As more wallet-level data becomes available, advertisers begin using it for targeting and outreach. Here we give an overview of the emerging field of wallet marketing.

This is a research report from Superdao, an all-in-one DAO platform with $11.5M in funding. In December 2022, we launched Superdao Growth, a new platform for wallet marketing.

Wallet data explosion

In 2022, there are at least 50-100M monthly active wallets. User wallets contain public info on financial transactions, tokens, NFTs, POAPs, DAO votes, tickets, crypto domains, educational credentials, gaming achievements, and social activity records. There’s now enough information to build high-quality target lists.

The on-chain data is particularly informative for the following verticals: consumer finance, gaming, developer tools, DeFi, NFT tools, recruiting, web3 social apps, fashion, luxury, art, crypto-enabled hardware, metaverse, education, and events.

Problems with web2 advertising

While the web3-native marketing ecosystem is in its infancy, traditional advertising is facing serious problems. Big tech companies like Google and Meta have a market monopoly, control all user data, and limit advertiser innovation. There is a growing amount of ad fraud and low-quality clicks. Prices go up, ROI goes down. The targeting options aren’t precise enough, especially for high-spending consumers. Apple’s anti-tracking policies make ads even less precise and measurable. Further, there are serious restrictions on crypto-related advertising.

The promise of wallet marketing

The web3 data growth and web2 ad problems lead to the emergence of wallet marketing. Advertisers can now rely on public on-chain data, use high-resolution targeting, and build direct relationships with users bypassing big tech monopolies.

Compared to web2, crypto-native marketing offers several new opportunities.

• Competitor targeting. You can see what wallets are interacting with comparable projects and direct competitors.

• Whale targeting. On-chain data allows for identifying the biggest spenders and most active users in any given domain.

• High ROI. Wallet marketing is new, and the first businesses embracing it can acquire users far cheaper than in saturated web2 channels.

• Precise attribution. With custom affiliate links, advertisers can analyze individual wallets that came from each influencer, partnership, or ad. That allows tying partner compensation both to quantity and the quality of the clicks they drive. E.g. you can pay more for every whale lead.

• Personalization. Dynamically create marketing messages based on individual wallet histories.

• Higher payouts for creators and publishers. In web3, lightweight and decentralized protocols can replace centralized ad platforms with high take rates. This should lead to more value delivered to the “edges” of the ecosystem as opposed to one central monopoly.

The wallet marketing playbook

Let us break down the key elements of wallet marketing.

Data sourcing. Collect and organize public on-chain data about wallets involved with reference projects, tokens, and NFTs. Typically, you start with a “long list” of 50k-200k wallets active in your field, then collect as much relevant data about those wallets as possible. In the future, wallet marketing can source both blockchain-based and web2 data. A key area of future work is finding emails and other contact info for wallets.

Customer insights. Analyze the on-chain behavior of your current customers. Identify your core audience (most engaged customers) and cluster customers into segments. Find influencers and collections with the highest overlap for future collaborations.

Audience building. Find new potential customers using on-chain data. Develop a wallet scoring system predicting their likelihood of becoming your customers. There are a few ways to do it:

• Award points for being involved with “marker” collections, tokens, and DAOs. E.g. start with wallets involved with your direct competitors.

• Create a list of “ideal customer profile” wallets and build a look-alike list of wallets with similar activity patterns. E.g. use your most engaged customers as anchors.

• Use activity-based features, e.g., the number of monthly transactions, relationships with other wallets.

• Use exclusion rules to remove or down-score wallets with spam-like behavior patterns.

Targeting. Convert wallet audiences into more actionable and reachable lists. E.g. use public and private data sources to find emails and social contacts, identify similar audiences on Twitter, recommend targeting parameters for traditional web2 ad platforms, nominate collections for collaborations, and generate candidates for ambassador programs.

Campaigns. Once you’ve built a wallet base and created target lists of wallets, it’s time to reach out to prospective customers. Here are some options:

• Influencer marketing and ambassador programs. Create a custom link for each partner leading to a form capturing wallets. Measure outcomes for each partner and compensate them accordingly.

• Airdrops. Drop passes, tickets, and other NFT-based offers directly into wallets from your target list. Obviously, you need to be careful with this strategy, as permissionless NFTs often land in the “other/hidden” section of people’s wallets.

• Email and bots. If you found contact info for your target wallets, reach out directly using email automation tools like Hubspot and Mailchimp or bots on Telegram, Twitter, and Discord.

• Wallet-based ads. Partner with publishers who use wallet authorization (e.g., wallet apps, NFT marketplaces, web3-native social networks) and ask them to show your ad only to users from the target list you provide them with.

• Web2 ads. Target people similar to your target wallets.

• Inbound marketing. Create a special website where users can check their score and get free stuff, discounts, and early product access based on their wallet reputation.

• Web3 messengers. Use “message wallets” via emerging web3-native messengers such as Hashmail, Notifi, or Dispatch.

• Customer success. You can use the same scoring system to prioritize users among your current customers, email subscribers, Discord members, and also use it during onboarding. Once you’ve identified high-value leads, you can treat them accordingly, including premium support, access to the team, special offers, and pricing.

Automation. Automatically reach out to wallets/people based on their most recent behavior, e.g. purchase of a related token or NFT.

Marketing analytics. Measure ROI for each campaign at the wallet level, benchmark against competition, prioritize channels and partnerships that work best, and compensate partners based on the downstream returns from their leads.

Notable projects

Wallet marketing is very early, yet there’s already a lot of interesting work in the field.

• Data platforms. At Superdao, we offer a free list building for advertisers based on wallet data from their customers and their competitors’ customers. Degen score, GitPOAP, Karma, Mazury, Disco, Ethrank are among the most notable public-ranking projects based on wallet data.

• Сampaign tools. Galxe and Linkdrop are pioneering airdrop-based marketing. Cupcake offers scannable physical stickers that lead to NFT claims. ZooTools Panda and Dropform create wallet-collecting signup forms for web3 projects.

• Ad networks. WalletAds.io runs an alpha version of the wallet-based ad platform. Slise.xyz is actively signing publishers for their “Web3 AdSense” ad network. Addressable recommends Twitter Ads targeting parameters based on on-chain data.

• Reward wallets. There are a number of specialized wallets helping mainstream users organize their web3 memberships, loyalty programs, offers, tickets, and benefits. Examples include Lemonade Social, Crossmint custodial wallet, and the upcoming launch from Hang.

• CRMs. There is a number of web3-native CRMs or “WRMs” (wallet relationship management systems), including Kazm, Absolute Labs, Holder, Blaze, Definitive, and Metacommerce. Safary and Spindl are building advanced attribution systems helping web3 marketers measure and optimize ad spending.

• Community tools. Quest platforms like Layer3, Quest3, and Crew3 facilitate tasks and rewards to activate new community members. Bello and Raleon, are building wallet-based insights and engagement tools to work with the existing project communities. Qwestive is powering community-driven referral programs with crypto rewards.

To learn more about web3 growth consider joining professional communities at Safary, Myosin, Jump, and Epic Web3.

Superdao preview

At Superdao, we are building easy-to-use tools for wallet marketing. Please reach out to brainstorm how wallet marketing can work for your organization. For a limited time, we offer to build your first target list for free.

👉 To get access to Superdao Growth, apply to private beta 👈

Yury Lifshits,
Superdao CEO Twitter · Website

Thanks to numerous contributors, including Ale Borda, Ipshita Kumar, Ela Madej, Shaun Heng, Taylor Ryan, Art Malkov, Chad Smalley, and Miron Puzanov.