Cryptocurrencies in the Advertising and Marketing Industry

In addition to the upcoming ICOs on this page, there are different cryptocurrencies in the advertising industry seeking to solve a number of challenges in the industry.

These challenges include poor advertising precision and conversion rates, low ROI and poor customer loyalty on the side of advertisers.

Worldwide digital ad spending was expected to reach $223.74 billion in 2017 and the figure will double through at least 2020 according to estimates by eMarketer. Additionally, search traffic, even in the cryptocurrency niche, is increasing.

For instance, there were over 100 millions searches per month on November 2017 in the cryptocurrency niche. However, the need to target the right customers with an ad is a pressing need.  It saves advertisers time and money, while publishers can make more money.

Blockchain can improve, especially with AI and other methodologies that optimize ad campaigns, some of the challenges in the advertising market. These include data management on the user side, high advertising fees, and publisher payment delays just to mention a few.

Below are a number of cryptocurrencies  and platforms in this industry

Adbank ADB

Adbank ADB uses AI for improved ad targeting and matching. On the platform, publishers get paid for their content on their website when they host ads for advertisers, but advertisers pay less for these ads on a more transparent ecosystem. The token ICO was held in January and the token is already trading.

Artificial Intelligence will not only help cut out the ad middleman but also ad fraud and to reduce costs. And the benefits are numerous given the problems we cited in the beginning of this article because, with currently imperfect ad targeting systems, the person who earns the most (70 percent of ad revenue) is the middleman; the user (customer who buys) gets nothing out of the revenue, and the advertiser gets short of what they expect in terms of ROI. Then the middle men control data and sell and use it to their advantage.

Additionally today, 50% of all digital ad revenue is lost in the ad buying ecosystem. Besides, much of the advertisement revenue gets wasted through click farms and ad stacking because they essentially do not deliver desired value.

Basically, this company's platform's Ethereum-based protocol consists of analytics and an anti-fraud artificial intelligence engine.

The company held its ICO last year December and has released tokens for alpha preview of the platform. They launched the AdBank Network Ad Platform on March 2018. The company introduced a payment protocol for the platfrom this March.

They also have a patented anti-fraud AI engine and are partnering with VR/AR Ad Platform Advir.co. Content creators can earn ADB tokens by completing bounty tasks including in the categories of Social media & Newsletter Campaign, Bitcointalk Signature Campaign, Blog posts/Article Campaign, Translation Campaign and Telegram Campaign.

AdHive

Adhive.tv is targeting at TV advertising. With it, bloggers can create accounts and monetize content. On the other hand, brands and advertisers can launch massive international ad campaigns on variety of channels.

AdHive will use AI on blockchain to improve engagement and ad placement. This is in addition to creating real-time, cost-effective and secure settlement model for advertisers, bloggers and community members.

Video channels are connects to AI modules that also control execution of ad tasks by the blogger. It means advertisers can place native video ad on an unlimited number of channels without worrying g about execution because it is automated and taken care if by AI. Bloggers can also optimize their money monetization. Cryptocurrency is used for settlement.

The ICO took place from 2018-02-28 to 2018-03-14 at the rate of 1 ADH for 0.0002 ETH.

AdSigma

AdSigma is an application that allows advertisers to purchase digital display ads on web and/app while publishers can monetize their websites and applications. The transactions are completed using ADSi tokens and smart contracts.

Like many other ad platforms on the blockchain, advertisers will get better results in marketing and publicity while publishers get higher returns.

Advertisers sign transactions and broadcasts them to all the relayers. The users visit publisher page and ADSignma SDK connects to the relayers and picks up the best matching ad. The SDK fetches the assets from the IPFS and publisher writes the claim on the blockchain.

The smart contract will then verify the proof and tranfer ADSi tokens to the publisher while advertisers can verify the transaction and match with their own tracking data and provide feeback and rating to publisher.

They hope to deploy protocols for layers to build real time bidding exchange in the third quarter of this year. At the same time, they will be deploying smart contracts for the publisher network. Alpha launch happens on the forth quarter of the year and beta launch in the first quarter of 2019. Here, advertisers will be able to set up ad campaigns and publishers can now monetize their apps and websites.

