Gone are the Mad Men days of traditional advertising as tech giants like Google and Meta continue to dominate the game. Recent 2023 data reveals that Google alone amassed over $237 billion in ad revenue, spotlighting a stark disparity where users – contributing valuable data – see little in return.
The need for a more equitable system, where users are not just the product but active participants in the advertising ecosystem, is prompting a paradigm shift towards more decentralized solutions, yet, concern of rising ad scams casts a looming shadow on the advertising field's efforts to evolve.
This is where web3 ad network Persona swoops in to disrupt the advertising monopoly while simultaneously ensuring user safety, privacy, and empowerment. With a background in developing ad targeting ML models for web2 giants, Persona aims to leverage blockchain's transparency and user behavior insights to introduce more effective and privacy-friendly advertising. And this year, Persona strategically partnered with WalletConnect to further fuel its innovative approaches and to cultivate a more user-centric and secure environment within web3 advertising.
Data for precision and safety, not just profit
Persona aims to address the challenges of user acquisition in web3, recognizing the limitations of conventional methods such as airdrops and influencer marketing. Recognizing the hurdles posed by the steep learning curve in web3, inefficiencies of cookie-dependent web2 ad platforms, and the impact of data privacy regulations, Persona introduces a revolutionary solution: on-chain data. This approach offers a unique, anonymous identifier linked to real purchase data, providing profound insights into user preferences.
Beyond enhancing advertising precision, Persona's commitment extends to countering the rising threat of scams in web3 advertising. As Co-founder and CEO Ankita Verma recently emphasized, these scams not only pose risks to users' financial well-being but also erode trust in legitimate crypto projects. In response, Persona proactively safeguards users by indexing smart contracts from a vast array of Dapps and NFT collections – totaling billions of transactions on Ethereum and Polygon – to construct detailed user personas.
Utilizing advanced AI, the company infers user interests without resorting to invasive personal data. This privacy-centric approach not only shields users from potential scams but also forms the foundation for highly refined, accurate, and trustworthy audience segmentation. This commitment to transparency and user security helps establish a more resilient and trustworthy web3 advertising environment for all participants.
Unlocking more crypto-savvy audiences with Web3Inbox
Despite addressing industry-wide challenges, Persona encountered its own hurdles in reaching a broader web3 audience. In response, the company sought a partnership with a trusted brand that could provide a viable notification solution.
“We were looking to send ad notifications to people that use apps like Metamask, but it’s a hard audience to reach. We can show ads on X but someone seeing it might not know what a swap is, for instance. Through WalletConnect, the audience is more web3-savvy,” notes Sanjana Haribhaskaran, Co-founder and CTO of Persona.
“We count on WalletConnect to connect us with the right audience. As a trusted brand with a broad range of wallets, WalletConnect's legitimacy in the web3 space was also crucial in our decision-making process."
The seamless documentation, development ease, and testing processes further emphasized Persona's positive experience in implementing Web3Inbox. “No major obstacles were encountered during the integration, highlighting WalletConnect’s reliability and efficiency,” she adds.
In just four weeks, the integration resulted in approximately 41,000 ad notifications deployed and 817 subscribers gained. “The 0.9% click-through rate is also notable because it means people aren’t ignoring our ads. As time passes, we’d like to dive deeper to look at conversion rates.”
Forging a path for web3 advertising, together.
Looking ahead, the company looks to further explore and implement rewarded advertising strategies within its web3-native ad network. Recognizing the user-centric advantages of incentivized engagement, Persona wants to enhance the advertising experience by introducing reward mechanisms for users who actively interact with ads. The goal is to create a win-win scenario, where users benefit from valuable incentives, advertisers achieve increased engagement, and the overall web3 advertising ecosystem thrives.
WalletConnect's Web3Inbox product, already integrated into Persona's ecosystem, provides a trusted environment for user engagement, offering the necessary infrastructure to support and expand rewarded advertising initiatives. “We see WalletConnect playing a pivotal role to help push this initiative forward, by connecting us directly with wallets to easily drop rewards to users interacting with our clients’ ads,” says Sanjana.
The integration of Web3Inbox positions Persona to maximize the potential of reaching and engaging with their target audience in a more meaningful and impactful way. More so, this strategic collaboration is laying a solid foundation to enhance web3 advertising, introducing innovative and user-friendly approaches that prioritize transparency, security, and active user participation.
