Building Cash App's Growth Engine: Dyan Khor's Playbook for Mobile Marketing

In this episode of Brave New Digital World, Andy Carvell sits down with Dyan Khor -- growth marketing leader, ex-Cash App, and advisor to scaling startups -- for a deep dive into modern growth strategy.Dyan shares how she built Cash App’s marketing engine from scratch, managed over $500M in ad spend, and why she believes proactive hiring beats traditional recruiting. The conversation spans the evolution of measurement post-iOS 14, media mix modeling, and why the line between brand and performance marketing is fading fast.We also explore the rising challenges of AI-fueled competition, the importance of creative novelty, and Dyan’s perspective on when not to spend a dollar. Whether you’re scaling a startup or optimizing at enterprise level, this episode is packed with honest insights, bold predictions, and practical frameworks.Links & Resources:Uber ad fraud story: https://www.marketingtodaypodcast.com/194-historic-ad-fraud-at-uber-with-kevin-frisch/John Egan's blog: https://jwegan.com/Dyan's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dyankhor/Dyan's website: https://dyankhor.comMMM / Incrementality solutions Dyan recommended:Recast - https://getrecast.com/Paramark - https://paramark.com/Analytic Partners - https://analyticpartners.com/Chapters:(00:00) - Intro (00:41) - Introducing Dyan and Her Background (08:11) - Lessons from working at gaming companies (11:02) - Applying learnings from large-scale companies to early-stage startups (14:06) - Measurement past iOS 14 (19:15) - MMM infrastructure: Build or buy? (23:13) - The (controversial) role of fingerprinting today (25:52) - Performance vs. Brand Marketing is a false dichotomy (29:27) - AI is leading to more competition, there's a need for novelty to be successful (31:45) - What's Wired, Tired, or Expired in Digital Marketing? (36:46) - If you had no limits to your ambition... (38:59) - Resource recommendations (41:33) - One thing companies need to stop doing. (44:37) - Outro