Contents
To understand crypto’s rise in popularity, you don’t need to look at statistics about NFT ownership over time, or look for attendance records for each of Miami’s (many) crypto conferences in 2021 Is. All you need to do is go to Twitter and see how long you can scroll through before being interrupted by an ad for a crypto exchange.
Since 2020, there have been more than a billion tweets about crypto around the world, Twitter’s senior communications associate Lara Baez told Marketing Brew via email. Between 2020 and 2021, tweets about crypto increased sixfold. And a 2021 YouGov survey conducted by Twitter showed that 84% of people interested in crypto use the platform, she said.
“Twitter is essential to any Web3 project. Jason Keith, co-founder and CEO of social media education company Social Fresh, told us that whether they are advertising or not, they need to have a strategy. who run paid crypto ads on Twitter, but also some ads themselves for Social Fresh’s NFT Fresh conference.
Twitter is aware that conversations about the crypto space are taking place on its platform. He also knows that he can take advantage of those conversations with paid ads. So last fall, Twitter updated its financial services policy to allow “certain specific” cryptocurrency products and services to run paid ads on its platform.
Since then, some crypto marketers have told us that it has become easier to approve ads on the platform. But others cite confusion over what Twitter needs from advertisers to run its ads.
Wide Open (Advertising) Spaces
Twitter had an official policy on crypto advertising since 2018, before most of us knew we should probably hold onto that bitcoin for a few more years. Baez told us that from 2018 to November 2021, only public cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets listed on major stock exchanges were allowed to run ads.
But in the fall of 2021, Twitter rolled out a new policy allowing not only certain NFT-related ads, but also allowing more types of crypto companies to run paid ads. Per Bez, Twitter updated its policy to “address the growing number of crypto products/services.”
Twitter’s financial products and services advertising guidelines its website It should be noted that, in the US and many other countries, “promotion of cryptocurrency products or services is permitted only with prior authorization from Twitter.” Twitter’s director of financial services Jeff Mele told us that prior authorization is also limited to managed advertisers, aka those who have a Twitter Ads representative.
Advertisers subject to this prior authorization include cryptocurrency exchanges, crypto “hot” wallets, crypto kiosks and ATMs, crypto credit and debit cards, crypto staking and contracts for difference (CFDs).
John Vance, Director of Growth Marketing at Web3 marketing agency Serotonin, tells us he has seen firsthand how easy it is to get crypto ads up and running since the 2021 expansion. “It definitely opened up,” he told us.
Andrew Tam, chief marketing officer of cryptocurrency exchange and crypto financial services firm BlockFi, told us that in Q2 2021, his company was to receive said authorization from Twitter before being able to run paid ads. Although Twitter told us that private crypto companies like BlockFi were not allowed to run ads until Q4 2021, BlockFi was an exception, as Tame told us it was involved in a limited Twitter pilot program in which a select group of advertisers were allowed to run ads. was allowed to promote. Crypto products before the rules change officially.
Get Marketing News You’ll Actually Want to Read
The email newsletter is guaranteed to bring you the latest stories shaping the marketing and advertising worlds like only Brew can.
Following its approval, Tam said there was a slight learning curve in figuring out what types of ads Twitter would and would not approve. “It was kind of like, ‘You’re approved,’ and then we were like, ‘Okay, cool, we’re loading up on a bunch of stuff,'” but then those initial ads would get flagged and not go live. , he explained. That flagging can either come from a human, such as a Twitter ad representative, or an automated system.
Tam also told us it’s unclear if this learning curve coincides with Twitter’s November 2021 update. After learning, things seem to be going more smoothly, and Tam told us that BlockFi plans to continue with paid ads on Twitter in the future.
But he added that paid ads are more complementary to the brand’s organic marketing strategy on the platform. And he’s not alone—the other sources we spoke to who currently do paid ads for crypto products on Twitter said the same. “This is not where our primary budget sits for our campaigns,” Vance said of Twitter.
Mele told us it’s possible that the relatively short period of time the option is available could play a role in why crypto marketers on Twitter are leaning on more organic efforts than payments. After all, many of them were essentially forced to rely on organic up until very recently, so testing and learning with payoff can take some time.
He added that some crypto companies may not even know that they have the option of paying for the back of their content. “We are five or six months after the policy rollout. Our policy…It is on our public web pages, but I don’t know how widely distributed or how well-known it is,” he told us.
the fine print
Fair also told us that in the US, for any crypto-related company to run a paid ad on Twitter, it needs to be registered with the SEC, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. (CFTC).
But not every paid crypto advertiser is made aware of it. Michelle O’Connor, VP of Marketing & Coms at crypto tax-software company Taxbit, told us she’s been having some difficulty getting their paid Twitter ads approved recently. She said she was not aware of Twitter’s regulatory registration requirement.
O’Connor said Taxbit was able to run paid ads on Twitter prior to its recent policy change, which may be because it doesn’t explicitly fall into any of the categories that require prior authorization for advertising. But it hasn’t been easy. “I have 10 ads running right now. Four out of 10 are paused. And that means there’s a problem with the ad, but they’re literally the same ad, the same text, the same scene, just different are targeting audiences,” she told us. She added that the audience is “over 18, et cetera.”
“Those problems are still happening. In the early days, there used to be more, but they are still very, very, very present,” O’Connor told us. She said TaxBit has a Twitter Ads representative, but they never told her it was necessary to register with a regulatory body like FinCEN or the SEC.
O’Connor told us that her Twitter rep couldn’t guide her as to why TaxBit’s ads are pulled. “It was just, ‘Let me ask,’ and then we don’t hear anything back.”
source: www.morningbrew.com
