#266: The two levers left for app marketers with Shumel Lais, Founder of Day30

Performance marketers are running out of levers — and the one most teams haven't pulled yet is signal.

In this episode, we speak with Shumel Lais , Founder of Day30, about signal engineering and why it may be the most important skill in performance marketing right now.

Shumel explains what signal engineering actually is, how prediction models use behavioural data to identify high-value users before they ever convert, and why synthetic events — goals you engineer rather than observe — help ad platforms like Meta find better users faster. He also shares how subscription apps have achieved up to 50% reductions in CAC, and why, with everything else becoming automated, signal is now one of only two levers performance marketers still control.

If you work in user acquisition or subscription growth, this is a must-listen.

Today’s topics include:

• What signal engineering is — and how it differs from simply tracking conversion events
• How prediction models use behavioural data to score users by conversion probability
• Synthetic events — engineering goals that don't yet exist to give ad platforms a sharper target
• Why subscription apps generate the behavioural data depth that makes signal engineering work
• The three components of an effective signal: volume, velocity, and precision
• Why performance marketers are down to just two levers — creative and signal

Links and Resources:

• Shumel Lais on LinkedIn
• Day30
• Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry

Quotes from Shumel Lais

“The concept of signal engineering is to see how we can manipulate that event to give the ad platforms a stronger correlation to the business value that you're after."

"A synthetic event is, ultimately, when we're creating an event that doesn't actually exist. These are not things that have actually occurred — but based on the data we take in, we can build this from scratch."

"When I think of performance marketing now, everything's become very algorithmic and very black box. There's less and less levers available for marketers to pull. I think there's only really two levers left — one is creative, and the second lever is signal."

Host

Business Of Apps - connecting the app industry since 2012