It would be great if we all had the time to travel the globe and lend a helping hand to the areas that need it. Well, thanks to today’s technology, it is now possible to plant trees without even lifting a finger – or green thumb. A multitude of technology companies, websites, search engines, and even brands are promising to plant trees in return for a user’s action.

These companies aren’t beating around the bush…

One company already rooted in this space is Ecosia, the search engine that plants trees when users use it to surf the web. The basic model is simple: users search, search ads generate income for Ecosia, which is then used to plant trees.

Ecosia publishes monthly financial reports and tree planting receipts, meaning users can ‘hold [the company] accountable’.

But wouldn’t it be great if you could see actual proof of the trees your efforts have planted? When trying to find the answer, this Twitter thread popped up:

“Tangible useful blockchain implementation”. We’re opening up a whole can of worms here, but the fact that a partnership could be formed that would allow sites promising to plant trees, as we often see, being able to prove this, would certainly be exciting, and a way to avoid greenwashing.

There are multiple platforms being designed to provide this. An example is veritree, a data-driven, restorative platform that connects its partners with nature-based solutions.

This type of partnership allows brands to see real, tangible impact. The technology enables the monitoring, managing, and verification, as well as tracking of the regenerative impacts of restoration projects that are ongoing in partnership with planting organisations across the globe.

Samsung Electronics US launched a project earlier this year. With a goal to plant two million trees in Madagascar by the end of the first quarter of 2022, the company partnered with veritree to manage the tree-planting initiative by harnessing blockchain technology to verify and track every step of the reforestation process.

Another example of this partner type is Ecologi. This model is also based around the idea that users are provided with access to evidence of how money is being used for positive change.

Revlifter’s Simon Bird spoke on this idea earlier this year, at Rakuten Advertising Dealmaker. It seems publishers are going to soon be offering the planting of trees as an offer type. Revlifer will be experimenting with offering:

• Trees only – e.g if you spend over £100 they’ll plant five trees
• Trees + discounts – e.g. if you spent over £100 they’ll plant two trees and you get 5% off

Retailers will be asked to buy trees upfront – “tree credits” – and then draw down from these. Consumers get an email with a link to their “metaforest” which is shown as part of a retailer’s larger “metaforest”.

Bravo Savings Network offers something similar with its ““You Buy, We Plant” initiative. The company has partnered with eco-driven brands, pledging to plant a tree every time you use one a deal or discount code.

Don’t bark up the wrong tree

The use of green initiatives could progress to effectively tackle greenwashing. In simple terms, greenwashing is when a brand or company spends more time and money marketing themselves as sustainable and environmentally friendly than they do actually minimising their impact on the planet.

We’ve seen brands like Boohoo, Asos, and Asda subjected to scrutiny over the disputable nature of their sustainability campaigns, and that’s just in the fashion vertical. We’re looking forward to seeing which brands utilise the incentives mentioned above in an effort to provide evidence of their eco-friendly efforts.

Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of who they spend their money with, so the idea that brands can now prove that they are doing good, or at least trying to, is a game changer.

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A decentralised ad exchange, on the other hand, distributes power amongst participants in the exchange, including the people being served ads. The exchange vendor is still responsible for all the development and support a customer would expect but – as the exchange itself runs on a blockchain – these customers are also stakeholders who are rewarded for their participation.

If that sounds confusing, you’re not alone. Blockchain is an up-and-coming technology that can be difficult to understand, but you don’t need to learn cryptography to use a blockchain-based exchange, the same way you don’t have to be a machine learning expert to buy and sell ads with Google and Meta.

What matters are the benefits to the end user, so let’s explore what decentralised programmatic offers businesses buying and selling ads on the open web.

Distributed ledgers eliminate fraud

A forecasted $68 billion of digital advertising spend will be lost to fraud this year, up from $59 billion in 2021. Fake websites, click farms, and sophisticated bots have kept programmatic exchanges in a game of cat and mouse with fraudsters since its inception. Without a fundamental shift in how exchanges operate, billions of dollars in revenue will continue to be stolen every year. 

In a blockchain-based exchange, a complete ledger of transactions is distributed amongst all participations, and any changes made to this ledger are reflected across the entire network. Altering data on a blockchain is not possible as every transaction is linked to all transactions before it (the “chain” part of a blockchain), so any attempt to change a record will be immediately invalid.

This ledger can be both monitored in real-time and explored historically, right back to its first use. Fraud simply can’t exist in such an environment as it would be exposed the moment it is attempted, effectively offering built-in real-time fraud protection for all customers as standard. If all exchanges were decentralised, the annual cost of programmatic fraud wouldn’t be reduced, it would be eliminated.

