Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) are booming. In 2017, there was approximately $5.6 billion[1] raised by over 900 ICOs. Almost half of these ICOs were deemed a success. In the first quarter of 2018, $6.3 billion[2] was raised via an ICO. This figure includes the $1.7 billion raised in Telegram’s ICO. These numbers tell us that despite advertising bans and regulatory threats, ICOs are still a big business that is only getting bigger.
Naturally, ICO marketing[3] has also become a growing industry. A large number of ICO marketing firms have sprung up which offer a wide range of ICO marketing strategies using conventional and non-conventional marketing channels. Successful ICO marketing takes a broad, multi-faceted approach. However, when it comes to paid marketing and advertising, any ICO marketing agency’s first two choices are Facebook and Google. Pay Per Click (PPC) was an integral part of ICO marketing campaigns in 2017 as they generated consistently strong ROIs – until January this year.
Advertising bans and PPC’s continued role in ICO marketing strategies
In January 2018, Facebook had over 2.2 billion active users when it announced a new advertising policy[4] that banned ICO and cryptocurrency advertisements. Just two months later, LinkedIn and Twitter, with 500 million and 300 million users respectively, followed suit with bans on ICO advertising. At the same time, Google, with approximately 67% of the PPC market, announced that it was updating its ad policies to include not just ICO and cryptocurrency advertisements, but also all content related to these topics. Google stated[5] that it took down over 3.2 billion ads in 2017, as they were found to be in violation of its policies.