I went to MAU Vegas so you don’t have to: GTM lessons for mobile app builders
Just got back from MAU Vegas 2025, where I spent a few days nerding out on GTM tech stacks with folks from consumer apps, gaming, fintech, and lifecycle platforms. If you're building or scaling a mobile-first app, here’s the distilled version of what top-performing teams are actually doing right now — minus the vendor hype.
🧱 What’s essential in 2025
The consensus was pretty clear: besides AI everything, the modern GTM tech stack for mobile apps boils down to five key components:
Your app
Backend for data storage (DB or DWH)
Product analytics (Firebase, PostHog, Amplitude, Mixpanel)
Mobile Measurement Platform (MMP) – e.g. AppsFlyer or Adjust
Emailing tool/ Customer Engagement Platform (CEP) – Mailchimp, Launchlist, Airship, Braze, MoEngage, etc., depending on where you're at in relation to launch.
This stack gives you full-funnel visibility, cross-channel orchestration, and user-level performance attribution — all without overcomplicating things.
🚫 What’s not essential: CDPs, social tools.
CDPs came up a lot — but mostly in the context of why teams aren’t using them. The takeaway: unless you're monetizing across multiple platforms, channels, or business units, a CDP is not necessary.
Similarly, until you're Brawlstars big you don't need to invest in a paid social management tool.
Some real talk from large teams:
Spoke with the marketing team of a multi-billion dollar corp and their mobile growth org does not use their CDP for GTM.
Even multi-million user apps are thriving with just a CEP + MMP setup.
Most CDP benefits (data unification, real-time ingestion, audience sync) are irrelevant if your product and revenue model are still evolving.
🎯 Strategic takeaways
Some of the most actionable advice came from stage talks and workshops:
Scopely (Monopoly GO)
Skip soft launches if you have conviction.
Localize culture, not just language.
Use Facebook groups + TikTok for high-ROI organic lift.
Creative iteration speed is everything.
Spend time creating community around shared product value (discord, FB, etc.)
Even minor changes to paywalls, subscription models, and page design can have huge uplift in retention and subscription volume.
Growth now spans product, brand, creative, and lifecycle. There are no clear borders now, and the overall perception of your service is comprised of the user's experience across all of these spheres
“Renaissance marketers” use AI tools and internal feedback loops — absolutely essential in 2025.
Lifecycle orchestration is critical. Most users drop in the first 3 days; manual comms will become a block eventually
🧠 TL;DR for new mobile teams
If you’re building a consumer app right now, here’s a lean, proven GTM stack that’ll take you pretty far. Most, but not all free but you can make a free version of the below if you need to be scrappy:
AppsFlyer (MMP) for attribution
Brevo/ Mailchimp/ ConstantContact/ or Airship / Braze / MoEngage for communication/journey automation
PostHog or Amplitude for product analytics
Deliver product value first, then worry about data optimization
There's more, let me know if anyone wants to discuss or has further questions and I'll do my best or point to additional resources.
Thanks for reading!
Replies
minimalist phone: creating folders
Hey, thank you for sharing these snippets of wisdom :) Is there a website for this event? :)
P.S. I can confirm that iterating on creatives is everything. We're currently testing many concepts, and it turns out that out of the 20 creatives we produced, only 2 or 3 are actually performing well enough to generate dozens of purchases.
@busmark_w_nika Thanks for commenting! Here is the event website: https://mauvegas.com/ . It's one of the biggest mobile-first conferences in the U.S.
That's awesome! I am a big fan of just testing stuff rather than trying to get the first attempt perfect ... just gotta pay attention to the results once you do! It's great to hear you are cracking the code on what works for you.
minimalist phone: creating folders
@cholden_lewis Thank you! I am collecting conferences because I would like to attend as many as possible in the future :)
@busmark_w_nika Good idea! Best part of MAU: It's freeeee for app builders and publishers!
minimalist phone: creating folders
@cholden_lewis Wait! If I am a media company or someone who interview people, can I get a free ticket? :D
Thanks, that's super interesting and helpful! Just one thing, did you really mean "Facebook groups"? Is that a US thing? I feel like in the UK no one uses it anymore.
@laura_cornely thanks for commenting! And yes, really, Facebook groups! I know it seems strange but the group functionality is actually still one of the most vibrant corners of the platform. The example in the presentation was for monopoly go sticker trading, which has 9 million members as of today.
There are a lot of sillier ones — some committed to particular video games, others where everyone is committed to some dumb joke, like this group where everyone pretends to be ants in a colony. (1.7 million members?!?)
Whatever the use case, if you have enough people with shared belief in the value of what you're doing, facebook (or discord, for the more tech forward groups) is a great place to start gathering those people.
Kalyxa
Great write-up, Holden. Love the ‘skip soft launches if you have conviction’ bit — bold, but it tracks in today’s feedback-speed world. Also agree CDPs are overkill unless you’re running multi-headed monsters. Lean stack + deep understanding of early retention = unfair advantage. Would love a deeper dive on what kind of creative iterations are working best for organic lift right now.
@parth_ahir Thanks for the comment! And re: organic lift, that's a good question. A lot of the user acquisition discussion at MAU was focused on paid acquisition, which is a more common test ground because you have control over more of the variables.
With SEO in the state of flux as it is, the best bet on organic lift is (besides app store optimization) to find the places where your audience is already congregating and start participating in the conversations taking place. You can always try and hop on a viral trend on TikTok or something, but that is hard, hard work.
Looking at your profile, your app looks like a personal styling solution. I bet Pinterest and Poshmark would be great places to lay ground if you haven't already. Happy to brainstorm with you if you'd like. Good luck!