Reducing Silos: Web3 Marketing or just good Fundamentals

In the ever-evolving intersection of tech, innovation, and consumers, Web3 has emerged as the latest frontier.

Yet, as we embrace this new paradigm, there’s a concerning trend of disregarding the fundamental principles that have shaped effective marketing strategies for decades. However, I believe the tide is turning.

The most pressing issue is data or rather, the lack of a comprehensive unifying view of the data. While Web3 proponents tout blockchain’s transparency, measuring marketing effectiveness in this space is far more complex. Traditional Web2 marketers rely on engagement, reach and purchase events. In contrast, Web3 marketers tend to focus on heavily transactional on-chain events, which, while valuable, fall short of painting a complete picture of user behaviour.

The pseudo-anonymous nature of blockchain transactions creates significant challenges for data interpretation. There’s a heavy reliance on metrics like new wallet creations and Total Value Locked (TVL), while established marketing metrics are often overlooked. This approach is akin to navigating a ship with only half a map.

The solution isn’t to abandon Web3 data but to integrate it with traditional Web2 metrics.

Techniques such as market mix modelling and econometrics can go some way to develop a comprehensive understanding of our audience and the effectiveness of our strategies. For instance, these methods can help correlate on-chain activities with off-chain marketing efforts, providing a more holistic view of campaign performance. Yet, many Web3 marketers seem content with their limited view, mistaking a piece of the puzzle for the entire picture.

This data-centric challenge is closely tied to another area ripe for scrutiny: channel selection in Web3 marketing. There’s a heavy reliance on tactical execution and selection. While channel selection has its place, the focus often seems to be on the channels themselves rather than their role within a broader marketing strategy. We’ve lost sight of the fundamental principle that media KPIs should support marketing KPIs, which in turn ladder to business KPIs. Instead, there’s often a fixation on vanity metrics, as if they were direct indicators of business success.

This myopic focus on Web3-specific tactics is reminiscent of the early days of e-commerce. In 2011, when many were predicting the death of brick-and-mortar retail, Darrell Rigby presciently argued in Harvard Business Review for “omnichannel retailing”—a seamless blend of digital and physical experiences. Rigby recognised that customers wanted both the advantages of digital and the tangible aspects of traditional shopping.

Web3 marketers would do well to heed this lesson.

Just as successful retailers learned to integrate online and offline experiences, effective Web3 strategies should blend blockchain-native approaches with proven marketing principles. Consider Byron Sharp’s emphasis on mental and physical availability: in Web3, this might mean ensuring your project is easily discoverable and explorable across environments. Or take the classic principle of multiple touchpoints across consumer journeys before a transaction takes place: in a Web3 context, this could involve engaging users across Discord, Twitter, real-world events, and on-chain interactions, warming up the customer and actively nurturing their learning as they discover your project, bringing them along for the journey.

The most successful Web3 projects will likely be those that can create an “omnichannel” experience bridging Web2 and Web3, while reducing friction in the customer journey—be it in setting up a wallet or understanding tokenomics.

During my time managing Web3 onboarding activations for McLaren x Tezos and Binance x Cristiano Ronaldo, I witnessed the power of maintaining a laser focus on the end consumer. These campaigns succeeded not because of tactical execution, but because they were grounded in solid strategy fundamentals backed by tangible benefits for Web2 users entering the Web3 space.

The key was highlighting advantages such as access to global communities, deeper connections with players and franchises, and new revenue opportunities for athletes. By using familiar language and designing intuitive onboarding processes, in doing so we reduced friction and increased adoption.

Monad XYZ, I believe is doing this well, Unlike many projects that view their community as mere numbers, Monad integrates their community directly into their marketing efforts. They avoid artificial engagement boosters like questing platforms, instead allowing their community to organically build the brand and take advantage of the network distribution effect. Monad uses its channels to tell brand stories, community stories, and educational narratives, effectively turning its brand into a compelling story in itself.

Moving forward, it’s crucial for Web3 marketing to mature alongside the technology.

We need to acknowledge and learn from the decades of marketing research and practice that preceded us. This means combining the best of Web2 metrics with the unique insights offered by blockchain data and developing comprehensive strategies that align with real business objectives. Most importantly, we must remember that at the core of all marketing—regardless of the technological era—is the consumer. Not a wallet address or a username, but a real person with genuine needs and desires.

Web3 offers exciting possibilities for marketing; it should be viewed as a new testing ground for novel engagement and activation models. However, we shouldn’t turn our backs on the sound marketing principles and work that has come before. It’s time to integrate Web3 marketing into the broader context of marketing and best practices, rather than treating it as an entirely new discipline.

As we move forward, marketers in the Web3 space should strive to create integrated strategies that leverage both blockchain-specific opportunities and time-tested marketing wisdom. By doing so, we can hope to activate new audiences and harness the true potential of the new internet we are all building out in front of ourselves. The future of Web3 marketing lies not in isolation, but in intelligent integration with the rich tapestry of marketing knowledge we’ve accumulated over decades.