The token sale raised $735,917.

B2AND

B2AND is based on the already successful successful B2AND platform and Ethereum blockchain and is fueled by B2AND token. The 1st generation B2AND platform has already been deployed but there will be three more.

The first generation features include the referrals happening from campaign landing pages, payment of campaigns via credit cards and PayPal, and individual advertisers can choose campaign rewards with no reward selection offered by B2AND.

The second generation will feature blockchain-based rewards and implementation of token wallet, and advertisers will be able to pay for ad campaigns using B2AND tokens, and rewards will also be in these tokens. Third generation will feature mobile application, an API, and smart contracts. Ad campaign tracking will be deployed on blockchain in the forth generation.

Basically, it is a result-oriented cloud-based online platform that uses the idea of peer-to-peer advertising model. Advertisers can create, launch and sustain their ad campaigns any time they wish and establish rewards with the B2AND token.

They can also run these campaigns independently or along with other marketing channels such as Facebook and Twitter. In addition, it is a platform where viewers can earn from viral marketing.

The ICO for the Estonia-based project ended on May 22.

Bigbom Eco

Bigbom Eco is a decentralized ad ecosystem that brings together advertisers, service providers, content publishers, advertising channels, platforms and anyone involved in online advertising.

It uses Ethereum blockchain and diAPPs to help advertisers use smart contracts to reduce advertising costs. They can also select publishers through which to advertise their businesses using ratings and reviews on smart contracts.

Bigbom iAds will allow users to connect with multiple and different ad platform within a single account. Advertisers can also use AI based capability in the system to optimize ads through other social media platforms.

The pre-ICO started on March 28 and ended on April 10 while the ICO started on May 28 and ended on May 30.

ClearCoin CLR

ClearCoin CLR is a is a utility token for a technology platform that facilitates the buying and selling of advertisements on a decentralized network. The project raised $6.1 million during their ICO that ended on April 1.

However, the token is already being traded at HitBTC, Yobit, IDEX exchanges.

With this ad platform, advertisers can execute media buys through a programmatic Omni-Channel Dashboard that features major publishers like Facebook, Google, Instagram, and Display Ads pulled from the top supply sources in the industry. The platform currently bids (the media buys) on over 30 ad exchanges and platforms including these popular social networks.

Advertisers can buy ad spots on these platforms using ClearCoin to increase awareness of their brands and campaigns. The company also has AI + ML Cohort, Demographic, and Sentiment tools to help advertisers launch highly targeted ad campaigns.

Advertisers can also track ad inventories. In other words, with the technology, brands are able to secure ad inventory with precise targeting. They can also use mobile devices (with iOS & Android apps) to check ad analytics so that they can improve ad campaigns. It also targets marketers, publishers, brands and agencies as well as ad networks.

On the other side, publishers earn revenue when they sell ad spots to those in need. Also, the platform can detect and block non-human activity and blacklist publishers, to ensure quality of ad spots. The model is also based on auction format bidding to ensure good economics in the market.

Commodity Ad Network CAN

CAN token is a token already listed by CoinMarketCap and is already trading. The token powers a blockchain network meant for content creators, advertisers and website visitors who feel ad censorship is restricting their performance. The company's ad platform is already live.

First, advertisers can advertise on the network and content creators get rewarded with a much higher ad revenue than is currently with other platforms. The company will build an adserver platform, then probably a search engine, and then a social media platform and a video platform where content creators can set up their channels and websites and where advertisers can serve their ads. The project was launched in 2015.

The platform is targeting a 100% privacy and zero censorship. So for instance, they say on their website that they target websites outspoken against powers and leaders and which get frustrated by their content being blocked, Forex research and analysis media, sound investing, cryptocurrency and blockchain companies and many others.

They already have their CDX token and the Commodity Ad Network. They also have around 50 partners as well as some advertisers on-board already.

