Web3 Marketing: Navigating the Shift to a Cookie-less World | 🍪 |
AND - Introducing Web3espresso.co
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This is Web3 Espresso ☕—the Web3 Newsletter for creators, marketers, and coffee drinkers looking to understand how Web3 technology is changing the world we live in.
G’Day 😎,
How’s your summer kicking off? Whether you’re at home with the kids or powering through at work - enjoy the sun rays 😎.
We kicked off the summer with a little family holiday. I posted on LinkedIn last week about this summer being the first summer that I am able to control my time. I am grateful for this opportunity to live, learn, and laugh with my kids. They will teach me patience in abundance, and I will try to live these small moments of laughter with them to the fullest. This also means that I will put Web3 Espresso on the back burner for a few weeks and remove any pressure to publish articles as regularly as I have been.
This week, I thought I would help you navigate the differences between Web2 and Web3 marketing and how Web3 may provide some solutions to a cookie-less world.
As a marketer, I naturally find this topic really exciting. I have used strategies like SEO, Google advertising, and social media advertising to reach potential customers, drive traffic to websites, and help generate revenue online. User data has helped me identify audiences and serve advertising that is relevant to their wants and needs. But things are shifting. Few people realise that as we move towards a cookie-less world, the ability for marketers to use data to target audiences will significantly decline.
Will the tried and tested digital marketing strategies used for the past 15 years still work in the next 5 years? Or is it time to create new approaches to reach and connect with potential customers?
Can Web3 marketing provide fresh methods and tools for connecting with clients and imparting value?
Marketers, this is for you.
Read on.
What’s in store today:
🥡 The Weekly Roundup 5 in 5
☕+👧 TechyGirls
| 🍪 | Web3 Marketing: Navigating the Shift to a Cookie-less World
IA Your weekly ChatGPT Prompt
Let’s go! 🥤
🥡 5 in 5 …
Lacoste turns fashion NFTs into digital cards for interactive Web3 experience 👉 read it here
How Companies Like Starbucks And Nike Are Innovating With Web3 Customer Loyalty Programs 👉 read it here
Top 10 Web3 Jobs for Students to Pursue in 2023 👉 see it here
Content Creator Ecosystems In Web3: The Next Wave Of Disruption 👉 read it here
Potential of Web3 for Social Impact 👉 read it here
☕+👧 TechyGirls
Thank you to the entire team @TechyGirls for organising such a great event on 29th June 2023. I had the opportunity to present
to the TechyGirls community and share my thoughts on the opportunities Web3 technology was introducing to luxury brands.Web3 Marketing: Navigating the Shift to a Cookie-less World | 🍪 |
In the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing, staying ahead of the curve is crucial.
But what is marketing?
At its most basic level, marketing refers to the activities a company undertakes to attract an audience to buy their product or service through high-quality messaging.
The internet has disrupted marketing by shifting power to consumers through increased access to information, providing valuable data analytics, and reshaping distribution channels.
The abundance of online data has transformed the marketing role from one based on intuition and guesswork to a more scientific and data-centric discipline.
But the online world is changing again.
Growing concerns around privacy and data protection have prompted changes in browser policies and regulations, leading to the phasing out of third-party cookies.
With the future of traditional digital marketing strategies in question, it's imperative to explore new approaches to engage potential customers.
Enter Web3 marketing—a concept that holds the promise of fresh methods and tools to connect with clients and deliver value. In this article, we will delve into the differences between Web2 and Web3 marketing and examine how Web3 can provide innovative solutions in a cookie-less landscape.
A Brief History of Digital Marketing
In the 1990s, the phrase "digital marketing" first appeared. This is Web 1.0, where users could find the information they needed but were unable to share it online.
The first clickable banner went live in 1993, and HotWired bought a few of them to use in their advertising. This signaled the start of the shift from traditional marketing to digital marketing. In 1998, Google started to exist.
Then came Web 2.0, where users switched from being passive consumers to active participants. This is the social web; MySpace was the first social networking site, and Facebook followed it quickly. In the early 2000s, mobile text messaging marketing also became increasingly popular.
In the second half of the decade, we saw increased online marketing and sales, with Amazon's e-commerce sales reaching $10 billion. Mobile app culture also grew with the introduction of Whatsapp, Instagram, and Snapchat.
