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User Acquisition is mostly a dead-end career path. UA is a great role from which to start a career because it touches both analytics and product, but the ceiling for career growth is fairly low (1/X)
2/ First, UA success is totally dependent on the monetization efficiency and TAM of the product. If the product cant scale and doesnt convert, the UA team cant be successful https://mobiledevmemo.com/building-a-virtuous-cycle-between-product-and-marketing/
3/ Second, even scaleable products hit a level of saturation after long enough that prevents a UA team from demonstably growing the product through paid media. https://mobiledevmemo.com/three-stages-marketing-lifecycle-mobile/
4/ This happens very frequently: a UA team capably scales a product, the product hits the second inflection in the S curve, and a “brand CMO”
is hired to take over to own a more comprehensive marketing org https://mobiledevmemo.com/how-to-navigate-a-career-in-mobile-marketing/
is hired to take over to own a more comprehensive marketing org https://mobiledevmemo.com/how-to-navigate-a-career-in-mobile-marketing/
5/ Because so many marketing leaders with deep brand experience exist relative to those with deep UA experience, it’s easy to hire someone with an impressive work history to fill that role & complement the UA team’s work https://mobiledevmemo.com/defining-the-cmo-role-in-a-mobile-first-company/
6/ Brand is important and marketing teams should be well rounded, but I often see these Brand CMOs struggle to understand how digital (esp mobile) products scale in the absence of a pre-existing brand https://mobiledevmemo.com/the-uncomfortable-tension-between-brand-and-performance-marketing-on-mobile/
7/ Reality: It’s easier to level up the UA person into a CMO that incorporates brand-mindedness into their work, de-siloing UA + product + TAM into a unified vision. But that rarely happens, because it seems less risky to hire big-name VP Marketing https://mobiledevmemo.com/the-future-of-mobile-growth-teams/
8/ So to where does the Director of UA progress? I actually think the UA -> CMO role track is not optimal. UA teams deeply understand the interplay between audience targeting & user base growth. That sounds like traditional “marketing” but for digital products its core strategy
9/ People with UA backgrounds make great product leaders because they grok the “path to growth”: not just the levers that drive acquisition or that drive retention, but the combined user journey from cradle to grave https://mobiledevmemo.com/monthly-churn-terrible-metric/
10/ UA people should theoretically also understand product resonance and TAM factors, and the appeal / monetization tension. Also the Click Through Rate Conundrum https://mobiledevmemo.com/click-rate-conundrum/
11/ For these reasons, UA people are helpful in early product evaluation and assessing performant market segments. Theres a natural progression from “growing products” to “building products that can be grown” https://mobiledevmemo.com/building-a-virtuous-cycle-between-product-and-marketing/
12/ I have seen UA people successfully grow into senior Operations / Strategy / Product roles. A fundamental grasp of core commercial KPIs + interplay between UA -> product is very valuable from those vantage points. Potentially moreso than from CMO perch.
