marketingartificial intelligence
Navigating the New Era of Mobile User Acquisition: Inside Zoomd’s 20-Year Journey
Tell me about Zoomd’s business.
Zoomd is a mobile-first marketing solution company enabling global advertisers to generate new mobile app users cost-effectively as they grow their business profitably. By working with our proprietary UA platform, a mobile DSP, content creators, and Albert.ai technologies, Zoomd is able to deliver a full-funnel, holistic solution, running advertising campaigns, empowering our clients to generate new users across gaming, entertainment, commerce, and fintech verticals.
Zoomd has been working in User Acquisition for a while.
Zoomd (originally founded in 2007 as a search startup and later merged with Moblin in 2012), has nearly two decades of mobile user acquisition experience. We’ve managed user acquisition campaigns through all of the changes in the industry, from the pivot to social media and then video, to the implementation of privacy legislation and operating system changes, which restructured user acquisition best practices.
Through all of the industry changes, we’ve focused on uncovering opportunities for our clients and partners to cost-effectively manage their user acquisition campaigns across channels and regions. This experience has made Zoomd proactive and more nimble, enabling us to anticipate the changes being made by big tech, marketing, and end-users, resulting in profitable user acquisition campaigns for our clients.
Today, as a publicly traded company, Zoomd Technologies Ltd. (TSXV: ZOMD) (OTC: ZMDTF), offers comprehensive and privacy-friendly user acquisition across the leading platforms as well as programmatic and direct channels through the open mobile web.
How is User Acquisition different today?
User acquisition on mobile devices has changed a lot since we started running user acquisition campaigns in 2007. The initial campaigns were across a non-programmatic open mobile web or in-app ads in other apps. Back then, Facebook was a desktop website.
Apple’s App Store launched in July 2008 with 500 apps. Google Play, which unified the Android Market, Google Music, Google Movies, and Google Books into one app store, only launched in March 2012.
Today, user acquisition is more competitive and complicated, with campaigns running across social media networks, in-app, and programmatically over the open web via Demand and Supply-Side Platforms and exchanges.
Privacy, which wasn’t an issue in 2007, became important in 2018 when the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) took effect in Europe, followed in 2020 by the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), the first of many US-based state-based privacy laws. In 2021, Apple limited Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) when the company rolled out App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework with the release of iOS 14.5. This required users to explicitly opt-in before they could be tracked for advertising purposes, significantly limiting the targeting data available for advertising. Google also rolled out enhanced privacy protocols, though they were less aggressive than Apple’s.
Having worked in user acquisition since there were just a few hundred apps, managing campaigns through all of the aforementioned changes in the industry has made Zoomd a stronger and more effective mobile marketing partner. We’ve literally seen and done it all, and are therefore ready to help companies manage the new changes and challenges that will happen in 2026 and beyond. For example, the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) requires gatekeeper platforms like Apple’s App Store to allow European users to download apps from alternative app marketplaces and to use alternative payment systems outside of the app.
Today… is it all Google and Meta?
Though Google and Meta are important, there are a lot of other channels used in successful and profitable user acquisition campaigns. Depending on the target audience and geographies, Zoomd runs campaigns across many social platforms, including Snapchat, Reddit, Pinterest, Twitter, as well as on regional platforms, like Kwai and Bigo Live. For example, for one European campaign, Snapchat was the platform that delivered the most money-making users, which we anticipated based on our team’s experience.
Beyond the platforms, we’re big believers in the open mobile web. Through programmatic channels, we’re able to successfully convert lots of users cost-effectively across app categories and geographies through display and video ads, including user generated content videos.
What Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are important for User Acquisition?
The KPIs that advertisers monitor can vary widely based on the app’s maturity and function, but ultimately, they all share the same objective: driving growth and profitability. That’s why so many of our campaigns prioritize revenue-focused KPIs, such as first deposit amount or average order value. By centering user acquisition strategies around these profit-driven metrics, marketers can accurately measure campaign success and ensure they are acquiring valuable, high-quality users who contribute to the bottom line.
Vanity metrics, such as clicks and engagement rates, are also important for crunching data and gaining a better understanding of creative effectiveness, segmentation, etc. User acquisition creative must do more than generate clicks – it must drive prospective users into the funnel to download and install the app and take an action, like depositing money or placing an order.
What should a marketer new to User Acquisition understand before launching his or her first campaign?
A new marketer should first understand his or her company’s business model and the actions that deliver profitable users. That’s the marketing funnel and the north star that will lead marketing and user acquisition activity. Once the marketer understands the business, we’ll work together to set up the campaign based on the company’s business and our experience across similar geographies, target audiences, and product categories to ensure that the user acquisition campaign is on target and within the budget.
Closing thoughts on the future of User Acquisition?
As I said, there are changes happening in the app stores, like the opening up of alternative app stores and payment systems in Europe. App marketing is a dynamic market, which is why for user acquisition, it’s important to work with an agile partner having extensive experience with app marketing across verticals, geographies, and platforms. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now in every aspect of our work and lives, and it’s also necessary for effective user acquisition. Advertisers need a partner that moves fast, with the trends, to ensure that their brand doesn’t fall behind. After nearly 20 years of actively working in user acquisition, Zoomd is a trusted partner that understands the market and can profitably manage user acquisition campaigns.