They announced at the end of March that they received 164 applications from websites (content creators) but turned down most of them. This is because of the quality of their websites in terms of design and layout was poor or the low quality of their content. However, they have a sizeable number of websites running their ads on their websites already.

DATx

DATx is being developed by Cosima Foundation, in cooperation with QTUM Foundation and Avazu. It seeks to disrupt current advertising industry by building an intelligent advertising ecosystem that is also decentralized and with capability of Artificial Intelligence.

It uses a blockchain empowered advertising terminal and a Smart Contract platform specifically optimized for e-commerce applications. Like many AI ad networks, it will help boost ad audience targeting and precision using AI and big data.

The technology provides metrics such as user behavior patterns, time the ad is delivered, length of viewing the ad, and user purchase metrics. Advertisers can use these analytics to better their ad and campaign targeting.

And it packs capability to support one million transactions per second (TPS), which is perfect for advertising. Most current blockchain can support only tens of thousands of transactions hence limited for advertising applications.

The cryptocurrency, which is used for transactions in the platform, is already listed on the Huobi HADAX exchange platform. The company already witnessed more than 100 million Daily Active Users (DAU) in its ecosystem, so it s doing very well.

The total supply of the tokens will be 10,000,000,000 DATX. The pre-sale for the project ended with 1.25 billion token sold past the targeted hardcap, and had 1068 times over-subscription.

The team behind the project is based in Singapore. The team behind the project includes over 80 engineers, product managers, architects and UEX experts and members of the Avazu team.

Their token sale ended on March.

Friendz

Friendz is a platform that is already helping companies hook up with people willing to post advertising content on their mainstream social media platform. These are rewarded with the FDZ tokens. The company is already in operational since 2016 and has more than 200,000 users and is generating more than €1.2 m in revenues. The company already has 200 clients, the main ones being multinational enterprises.

Companies can also reward users with the tokens when they create content and perform other marketing activities on demand. The companies that are looking for ad content will post the request on the platform as an activity.

The activity is vetted for quality against Friendz guidelines, by a team known as "activity approvers." Besides, companies can benefit through brand awareness and product placement campaigns, sharing content activities and market researches.

Users can then check for activity guidelines and create desired content for rewards after posting the content on their social media pages. The content will also be accessed by "content approvers" against quality guidelines. These "approvers" are also rewarded for their validation of the activity.

The technology is based on Ethereum blockhain. Friendz is already available for Android app. The team is based in Switzerland and the company raised $21,000,000 USD from their March ICO.

GIF

GIF is a blockchain-based platform where advertisers and sponsors can use crypto to buy media space and/or SOCIFI (use SOCIFI Engagement Solution (SES)) products and services.

Users can send data to others as gifts. Users can install the SES and cover their mobile data expenses by interacting with sponsored content and earn crypto, thanks to ad-supported model being used by SOCIFI.

With it, publishers who are the reward app providers provide rewards (sponsored data or other products and services) to subscribers engaging with the content, which is monetized through ads paid by sponsors. Users can access Mobile Data used in LTE, 4G and 3G networks.

SOCIFI is an established company that has over 51 million users and is proven in 67 countries. The company is partnering with WiFi partners across 67 countries.

The ICO ended on June 16.

Krios

Krios uses own tokens called KRI to facilitate collaboration between marketing professionals around the world. With it, business can build their own campaigns and monitor their progress from start to end. They can also build a marketing team to meat the specifics of their projects (they can search on the platform for ad manager, influencers and graphic designers to work on their projects and pay them in tokens via smart contracts) and manage the project at a fraction of cost.

Teams are able to review and rate each other on the platform.

The platform will include affiliates and endorsers such that businesses can use endorsers considering social media outlets, reach, demographic, budget and more.

Krios ICO ended on February 2016.

Knowledge.io

Knowledge.io is more of a blockchain-based knowledge sharing platform that facilitates the coming together of experts to serve their customers and get rewarded in the system coins.

However, the system has the Q&ADS Knowledge Score Targeting that allowed advertisers to get more customers by targeting their ad campaigns to the right people who have proven expertise in their areas.

