantcev, who worked with over 300 leading mobile developers at one of the fastest-growing AdTech startups, brings a wealth of experience to the table.
During his three years at Moloco, he harnessed AI to enable developers to acquire users profitably. Now, as he embarks on his own venture, he aims to bridge the gap between AI and end users by educating them and creating AI solutions for both personal and enterprise applications. This new journey has prompted him to reflect on his user acquisition experiences and insights that he believes will be valuable to the broader user acquisition market.
Currently, a co-founder of GPT-4 Agents Bot, Vitalii's focus has shifted, but his insights remain highly relevant for mobile app developers. We sat down with him to discuss the importance of effective user acquisition and to delve into his hands-on approach in this dynamic field.
To begin, could you share a bit about your background in user acquisition? What drew you to this field?
After finishing my BSc in Economics, I found myself searching for a job. I've always been good with numbers and have a passion for computer games, IT, and startups. So when the opportunity came up to be one of the first in EMEA to join a rising unicorn in this field, it felt like a no-brainer!
Over the next three years, I had the chance to work with some of the most well-known developers in the mobile gaming industry. I focused on analyzing their user acquisition results to help maximize their spending. At the same time, I played a role in fueling the growth of Moloco's EMEA office. I introduced new tools and processes that not only saved time for many newcomers but also created scalable insights at the company level.
What do you think are the key qualities that make up a successful UA team?
In performance marketing, being comfortable with stats and numbers is essential. But it goes beyond that—you really need to understand the story behind every metric. This means knowing how the data was compiled, where it came from, and what it actually implies. It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking, "This must be what the number means," instead of focusing on the clear facts that the data provides.
That's why it's so important for your team to have strong data skills and the ability to draw their own conclusions. It's also crucial that everyone is internally motivated to achieve the best possible outcomes. User acquisition is such a diverse field, and there's always more analysis to do and more experiments to run. For the right person, that's not overwhelming—in fact, they find it exciting to choose the next experiment because it's fun. The biggest challenge after finding skilled individuals is keeping them motivated to work toward your business goals.
This means ensuring that team members have a clear financial stake in the success of the business. If they don't, they're less likely to stay or give their best effort. Finally, I believe it's really important to have people with high emotional intelligence on the team. A strong user acquisition team communicates effectively, engages frequently, and can persuade managers across all user acquisition channels.
To build a strong user acquisition team, you want to look for individuals who are comfortable with numbers, can think independently, and are intrinsically motivated. It's also important that they excel in interpersonal communication.
Balancing investment in user acquisition versus product development can be tricky. How do you see that balance? In your view, how can product teams and UA teams work together more effectively?
I believe it's really important to see monetization, product, and user acquisition as three distinct areas. While monetization is definitely part of product development, it deserves to be treated on its own.
If you're familiar with the gaming industry, you've probably noticed that some apps that aren't exceptional still manage to make millions—think hyper-casual games. It's definitely possible to have a mediocre product and achieve strong monetization. Unfortunately, the opposite can also happen: if your product is good but your monetization strategy is lacking, you could end up losing money by buying high-quality traffic that doesn't generate profits.
That's why I think it's crucial to pick your battles and be clear about your goals. If you're looking for quick cash, focus on creating an MVP, maximizing monetization opportunities within the app, and advertising. On the other hand, if you're working on a longer-term project and can afford to take some initial losses, it's wise to get users into the game and see if they're willing to stick around long enough to eventually cover your acquisition costs.
It can be even more confusing because I've seen cases where two games with identical concepts but different user acquisition strategies had vastly different results. One was incredibly profitable and scalable, while the other just didn't perform. Interestingly, the underperforming game had actually invested a lot more in its product. This really highlights that user acquisition is just as important as the product itself.
Alignment with company goals is crucial for the performance of every successful team member. What steps do you think UA managers can take to ensure their initiatives are in sync with broader business objectives?
I think this is a broader issue in the industry that goes beyond just motivating individual contributors. Sometimes, entire user acquisition departments aren't aligned with the goal of maximizing company revenue because their KPIs are too simplistic. A common problem is the lack of expertise—or sometimes just the motivation—to really challenge the numbers presented by MMPs, especially on iOS. To be honest, even top developers can struggle with measuring ad performance accurately. Too often, UA teams focus on showing good ROAS numbers for every channel rather than ensuring those numbers are actually net positive for the company.
A simple example of this is the overreliance on MMP attribution on iOS, where much of the attribution is done probabilistically. This method isn't entirely accurate because it's impossible for a third party to be fully precise without access to user IDs.
If you're a small developer just starting out with user acquisition, it might not seem like a big deal to have a few hundred installs attributed to the wrong channel. However, once you have a well-known game and are spending millions on ads daily, it becomes crucial to ensure that your ROAS in attribution accurately reflects the true picture. You want to avoid large-scale organic poaching.
Unfortunately, very few user acquisition teams actively focus on this issue. Those who do often lack the motivation to address it because they're more concerned with showing green numbers to their bosses. Even fewer have the capability to solve the problem. That's why, for larger developers, it's crucial to motivate your team to ensure that every ad dollar is spent wisely. It might even be worth considering compensation for those who can help identify wasted budgets.
Let's talk about partnerships. What role do partner managers—such as account managers assigned to you by Google, Meta, AppLovin, TikTok, and others—play in this context?
