It used to be that marketers could focus efforts exclusively on performance and filling the funnel because data was plentiful, funding was abundant, and acquisition costs were cheap. Vanity metrics like downloads defined success, not the value companies generated by building longer-term strategies focused on driving lasting customer engagement. 

Indeed, a “growth at all costs” mindset was top-of-the-list advice for companies craving an increase in market share—even if it came at the expense of potential profits. 

Now, the dynamic has changed. Today, the emphasis is on driving profitable results on a budget that will pay dividends in the long term. To successfully scale their apps and raise ROI in the post-privacy world, marketers must shift the scales to balance growth and profitability instead of forsaking one for the other. Essentially, they must focus their teams and their strategies on achieving sustainable growth.

Mike Rhodes, CEO and Founder of ConsultMyApp (CMA)—an award-winning growth consultancy specialized in gaining and retaining users—joins David Murphy of Mobile Marketing Magazine in an engaging interview to share how brands on any budget can adopt this mindset and power profitability in the year to come.

What Is Sustainable Growth?

As Rhodes sees it, acquisition and engagement are “two sides of the same coin.” Unfortunately, there’s a dangerous disconnect between the teams charged with building and executing a strategy that will allow companies to achieve and scale sustainable growth. They are often separated by silos — and a lack of knowledge of how to join up for the best results.

“You’ve got to connect the worlds of engagement and acquisition,” Rhodes explains. “They  cannot exist in isolation.” When paired, the two feed into one another, allowing marketers to extract more actionable insights and construct stronger campaigns around both. 

It’s a massive opportunity for mobile apps and a strategy that can deliver a double-digit CPA drop when implemented correctly. Rhodes reveals CMA’s three pillars of sustainable growth and how to realize a “world-class growth strategy” in the full interview below.