
#266: The two levers left for app marketers with Shumel Lais, Founder of Day30
From Business of Apps Podcast by Business of Apps
June 8, 2026 · 23 min · Episode 266
About this episode
Shumel Lais discusses the importance of signal engineering in performance marketing and how it can help app marketers identify high-value users.
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…
People in this episode
Host: Business of Apps
Guest: Shumel Lais
Topics covered
- signal engineering
- performance marketing
- user acquisition
- subscription growth
- behavioral data
- conversion probability
- synthetic events
Keywords
- signal engineering
- performance marketing
- user acquisition
- subscription apps
- behavioral data
- conversion events
- synthetic events
- customer acquisition cost
- ad platforms
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Day30, Meta, Business Of Apps
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