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A keynote wrap from AGSA with Maxime Calot, CEO of Welcome Tomorrow
South African brands love a big acquisition number. New installs, campaign spikes, the classic screenshot of a dashboard with a green arrow pointing up.
But Maxime Calot opened AGSA with a very honest gut punch.
Retention is the real game. Acquisition is only the warm up.
And if that stings, it should.
The entire room quickly realised that our biggest challenge is not the marketing budget, the competition, or even attention spans.
It is the fact that product teams and marketing teams are still working as if they come from different planets.
The Mobile Market Is Growing Faster Than Teams Can Keep Up
Africa is in a mobile acceleration era.
Maxime showed numbers that would make any CMO sweat.
- Southern Africa is seeing massive growth in smartphone subscriptions
- Time spent on mobile has reached serious daily averages
- App spend is climbing into the billions
This all sounds like opportunity, but here is the punchline.
Ninety percent of installs vanish within the first ten days.
Not because people do not want your app.
Not because the idea is bad.
But because the experience is not built to retain them.
Installs Mean Nothing Without a Path to Stickiness
Maxime reminded everyone that retention is not a single metric.
It is the sum of:
- Activation
- Stickiness
- Frictionless experiences
- Follow through from the brand
- Value moments that actually matter
And most importantly, retention comes from alignment.
Marketing promises the value.
Product must deliver it.
Lifecycle must reinforce it.
Data must inform it.
But right now, most teams in South Africa still pass the user down a long funnel like a relay baton.
No visibility.
No shared KPIs.
No unified ownership.
The Real Problem: Silos, Silos, Silos
[Insert Image: graphic of siloed teams from Maxime’s deck]
Maxime described something everyone in the room nodded at.
Marketing cares about awareness metrics.
Product cares about features and releases.
CRM cares about pushes and journeys.
BI teams guard the data like it is Fort Knox.
The result is a perfect storm of half built funnels.
Beautiful acquisition.
Weak activation.
Chaotic retention.
In South Africa, with limited budgets and high competition, this approach simply does not work any more.
A Better Growth Model: Product and Marketing as One Team
Maxime’s golden thread was simple and powerful.
You cannot scale an app without the integration of tech, marketing and product.
He showed how:
- Product builds delightful experiences
- Marketing drives the lifecycle
- Data teams unlock intelligence
- CRM activates value moments
- All of it must work together
When teams align, the effect is massive.
He literally showed a GIF of people lifting a car together because that is what true cross functional alignment feels like.
Heavy, but possible, and game changing.
The South African Opportunity Is Huge, If Teams Can Work Together
[Insert Image: photo of the room or audience from AGSA]
The harsh truth is that most apps are still built and optimised for last year’s user behaviour.
But the growth curve of mobile adoption in Africa is outpacing the structures inside companies.
The brands that will win the next five years are the ones that:
- Treat retention as their primary growth metric
- Treat activation as a moment of value, not a checkbox
- Treat app experience as a brand promise
- Build shared KPIs across product and marketing
- Stop obsessing over installs and start obsessing over habit building
Because, as Maxime said, the end game is not the install. The endgame is the user staying.
Final Thought
Maxime’s keynote set the tone for the entire AGSA day.
South African brands do not need bigger campaigns or more features.
They need stronger alignment, better activation, and an honest look at the leaks in their user journey.
App retention is not the finish line. It is the starting point.
Don Packett walked onto the AGSA stage with one mission. To remind everyone that the real game is not acquisition. It is habit. Because if your users need reminders to open your app, you already have a problem.
Ready to Move Beyond the Cliff Drop?
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