According to the Digital Marketing Institute, "Digital Marketing is the use of digital channels to promote or market products and services to targeted consumers and businesses."
A person now spends 65% of their time using digital media on a mobile device. Google AdWords, which accounts for 96% of the company's revenue, currently dominates the $200 billion digital advertising market. With an estimated 3.1 billion online users, social networking has led the digital marketing revolution.
The success of digital marketing can be attributed to the cookie, which allows marketers and brands to track internet users' usage patterns and common browsing habits. This, in turn, has allowed brands to customize promotions and marketing materials to user preferences.
A Digital Marketing Revolution
With the introduction of Web2, the internet became more interactive, and marketing shifted from being solely focused on placing advertisements in magazines or on billboards to one that was more user-centric, targeted, and customised.
Social media's widespread use has made it possible for value creation to become more democratic. Individuals and organisations produce and distribute content, ideas, and information more quickly and widely than ever before by utilising social media platforms.
Online marketplaces like eBay and Amazon Handmade, have all contributed to a shift in power away from traditional gatekeepers, like media companies and publishers, and towards the general public. Other examples include user-generated content platforms like YouTube, crowdsourced fundraising platforms like GoFundMe and Kickstarter, and user-generated content platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.
Digital marketing has dominated traditional advertising in terms of performance and cost efficiency by allowing big and small businesses to reach a global audience in a cost-efficient way. The promise of Web2 digital marketing has been to ensure that marketing messages reach the right people at the right time, increasing the chances of conversions.
The 7 pillars of Web2 Marketing
There are seven pillars that form the foundation of Web2 marketing. They all center around content. Today’s digital marketing strategies aim to leverage these pillars effectively to reach and engage target audiences, drive website traffic, generate leads, and achieve marketing objectives.
Content Creation and Distribution: There is a heavy reliance on creating and distributing valuable content to reach and engage a target audience through various channels, such as websites, blogs, social media platforms, and video sharing platforms.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): SEO plays a vital role in the marketing mix. By understanding search algorithms and using relevant keywords, backlinks, and other SEO techniques, SEO experts will improve visibility and rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs) and drive organic traffic to websites.
Social Media Marketing: Social media platforms enable businesses to connect and engage with their target audience. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn are used to generate brand awareness, engage in conversations, share content, and run targeted advertising campaigns. The data posted on these platforms belongs to the platform and not the user.
Paid Advertising: Paid advertising methods are great for getting quick results. Online advertising allows businesses to reach a broader audience, target specific demographics, and promote their products or services to high-intent users.
Data Analytics and Tracking: Data analytics have been the key to digital marketing success. By enabling granular data analysis and easy testing, data allows us to gain insights into user behaviour, and make data-driven decisions.
Email Marketing: Email marketing is still thriving. It allows businesses to communicate directly with their audience.
Conversion Optimisation: Conversion optimisation aims to maximise the percentage of website visitors who take desired actions, such as making a purchase, filling out a form, or subscribing to a newsletter. Techniques such as A/B testing, user experience (UX) optimisation, landing page optimisation, and persuasive copywriting are used to improve conversion rates.
The limitations of Web2 Digital Marketing
However, cracks have started to appear.
A heavily centralised architecture
The top-down architecture of Web2 has resulted in the centralisation of value distribution.
👉 Facebook has the lion share of the social networking market,
👉 Amazon has the lion share of the e-commerce market,
👉 Apple has the lion share of the mobile market and the distribution of digital content via its app store.
👉 Google, the most popular search engine, controls the lion share of the online advertising market.
These businesses now exert a great deal of influence and power over how value is distributed in the digital economy. They have the power to influence how billions of people around the world interact online.
Building a case for privacy
The collection and use of personal data in digital marketing has raised privacy concerns among consumers.
GDPR
Stricter regulations in Europe, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), have limited the ways businesses can collect and utilise customer data, impacting targeting capabilities.
Ad Blockers
The increasing usage of ad-blocking software also poses a threat to digital marketing efforts. Ad blockers restrict the visibility of ads, reducing the reach and effectiveness of campaigns.
Market Saturation
Finally, as more businesses embrace digital marketing, competition has intensified, and the digital landscape has become saturated. Standing out from the crowd and capturing the audience's attention has become more challenging than ever before, both in terms of budget and creativity.
How can we make it better?