I believe this aspect is often underappreciated. Clearly, the independence and influence of partner managers vary depending on the user acquisition (UA) channel, but the relationship with your partner manager is important across the board. As a growth manager, I was fortunate to work in a collaborative environment where I could reach out to any department when needed, enabling me to make things happen for clients. However, not all channels have this kind of structure.
If you have a good working relationship with your manager, they'll be incentivized to provide you with as much help as possible. On the flip side, if you don't get along, you'll probably only get the bare minimum.
It's also crucial to read people well when it comes to partners. Is the person truly aware of the information they're sharing with you? Do you need to guide them to get what you want? Are you constantly reminding them about tasks? Getting this cooperation right is half the battle with any UA channel. Unless you happen to get an unprofessional manager, in which case, you might need a bit of luck.
Moving on to metrics, it's widely recognized that SKAdNetwork and MMP attribution metrics don't always align. Which one do you prefer, and do you think there's a way to combine insights from both?
Crucially, these are two separate attribution methods, and they almost never fully align. This is a common misconception in the industry that's slowly changing. Many clients want SKAN numbers to look like MMP numbers, but that just doesn't happen. There are vastly different attribution windows and SKAN privacy thresholds to consider. SKAN is deterministic, which means it's actually accurate, while MMP data is probabilistic and not 100% accurate.
Plus, depending on the channel, the integration with SKAN can vary, which affects what gets recorded by MMP and what doesn't. The stars really need to align for those two solutions to show exactly the same numbers.
If you're running banners on iOS and don't control for VT windows, your probabilistic data is likely overstating the installs, while SKAN delays installs and masks a lot of information due to Apple's privacy measures.
Not a single client I've worked with has fully figured out the SKAN versus MMP attribution in their business analytics. However, the two approaches can actually complement each other in the current ID-less iOS environment. My recommendation is to dive into MMP attribution and be okay with underestimating installs through MMP but be cautious about overestimating installs for any specific channels. If you're running banners, make sure to analyze your view-to-install time (VTIT) curves and set your own VT thresholds accordingly.
Since SKAN is deterministic, I'd ultimately trust it more. However, I'd spend time understanding what factors might affect the availability of SKAN data across each of your channels—it can be a cumbersome task. I'd also recommend reviewing SKAN numbers monthly instead of weekly or daily to minimize the impact of the random postback delay on your analysis.
Incrementality is a big topic at UA. How do you define it, and why do you think it's so crucial? What methods do you use to measure it effectively?
Incrementality is fundamentally about measuring the true effectiveness of your ad spend on overall app growth. To measure it accurately, you need to clearly define the hypothesis you're testing. If you want to understand how one channel performs in the absence of all others, select one of your smaller core markets and keep the channel of interest active while pausing all others—it's that simple!
If you want to see what effect channel A has on your overall user acquisition, here's a fair approach:
First, choose your core market, but better not to go for the biggest one, instead, choose something that is small but similar in nature to your area of focus (e.g., test in Canada if your biggest market is the US).
Second, make sure there are no changes to your UA channels in this market during the test.
Third, run the test for at least two weeks.
Finally, you'll likely need help from the test channel to set up the incrementality test. Make sure you conduct an actual test where a fixed portion of the traffic sees your normal ads while the remaining traffic sees the same ad formats but with blank creatives that don't link to your app.
With so many channels out there, how do you decide which ones are worth investing in, especially when competition is fierce?
If you are just launching an app, check the Singular or AppsFlyer reports to identify the best channels in your app genre. Choose a few diverse channels—such as one social channel and one network—and start simply by following the tips I mentioned earlier. As you grow, it might be wise to limit yourself to one source in each category of channels, such as one social, one DSP, one network, and one incentivized channel, to start with. Generally, it's a good idea to minimize inventory overlap between channels. If you're an established developer, some of the tips we discussed earlier will likely be most relevant to you. Experiment to see which channels bring incremental installs.
Finally, we're curious about market trends. What's on your radar when it comes to hybrid and rewarded apps, and how are those trends shaping the UA strategies?
There's been a clear trend in the industry with more apps moving toward hybrid monetization—serving ads while also selling in-game purchases to monetize users. The challenge now is finding the right balance: adding enough ads to boost the bottom line without compromising the user experience. This has become increasingly important, especially after the decline of Hypercasual games, which has pushed developers to be more innovative in their ad monetization strategies.
One of the most effective strategies over the past year has been the rise of rewarded apps. The business model is pretty straightforward and doesn't require extensive development. These apps acquire users by promising them rewards for playing other apps. The rewarded app earns money from developers whose games get promoted and then shares some of that revenue back with users. It's a win-win situation.
This trend of buying users' time through rewarded apps doesn't seem to be going anywhere. While this marketing approach can be fairly aggressive, it's also effective. I believe that sharing ad profits with end users could mark a new era for user acquisition, where genuinely interested users engage with genuinely interesting apps and receive cashback for their participation. This new business model may very well be on the horizon. Rewarded apps can be annoying and aggressive, but the new model should improve on this by integrating seamlessly into existing mobile app experiences while also returning ad spend to the gaming community.
As our conversation comes to a close, it's clear that successful user acquisition requires a blend of creativity, data-driven insights, and strong community engagement. With a keen focus on emerging trends and a commitment to user feedback, experts like Vitalii Chukhlantcev are well-positioned to make a significant impact in the industry. After all, as the landscape evolves, how can businesses adapt their strategies to stay ahead in the ever-changing world of user acquisition?
