In crypto, everything is an ad
Spindl ads are launching inside Base app
Advertising is salesmanship in print.
-David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising (1983)
Here’s how the conversation goes when we try to sell a big wallet or exchange on Spindl ads.
Them: Ads are bad and we don’t like them.
Me: Every last thing you can click on your app’s home screen is either a swap or NFT mint with a referral kickback going to you, and by the way, you’re charging dapps $50k per year to appear in your unranked dapp list.
Them: Yes…but ads are bad and we don’t like them.
The disconnect is thinking that ‘ads’ in crypto are only the banners on top of crypto news sites or chain scanners, rather than the flywheel underpinning the only growth loops that work in crypto.
Crypto ads, when done well, are not just banners: They’re relevant, native content inside an existing UI, and if the lawyers didn’t require us to put a big honking SPONSORED on them, you wouldn’t even know they’re ads.
In fact, we’ve seen that in many cases, users engage with ads more than they do with non-sponsored content. The thought that app developers have to trade off engaging their users versus monetizing them is legacy offchain thinking: In crypto, the sponsored content can be even more engaging than whatever we want to call ‘organic’ content now.
With that in mind—that ‘ads’ can be engaging content that gets a builder or creator paid—we are launching Spindl ‘ads’ inside Base app, the new onchain everything app that brings together a social network, app discovery, chat, payments, and trading.
Ads are now live in Base app and they are different - they are high quality, fun to engage with, and provide both the builder and the user real value.
As another example where ads by another name manifest in crypto, take ‘builder codes’ where outside builders insert a unique code to trades submitted on behalf of users running a third-party interface. According to Messari, outside builders recently broke $10 million in earned revenue in the Hyperliquid ecosystem. Ditto, wallets have been routing trades to this or that DEX under the UI hood since defi started, all of them earning fat referral fees that would make a conventional marketer’s eyes pop1.
Any piece of media, content, or user interface where the creator or developer earns a fee for having you do something onchain is an ad, full stop.
The trading apps that you use are also ads, just particularly dynamic and engaging ones. Ditto the asset detail page on whatever wallet you use. You click the ‘call to action’ (to use the marketing term of art), that swap or buy button, without ever thinking of it as an ad.
Speaking of apps as a form of advertising, Farcaster mini-apps (which are live in Base app) can be boosted as posts in the new feed and in search results, and are fully usable like regular mini-apps. The mini-app ad isn’t much different than a full-on ‘builder code’ UI, which is the unlock to understanding what’s going on here: Any piece of media, content, or user interface where the developer earns a fee for having you do something onchain is an ad, full stop.
So, if everything is an ad, what makes Spindl ads better than what’s out there today? Spindl connects ads to onchain actions, and only charges when real value happens. Spindl lets builders define what success looks like, whether that be minting, swapping, staking, or whatever action you want your users to take.
Initially, we are shipping units that appear in the Base app new social feed, effectively boosting the distribution of existing casts from builders looking to grow. These feed units can be chosen, managed, targeted and measured from inside Spindl’s world-class analytics and audience segmentation app. Whether you’re paying for clicks, follows on Farcaster, or onchain actions like swaps or deposits, Spindl can surface that message inside Base app’s new social feed.
We’re also shipping ads inside Base app’s home page where your chats, videos, and popular mini-apps also live. The ad format matches the rest of the Spindl publisher network, so current advertisers running on Spindl now can easily expand their reach to Base app as well.
We’re excited to again expand the biggest native onchain ads network for an industry that admits no ads and yet constantly invents new ways to convert attention into revenue…just like ads do.
This blog post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or legal advice. Sponsored content and incentivized onchain actions involve risk and may not be suitable for all users. Please engage responsibly.
To drive growth for your Base app (or monetize your existing Base app), reach out!
As a market comp, Phantom wallet makes over $200 million annually on trading referral fees earned from prompting users to trade. But they run no ads of course.
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Referred via Farcaster 💜