Our reliance on Google and Meta has resulted in a world where a small number of businesses control everything. Ten years ago, these platforms changed the world of marketing and advertising, and we’ve reaped the benefits in so many ways.
Today, I feel like we can do better.
🧐 How can digital marketing be done differently?
🧐 How can we reduce our reliance on Google and Meta?
🧐 What will a cookie-less world look like, one where we do not accept being tracked online?
🧐 How can we reward the people who produce the content based on the value they provide without being dependent on an algorithm?
🧐 How could brands directly reward customers for their loyalty and continued business?
Over the past 30 years, the Internet has shifted from a static web to an ultra-personalised web. After an era of product-led marketing, we are slowly moving into a new era where brand values and storytelling become more powerful.
As we discover a new way of thinking about marketing, a different set of tools is being built to cater to this new marketing movement.
Let me introduce you to Web3 Marketing.
Web3 Marketing: Enabling Authentic Marketing
Web3 marketing takes a different approach.
While Web2 could be classified as one-directional engagement, where the customer is mostly limited to receiving information, Web3 enables customers to engage with their brands.
Web3 Marketing refers to marketing practices within the decentralized and blockchain-powered Web3 ecosystem.
Web3 marketing is a new and transformative approach that leverages decentralized technologies, such as blockchain and cryptocurrencies, to revolutionise the way businesses interact with their audiences.
Instead of speaking to the masses, it has a bottom-up user-centric approach, leverages whole ecosystems instead of data silos, shares ownership and value, and offers unique experiences.
Web3 marketing embraces the principles of decentralization, community participation, data ownership, and transparency.
Decentralization
Decentralization is a core pillar of Web3. Blockchain technology, with its decentralized and immutable nature, forms the foundation of many Web3 platforms.
Today, marketers can get access to customer data by paying third parties (like Facebook) to share information. But blockchain could allow merchants to use micropayments to motivate consumers to share personal information directly without going through an intermediary.
For example, a marketer could enable “smart contracts” (these are virtual agreements that remove the need for validation, review, or authentication by intermediaries) that users can activate when they subscribe to email newsletters or sign up for a rewards program. Micropayments would then be deposited directly into the users’ wallets whenever they interact with commercial emails or ads.
Community First Marketing
Web3 has brought about a new era of community building, where users are no longer just passive audience members, but active participants in creating and shaping online communities. I call this “incentivised community building”.
Why?
Because in Web3, a community is made up of the people who invest time and/or money in your project, Web3 technology creates an alignment of interests based on financial reward as it allows community members to directly share the financial success of the community or project.
This can be attributed to tokenization. In the context of communities, tokenization can be used to incentivise people to participate or contribute by rewarding them with tokens that can be redeemed for various benefits (such as access to exclusive content or products, voting rights, or financial rewards).
Tokenisation is the process of creating digital tokens that represent value or ownership in a particular asset or community.
From a marketing perspective, tokenization is a powerful tool for building brand loyalty and engagement. By creating a community based on shared values and interests and using tokens to incentivise participation and contribution, it creates a stronger sense of belonging and ownership.
Another key aspect of communities in Web3 are DAOs - Decentralised Autonomous Organisations. If you are not familiar with a DAO, you can read my previous post here.
Data Ownership
Marketers respect user privacy by giving individuals control over their data and providing transparent consent mechanisms. Web3 platforms enable users to share their data selectively, ensuring that marketing efforts are built on the foundation of trust and user consent.
An example of this is the Brave Browser. It is a browser that puts user privacy and security first by blocking all trackers, cookies, and other methods of collecting your data. Users can reward content creators directly using Brave Tokens that are collected when the user accepts to view advertising. The advertising model is still being used, but with consent and direct retribution to the content creator.
Transparency and Trust
Transparency and trust are other key components of Web3. Blockchain technology inherently offers transparency through its public, verifiable record of transactions and interactions. To build trust and authenticity in marketing campaigns, there needs to be a focus on open governance and a clear commitment to data privacy and security. Ultimately, this means that users have more control over their data and have the opportunity to confirm the legitimacy of information and transactions.
Data ownership and privacy are core concepts of Web3. You can learn how Web3 tackles data ownership in a previous article here.
