Who is Thomas Petit
Thomas Petit is a well-known growth and marketing expert with a decade of experience working on subscription apps and mobile growth. He specializes in acquisition, monetization, onboarding, retention, and advertising for high-growth companies.
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In this episode of Let’s Talk Ads, Thomas joins Admiral Media CEO Andre Kempe to discuss a term that is making waves in the marketing industry: signal engineering.
What is Signal Engineering
Signal engineering means choosing and validating the events used to inform ad delivery. For a subscription app, start with an outcome that reflects customer value and check the event’s definition, permissions, deduplication and reporting delay. A correlation with later value is a hypothesis to validate, not evidence that passing the event will guarantee a better campaign.
Thomas explains that most marketers think of signal engineering as just setting up events, but it is far more about quality over quantity. It is about ensuring that the events you send are high quality, predictive of long-term value, and actionable by the platform’s algorithm.
Why It Matters Now
The rise of privacy restrictions like ATT and SKAdNetwork has reduced the amount of user-level data available to advertisers. Platforms like Meta, Google, and TikTok now rely heavily on the signals they receive to optimize ad delivery.
Without the right signals:
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Algorithms optimize toward shallow metrics like clicks or installs
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Campaigns deliver lower ROI
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Marketers lose the ability to guide automation in the right direction
With strong signal engineering:
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Campaigns optimize for deeper value actions
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A better-defined event can be evaluated against mature customer outcomes; ROAS improvement still needs to be demonstrated.
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Review cost per valuable customer and uncertainty after the event change, rather than assuming that sending more useful signals automatically increases efficiency.
How to Apply Signal Engineering in Your Campaigns
Thomas and Andre share several practical steps:
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Audit your current events – Identify which ones correlate with LTV.
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Prioritize quality events – Choose events that predict valuable customers, not just quick wins.
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Feed the algorithms – Pass back these high-quality signals consistently to your ad platforms.
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Test and iterate – Adjust event definitions as your business goals evolve.
Common Mistakes Marketers Make
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Sending too many low-value events that confuse algorithms
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Not aligning event definitions with the actual business model
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Failing to test whether an event really predicts customer value
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Treating SKAdNetwork postbacks as the only source of truth
Buzzword or Secret Weapon
Thomas’s verdict: Signal engineering is a real competitive advantage for those who understand and apply it well. While the term may sound trendy, the practice is essential for marketers navigating modern attribution and automation challenges.
Key Takeaways for Marketers
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Focus on the quality, not the quantity, of signals.
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Align signals with long-term value, not just immediate conversions.
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Continuously test and refine which events you send to platforms.
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Treat signal engineering as an ongoing process, not a one-time setup.
