Blockchain and marketing isn’t just a punchline.
Jeremy Epstein, CEO of Never Stop Marketing, a boutique marketing agency for blockchain startups, and one of the world’s foremost authorities on the adoption of blockchain and decentralized technology in advertising and marketing — and speaker at the upcoming MarTech conference too — just released the second edition of his blockchain marketing technology landscape.
Jeremy has mapped all the blockchain-powered and “decentralized” ventures in the adtech and martech space into the categories of the global marketing technology landscape.
It lets us see which categories are growing, such as display advertising, search and social advertising, native and content advertising, advocacy and loyalty, influencers, identify and CRM, ecommerce platforms, and more.
In fact, in less than a year, the blockchain marketing technology landscape has grown by 400%.
I asked Jeremy a few questions about this latest update to his project…
1. What was most surprising to you in compiling this second edition of your blockchain martech landscape?
Many things, but I’ll focus on two. I expected this space to grow quickly. In fact, the premise of the CMO Primer for the Blockchain World is that this new tech will have as much, if not more, impact on the function of marketing as Internet, social, and mobile all did.
What surprised me, like the rest of crypto over the past 6 months, is just how quickly it has grown. 400% in the number of projects we are tracking (and those are just the ones we know about).
Also, the continued growth in the crypto adtech space. Everyone knows that the number of intermediaries is untenable and a natural for blockchain. It’s the busiest section on the map.
2. How close are these blockchain martech companies to going mainstream?
Not super close, but not super far. Many of the early ones have signed proof-of-concept deals with Fortune 1000 companies who want to explore how to leverage them. Loyyal, for example, has a number of projects under way in Dubai and other places.
If there is one thing I am no longer underestimating, it is the rate of change in the crypto space. The past 6 months, as Bitcoin went to $20k woke everyone up. I’m getting 3-5 inquiries a week from marketers at Fortune 2000 companies that are trying to get their heads around what this all means.
3. What are the barriers that remain to more widespread adoption?
Similar to the rest of the crypto world, there are a number of usability issues, the private key management — particularly for an enterprise scenario — is going to be an issue, how to account for token spend within traditional accounting models.. these are just some of them.
4. Who are going to be the biggest winners and losers as blockchain martech applications mature?
I am not an expert on adtech, but I have to believe that any industry that delivers only 50% of value on the dollar to its clients and that is full of intermediaries has got to be in the crosshairs.
And here’s one that will either make me look like a genius or a fool: there will come a day when CRM systems will become extinct, replaced by crypto-wallet relationship management systems that pay to rent access to individual data elements from decentralized identity protocols, but never own them.
5. Any predictions for the third edition of the blockchain martech landscape?
I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw another 400% growth in this space. We’ll also probably update the categories. Plus, far more of these projects will be in production.
Subscribe to my blog to stay appraised of all things crypto + marketing. See you in San Jose.
Thanks, Jeremy.
LEARN ABOUT BLOCKCHAIN MARKETING TECHNOLOGY IN-PERSON. Jeremy will be one of our featured speakers at the upcoming MarTech conference, April 23-25 in San Jose, presenting Marketing in a Blockchain World: Executing with Greater Accountability, Transparency, Responsiveness, and Agility. Rates increase March 16.