Transparent transactions build trust

Decentralised ad exchanges build a common trust not only between advertisers and publishers but between users of the exchange and the vendor. Centralised exchanges obscure their inner workings, so its users are never entirely certain of the accuracy of the data they receive, where their fees end up going, or whether inventory is being fairly valued.

Lack of trust in typical exchanges is compounded by the variability of fees. Analysis by Adalytics found that while this could sometimes be attributed to inventory value (for example, 7% or 20% depending on placement), one major SSP was charging a publisher between 7% and 42% with no clear reason for how or why such a wide range in fees was possible. 

In a blockchain-based exchange, buyers and sellers can track the journey of every dollar spent, eliminating any possibility of untraceable costs, which the ISBA found accounts for 15% of advertiser spend on average. There is no middleman taking a cut in a blockchain; the entire exchange operates simply through ad buyers and ad sellers trading with total transparency.

The transactions logged in a decentralised ad exchange include more than just receipts from buying and selling: whether an ad was served, where it was served, and how many interactions it received are all recorded as well, allowing for complete and accurate campaign auditing.

Fair value exchange means minimal fees

The average cut taken by the DSP and SSP when a media buyer bids for an ad slot is 15 – 35% and can rise significantly higher, with cumulative fees for some impressions leaving the publisher with just 2% of an advertiser’s spend. As decentralised exchanges don’t derive their profits from fees, buyers and selling are only charged a negligible amount (1%–2%) for each impression to cover running costs.

Which inevitably leads to the question: how does a decentralised programmatic exchange generate revenue? The solution is “tokenomics”, where participants in the exchange purchase or lease tokens which are then used to buy and sell advertisements. The more the exchange is used, the higher the value of these tokens, and it’s here that vendors – and all stakeholders in the exchange – can make a profit.

In the long run, the opportunity for everyone who participates in a platform to benefit from its success is the most exciting feature of the Web 3.0 ecosystem, and digital advertising has long been overdue for a more fair and equitable value exchange for advertisers, publishers, and consumers.

The post WTF is… a Decentralised Ad Exchange? appeared first on PerformanceIN.

In Web 3, users will hold most of the power. Decentralised networks make this possible: they allow communities to make decisions, control how their data is used, and shape functionality. For brands, this means plenty of opportunities to collaborate and co-create with customers and influencers. But this also presents some challenges. How will brands engage customers in Web 3? How will businesses convince consumers to share their digital data in the future? What kind of incentive mechanisms will work for Web 3 users? 

Modern loyalty programmes are using flexible technology

Traditional, transaction-based rewards programmes are becoming irrelevant in a rapidly changing technological world. Today’s customers want to be rewarded for more than just transactional relationships. 

At White Label Loyalty, we are seeing more brands creating loyalty programmes that go beyond transactions. In other words, they use technology that can reward any action. For example, a brand whose key objective is to increase engagement can reward customers for sharing their experiences on social media. Or, for a brand looking to increase footfall to a specific retail store, customers can be rewarded for entry into a geofence. 

Incentivising customer behaviour in Web 3 

In a decentralised platform, customers will have more choice than ever before – they will be free to choose whether or not to engage with brands. This means higher competition for consumer attention – pushing brands to get creative when it comes to connecting with customers. 

A user-centric loyalty programme recognises the value of customers’ time and engagement. Customer loyalty is invaluable to brands and the ‘right behaviours’ should be rewarded. With flexible technology, brands can reward the specific activities they wish to see more of. This includes incentivising behaviours that are considered to be ‘brand valuable’. 

In Web 3, a customer’s time, attention, and engagement will be highly valuable. Brands can recognise and reward these behaviours in meaningful ways with a Web 3-enabled loyalty programme. 

By rewarding ‘brand valuable’ behaviours, companies will build stronger relationships with customers and create more engaging experiences – all while driving revenue and market share. 

What kind of rewards should brands offer customers in Web 3?

Web 3-enabled technologies such as NFT tokens could replace traditional rewards. These ‘digital assets’ can be used to reward loyalty programme members and act as a ‘ticket’ that grants access to exclusive products or events. NFTs will be especially attractive to younger consumers, who are likely to make up most of the user base in Web 3. 

When a customer gets an NFT, they become the only owner of it. This is because they are attached to the blockchain – providing a coded “stamp” that signals authenticity. 

It’s this sense of exclusivity that makes NFTs so popular. Unique ownership of NFTs also provides a feeling of status. Their scarcity drives engagement in people who don’t want to miss out. 