It enables anyone to share, showcase, and receive tokens from their knowledge.

The ICO was held from 2018-02-26 to 2018-04-08 at the price of 1 KNW at 1.00 USD.

LeadCoin

LeadCoin is a leads-sharing network on the blockchain where users can buy and sell qualified leads in real-time and monetize their data. The Tel Aviv, Israel-based team wants you to earn LDC tokens every time you share data with companies interested in using it to market their brands etc.

You will simply use a cookie or web form which is related to the product or service that the interested company wants to buy. At the same time, companies can give offers to customers who they deem fit as possessing the data they need. In other words, the platform hosts leads that are needful for a specific solution in the market, so it won't be hard to get a buyer for the metrics.

Every marketer for instance, want to know how est to target and re-target potential customers.

These leads will also be vetted through an analysis to ensure buyers get what they pay for. As a business that previously bought some leads, you can sell those leads that are unused. Businesses can therefore create a decentralized network among themselves to share, exchange and trade their leads.

The platform uses an algorithm that can analyze and match your leads to buyers in real time. The leads can also be sold and shared in real time. It is based on the Ethereum smart contracts.

They already did a private token sale in the fourth quarter of last year and then an ICO in March. They raised $50,000,000 USD in the March ICO.

The company will develop the Leadcoin UI/UX and mobile app in the second quarter of this year, then a SDK + CRM integration with: SalesForce, HubSpot and others during the fourth quarter of this year.

MobileBridge Momentum MMTM

MMM uses a rather different approach for the ad and marketing industry. The token called Momentum, is meant for companies that want to reward their best customers and supporters, and therefore works more like a loyalty token.

As the total value of unused 'points' goes past $100Bn in North America (just an example of how point system is failing) in the future, MMM wants to remove the possibility that companies are wasting a lot of efforts in currently unprofitable loyalty-based systems.

Using the platform, advertisers can launch their own token-based incentive and reward scheme and use them to reward customers for the above (support and loyalty) as well as for buying, reviewing or referral.

Advertisers can also leverage metrics to understand customer and interactions. With Trippe M, companies will also be able to reward users for attention, business, brand advocacy and data insights. Consumers will also have full control for their data.

Customers who receive rewards launched by a company can also convert these rewards to the Momentum Token through a gateway token, then it will be possible to exchange the token with other reward tokens or cryptocurrencies. Companies will pay for the platform using the Momentum Tokens.

It is based on the Ethereum blockchain. The team is based in Switzerland. The team held an ICO on the April 26 to May 26. The MobileBridge Loyalty module was released last year and Functional development kicks off in the second quarter of this year.

Mithril MITH

Mithril is a blockchain social media platform that wants to make a network that will reward content creators for their contributions to their network through Social Mining. On their part, companies willing to popularize their brands can leverage the network to search for followers and fame.

The algorithm generates user's content and social interactions in the ecosystem and then these will mine the tokens MITH. The tokens will also be accepted by merchants or a merchant network starting with INST.RECYCLE company. The mined MITH can also be exchanged for BTC or ETH.

The tokens will also be used to reward users for other activities such as sharing their stories about use of the tokens, etc. The team is based in South Korea. The token is available for sale at $0.65542.

Play2Live

Play2Live platform capitalizes on eSports and gaming markets. It also focuses on content generation and the practical needs of the streamers.

Play2Live brings together streamers, viewers, tournament organizers, and product/service partners. With it, viewers can earn Level Up Coin by watching gaming streams, sharing internet channel via P2P CDN service, enabling advertising and much more.

The ICO is already over.

ProChain PRA

ProChain PRA is a Chinese-first precision advertising blockchain based on big data. The token is listed on otcbtc.com and the team is located in Beijing. The platform is in beta now.

ProChain basically targets at helping enterprises to identify what audiences are more suitable for their advertisement goals and targets, and to help them use analytics or metrics in ad audience targeting in order to improve advertising.

It combines spider and stream computing, uses the rules engine and machine learning modeling method to identify user behavior, abnormal behavior, and false flows.