Web3 Marketing in a Cookie-Less World
Web3 marketing can navigate the challenges of a cookie-less world by leveraging the unique characteristics and technologies associated with Web3. Here are some strategies that Web3 marketing can employ:
Blockchain-based Identity Solutions: Web3 marketing can utilise blockchain-based identity solutions to enable users to have more control over their data and provide explicit consent for data sharing. Decentralized identity protocols can authenticate users without relying on third-party cookies, allowing marketers to build trust and engage with users in a privacy-centric manner.
Tokenized Incentives and Loyalty Programs: Web3 introduces the concept of tokens and cryptocurrency. Marketers can leverage these tokens to create innovative loyalty programs and incentives, rewarding users for their engagement, attention, and data sharing. By offering token-based rewards and benefits, marketers can encourage user participation and foster deeper connections with their audience.
🔥 Learn more about Tokenized Loyalty here (Starbucks Use Case)
Decentralized Advertising Networks: Decentralized advertising networks operate on blockchain technology. These networks can facilitate transparent and secure transactions between advertisers and publishers, ensuring that user data is protected and advertisers receive verified impressions. This approach promotes more equitable and privacy-focused advertising practices.
Permissioned Data Sharing: Web3 marketing can leverage smart contracts and decentralized storage solutions to enable permissioned data sharing between users and marketers. This allows users to have greater control over the data they share and ensures that marketers only access data with explicit user consent. This approach aligns with the principles of data ownership and privacy in Web3.
Content NFTs and Tokenized Experiences: Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) can be used in Web3 marketing to create unique, tokenized content and experiences. Marketers can mint NFTs that represent exclusive content, access to events, or special privileges, fostering scarcity and value for users. This can drive engagement, generate excitement, and create new monetisation opportunities within the Web3 ecosystem.
🔥 Learn how LVMH is using NFTs and Tokenized experiences here.
Community-First Marketing Campaigns: Web3 marketing emphasises community participation and engagement. Marketers involve their communities in the decision-making process, co-creation of content, and advocacy efforts. By fostering a sense of ownership and participation, marketers can tap into the power of passionate communities to amplify their message and reach wider audiences.
🔥 Learn more about the power of communities in Web3 here.
Data Transparency and Auditability: Blockchain technology is inherently transparent and auditable. Marketers can leverage the immutable nature of blockchain to provide users with transparent information about how their data is used and stored. This transparency can help build trust and differentiate Web3 marketing from traditional practices.
Conclusion
Overall, the internet has transformed marketing by empowering consumers, enabling targeted advertising, facilitating direct interaction, promoting content marketing, revolutionising e-commerce, providing data analytics, and reshaping distribution channels.
Today, this landscape is changing.
With increasing privacy concerns and regulatory changes, the future of cookies is uncertain. The impact of a cookie-less world means that it poses challenges in terms of personalised advertising, audience segmentation, and measuring campaign effectiveness.
Today, marketers need to investigate privacy-conscious technologies and adapt their strategies to rely on alternative methods for collecting and using consumer data.
These are some of the promises of Web3.
Web3 marketing emphasises the empowerment of individuals, allowing them to have greater control over their data and participate in decision-making processes. It is user-centric and aimed at building customer relationships and interactions by creating reciprocal value.
Embracing this new paradigm could lead to a more transparent, user-centric, and privacy-aware digital marketing ecosystem.
AI - Your weekly ChatGPT Prompt
Like most people, I have been exploring CHATGPT and different prompts. Each week, I will share my favorite prompts with you.
What it does
This is the mother of all prompts. It helps you ask ChatGPT to create the best prompt for your request.
Prompt
I want you to become my Prompt Creator. Your goal is to help me craft the best possible prompt for my needs. The prompt will be used by you, ChatGPT. You will follow the following process: 1. Your first response will be to ask me what the prompt should be about. I will provide my answer, but we will need to improve it through continual iterations by going through the next steps. 2. Based on my input, you will generate 3 sections. a) Revised prompt (provide your rewritten prompt. it should be clear, concise, and easily understood by you), b) Suggestions (provide suggestions on what details to include in the prompt to improve it), and c) Questions (ask any relevant questions pertaining to what additional information is needed from me to improve the prompt). 3. We will continue this iterative process with me providing additional information to you and you updating the prompt in the Revised prompt section until it's complete.
That’s all for this week… 🫶 Enjoy your holidays
Please note that I do not recommend or endorse the companies and organisations mentioned in this newsletter. This content is purely informative and not a recommendation. Always be mindful of where you connect your wallet. Always do your own research. 💛