NFT rewards may also be considered more valuable than traditional loyalty points because they can turn customers into brand stakeholders. This would appeal to ‘superfans’ who are interested in owning a part of a company’s history. Rare NFTs, rewarded only to a brand’s most loyal customers, can also appreciate over time and create significantly more value than what most rewards programmes can offer today. In this way, NFT rewards could replace ‘platinum’ tiers in traditional loyalty programmes. 

What should brands do today? 

For now, businesses should focus on collecting data to understand their current customer base. Brands that have a deep understanding of their customers today will be best positioned to know how to engage audiences in Web 3.

Understanding customer preferences will also help determine what kind of rewards users will find most valuable. Many brands will be surprised to find out how many customers are interested in Web 3 technology rewards such as cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Businesses must be willing to flex their business models to make way for a new era of brand engagement…

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Marketing to consumers has always required forging a connection between potential buyers and your brand. Brand community-building combines two necessary prongs of marketing, the right people and the right (communal) channel. Being able to foster a sense of community, of shared brand sentiment, can supercharge a brand’s identity in the minds of buyers. They are in this together, both identifying their tribe and making purchases.

Most Web3 marketing gives lip service to the idea that community underscores all successful launches and brand collaborations. You hear “strong Discord community” over and over. Discord, the messaging app initially built for gamers, is often flagged as THE comms platform in Web3. Discord is categorically not the best community channel in existence. It’s prone to scammers, has a complicated UX, and can be overwhelming for anyone interested in more than a handful of projects. And yet it persists, most likely on the back of the outsider status it confers. Using Discord proclaims, “this is not your mother’s Web2.” 

Community support for projects yields digital eyeballs and digital purchases, both on the primary and secondary markets. Grow a large enough community and you can create something extraordinary, like Bored Ape Yacht Club, which has harnessed its wonders to create a vocal and thriving online community, a club people want to join. Some of this is by design. By owning a Bored Ape, you also own the IP for commercial activations. The rising tide of Bored Ape excitement lifts all boats, allowing owners to sell their ape’s likeness on t-shirts or tv shows and reap royalty income. This is a crucial function of the NFTs, this ownership of the IP. 

But one question you ought to ask is, how do consumers get involved in this community? Traditional channels, e.g., email, Twitter, Instagram, still play an outsized role in attracting new users and communicating with those who have already expressed interest. You don’t find Discord channels by luck. You click through to them because you are already interested in a project and willing to wade through lots of not useful information to glean the exciting nuggets within a project or brand’s server.

So if your brand isn’t quite ready to jump on the NFT or metaverse bandwagon, what can you do to prepare today for when you are ready?

Three things you can do to build a foundation for your eventual activations:

Shore Up Your Channels

As mentioned, traditional channels are still hugely important for Web3 activations. Creating engaging content, being a valuable member of the social community, and embodying your brand voice go a long way in preparing to one day drop a successful brand NFT. 

Understand Your Customers’ Preferences

Traditional channels like email and Twitter give you direct access to your consumers and potential consumers. The beginnings of your Web3 community will stem from what your current customers are interested in. While an NFT activation might highlight your brand to new potential customers, it’s not a magic bullet for growing your customer base. The best activations are a stretch for brands, bridging them into a new space, but not a complete 360, abandoning their old customer base for something new, shiny, and untested. 

Take this time to understand your customers’ perspectives on new technologies. How do you communicate with them currently, Twitter, email, SMS? What are they testing out in the Web3 space? Do they own NFTs? Use AR to take social media pics? These tastes will evolve, but understanding your consumers’ and ideal consumers’ desires will make it easier to jump quickly when the right idea comes along.

Pivot your Perspective

From now on, the idea of Web3 should at least be mentioned in all of your digital strategy discussions. When you talk about your CRM, you should think about NFTs. Will communication through consumers’ crypto wallets be a core part of your communication and customer identity strategy in the future? Most likely. When you talk about influencers, you should consider how real and digital-only influencers will act in the metaverse. Will you send virtual goods to virtual influencers to impress their metaverse fans? Most likely.

And when you talk about performance metrics, you should consider which ones work the best for you that might port over to metaverse activations. Currently, some platforms don’t allow in-game purchases. Others have a clunky set-up. Some NFTs function well across platforms, some may not. These factors will impact your ability to monitor and measure activations effectively.

This brave new world of Web3, while in some ways revolutionary, is also very much an evolution of the current state. Thinking critically about the tools you are already using that can be parlayed into Web3 success is a concrete way to prepare for the future without forgetting your current targets and goals.

The post Community is Critical for Web3: 3 Ways Brands Can Prepare Today appeared first on PerformanceIN.