The token called PRA is used to facilitate payment and make cross-border payments easier.

Prochain will be making a more accurate big data marketing platform on Ethereum -- more accurate than the current legacy ad platforms. This platform is what the advertisers will use for more precision ad targeting.

The company will link the blockchain address and personal metadata of the user to the token reward mechanism. The SDK is provided by the main traffic. After the user consumes the ad, they will receive part of the share of the token as shared with the supply-side platform (SSP).

SocialMedia.Market

Social media and influencers are key to a successful ad campaign. For instance, about 74% of people discover brands on social networks, and up to 49% of them rely on influencers’ recommendations when making a buying decision.

SocialMedia.Market is a decentralized platform to help discover, create, perform and analyze advertising campaigns with social media influencers across any social network.

With it, influencers and brands can form targeted audience exposure. It seeks to create more value and cut costs for advertisers, social media bloggers, publishers and brands.

Their platform seeks to end a number of problems eminent in the traditional influencer marketing campaigns. These include problems in price determination, insecure

transactions, non-compliance with executed agreements, fraud, lack of control and unreliable analytic instruments create challenging ROI determination.

The ICO took place from 2018-02-09 - 2018-03-16.

Social-Media Ambassadors Marketing You

Samy is a block chain campaign meant to help users to discover, create, perform, analyze and measure advertising campaigns. It will help brands get more customers from around the world. They are already testing the first piece of software called SAMY (beta).

The SMY tokens will be used for transactions, helping to lower merchant fees. Smart contracts will facilitate execution of social media marketing strategies.

The ICO was held from 2018-03-16 - 201 at the price of 1 ETH for 10,000 SMY.

Spot Light Coin

Spot Light Coin is a referral-based solution that leverages digital marketing platforms and brings them together. It rewards verified influencers based on their social reach and based on how much they improve a company's reach.

These influencers can use the platform to share and review their favorite brands, buy their products safely and get rewards for doing this. They will be able to choose the brands they want to promote, customize the campaigns and start off the campaign.

Brands on the other hand, can sign p, create points system and content for AVI and choose SLC bounty and buy it, and then their brands can be chosen for promotion by platform influencers. Influencers get the bounty in proportion to the points and if points are not met, brands will get back 90 percent of them.

The pre-ICO took place on March 15 and ended on April 14 while the ICO just ended (June 16).

Thrive

Thrive is a blockchain-based ad platform that seeks to revolutionize advertisements.

First, people will own and have control of their data and earn from surfing. Publishers can monetize content through hosting ads and receive immediate payment while advertisers pay less for ads. The quality of publisher content is reviewed and voted for to be hosts, for purposes of content quality. Above all, data is secure and private.

Payments will be made in cryptocurrency.

ICO was held on 2018-03-10 to 2018-04-05 at the rate of 1 THRT for 0.25 EUR.

Vestarin

Vestarin platform is a marketplace for goods and services that users can pay for using cryptocurrencies and it will also bring together exchange services to let users exchange their crypto freely.

However, ICOs can also use the platform to gain more attention. In particular, ICO representatives can integrate their projects into the platform and users can estimate and discuss them in public to create a reputation. In addition to investing in ICOs, users can convert cryptocurrencies at reliable exchange points.

Users can also learn more about new blockchain platforms and leading innovations.

The platform will also bring together professionals and crypto gizmos in a joint platform to work on projects.

It now works for Android and iOS.

Vestarin ended its ICO on April 4.

World Wi-Fi

World Wi-Fi is a blockchain-based platform that will bring together ordinary users, router owners, and advertisers. Users will enjoy free internet while router owners are paid by advertisers for the ads that the users view.

Advertisers will use a tool that allows for better targeting of users. The platform will use WeToken (WT) for all transactions. The company runs Adrenta (an advertising agency based on WiFi) and Radius Wi-Fi projects.

Adrenta has more than 14 000 open networks and over 100 franchise partners. the company works in 80 cities and have more than 100 employees.

The pre-ICO took place from February 16 to April 16 while the ICO ended on May 18.