- Emily King
How Cryptocurrency is Impacting Digital Marketing
We have been hearing about cryptocurrency for years now. But, just because we hear about it, doesn’t mean we really understand it. This can be a problem as alternative forms of currency have become a gradually growing field.
With their gaining popularity, it’s no surprise that cryptocurrency is now impacting the digital market. Digital marketing has a large impact on businesses, no matter their size. By investing in cryptocurrency, you can help your company’s future growth. But to invest, as I said earlier, you need to understand what it is you are investing in.
Cryptocurrencies: What are they?
In simple terms, crypto is virtual money that is nearly impossible to forge. When you make a transaction using cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, it is recorded in code that produces a ledger known as blockchain technology.
Blockchain technology utilizes many devices to save the information distributed from the ledger, rather than a single device, making your information that much safer.
Like online banking, each transaction you make via crypto will be kept on a record that you have access to, as well as to the blockchain. Also, as cryptocurrencies aren’t issued by anyone sector or division, government interference is rare.
Breaking Down Bitcoin
Bitcoin was the very first blockchain-based cryptocurrency to be introduced in 2009 and has remained the most popular form of crypto since then.
As of late, the price to buy Bitcoin has skyrocketed considering all of the tradings that have been happening. Perhaps the best trait of Bitcoin, is that there are no credit card or processing fees.
Where can I get it?
Although there are countless exchange marketplaces to purchase and sell Bitcoin, there are also many options to buy from home called Antminers.
Antminers were first developed by a Chinese business, Bitmain, with the main focus being to develop hardware technologies that allowed the earning of money through a process called mining.
Bitcoin runs without a central bank and instead manages its transactions through peer-to-peer technology.
As Bitcoin is an open-source, no one person can own or control it, and anyone can participate. Because of all of these unique characteristics, Bitcoin can be used in ways that other payment methods cannot.
Risks Involved
Though Bitcoin is excellent to make money, there are also a few risks that users should be aware of. For instance, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation does not insure Bitcoin wallets, meaning that if somehow your Bitcoin is stolen, you won’t be reimbursed.
Along the same line, wallets that have been kept in devices such as The Cloud have been hacked, unintentionally deleted, or completely destroyed by viruses.
Digital Marketings Role
To fully understand the effect that cryptocurrency has had on digital marketing, we have to take a look at existing scenarios.
One such example is those small advertisements you see in the middle of videos that you watch on social media.
Advertisers pay publishers a commission to give them that ad space (provided by the platform thus they must pay through the platform) and the platform receives most of the funds.
Taking a Closer Look at Blockchain
Blockchain’s number one benefit is that through the monitoring of apps, it allows a company to collect large amounts of data about customer preferences.
Due to this, customer experience can be tailored to fit said customer exactly. One such example is the recent addition of users’ choice in what kind of ads they want to see.
These ads are beneficial in raising awareness about products and services while also making a difference for the platform, publisher, and yes, the consumer.
However, considering they are still ads, they can be irritating once interest is lost in the products. An offered solution for this irritation is the addition of crypto marketing.
By adding cryptocurrency to digital marketing through a BAT, or basic attention token, it can be used to monetize attention and get rid of some of the unnecessary aspects of ads (expenses included).
BATs would benefit all involved parties from the publisher, to the user as you would be compensated for your attention. By now though, you’re probably wondering how it works.
How to Use BATs
BATs are available for purchase by advertisers who in turn for their purchase, will gain feedback on whether or not the public likes the product being advertised.
If a viewer is interested in purchasing a BAT, they have the option of choosing which ad they would like to see and as mentioned before, will be reimbursed just for paying attention to it!
Users will be able to learn more about the brand and other items they offer by doing so. Users are then rewarded with a percentage of the BAT being used by the advertisers.
Since both the advertisers and users are compensated, the publisher is given the largest portion of the compensation. Through charging for the usage of BATs for content/subscriptions, premium services can be easily integrated.
Effects of Crypto on Digital Marketing
Blockchain technology offers users control rather than marketers. Where before decisions were made from campaigns based on consumer data, they are now made by a limited customer pool.
Blockchain is increasingly affecting every aspect of businesses, especially marketing teams. It can be used to reach different marketing objectives while meeting user expectations regarding transparency and safety. For marketers though, the most significant impact blockchain technology has had is the access to users’ private data.
Though now it may seem that Bitcoin, blockchain, and BATs are the way of the future, much can change in a short amount of time. The risks mentioned prior leave its future suspended in a state of unknowing. For now, though, Bitcoin remains an evolving and quickly progressing field.