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The importance of marketing cannot be overemphasized. To reach a larger audience for the growth of business, a considerable investment is put into marketing. Marketing is diverse with online marketing being the standout. According to Wikipedia,
"In 2016, Internet advertising revenues in the United States surpassed those of cable television and broadcast television. In 2017, Internet advertising revenues in the United States totaled $83.0 billion, a 14% increase over the $72.50 billion in revenues in 2016".
Statista claim the total revenue is expected to grow to $116.0 billion by 2021 while the total spending reached $209.0 billion in 2017 according to Recode. Online marketing is experiencing massive growth and there are proofs to back it
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The Issues Arising
In online marketing, there are;
Advertiser: The one who pays money to get his advertisements shown.
Middlemen: They are the bridge between the advertiser and publisher. Advertiser pay them to show their ads and publisher buys these ads from them to generate traffic on his sites.
Publisher: This is the one who get money for showing ads on his sites. Also referred to as content creators and the link between the advertiser and publisher. Advertiser pays him to show their ads on his sites but sometimes the publisher had to go through the middlemen to get these ads.
User: The person who visit publisher site either for entertainment or information.
App Partner: They provide the technology required in marketing.
The ultimate aim of marketing is for products or services to reach and satisfy the consumer(user). This is not always the case as the channels are broken with online marketing greatly influenced. The problems facing online marketing affects all parties involved. They are discussed below;
Winnings for middlemen
The only channel assured of gain is the middlemen at the expense of others. How? Let's see for ourselves; the advertisers(companies) pay the middlemen to get their ads shown, publishers pay them for ads to generate traffic on their sites while users who end up seeing these ads may not get the utility they crave for. Users either see ads that is irrelevant and worst still they get spammed by the ads.
Advertisers are also affected, they experience low or no sales of their products as neither the middlemen nor publishers care about the demographics.
Publishers gain little even when they do there is late payment from the middlemen or in some cases gain nothing on the money paid for ads. This is so because whatever the middlemen want to sell is what is bought by the publisher at the expense of the user and advertisers as little or no consideration is given to target demographics.
Problems associated with middlemen can be summed up in three allegations of a subject of $7.5 billion scandal in online marketing according to Bob Hoffman. According to who are making them in the industry, he wrote;
- "Half or more of the paid online display advertisements that ad networks, media buyers, and ad agencies have knowingly been selling to clients over the years have never appeared in front of live human beings".
- "Agencies have been receiving kickbacks and indirect payments from ad networks under the guise of "volume discounts" for serving as the middlemen between the networks and the clients who were knowingly sold the fraudulent ad impressions".
- "Ad networks knowingly sell bot traffic to publishers and publishers knowingly buy the bot traffic because the resulting ad impressions earn both of them money—at the expense of the clients who are paying for the impressions".
In the third allegation, ad networks knowingly sell bot traffic and publishers knowingly buy because it is a win-win for both. Publishers are left to buy this bot traffic when they realized they are not earning enough from original ads bought from these middlemen. This greatly affects the advertisers as this bot traffic is not real ads.
With all these, it is therefore safe to say the middlemen wins all while other gain little or nothing.
Spam
It is really annoying when you are watching a really entertaining video and an ad suddenly pops up in form of banner ad or video ad which may take up to thirty seconds to end. This also happens after visiting some sites or when searching for a certain product online. One end up seeing unwanted pop-up ads which is irrelevant or not related to one's search. This is bad for the user and they may be forced to use an ad blocker in worse case.
Privacy
Your privacy is never secure, online data security breached and is monetized. Your online behavior is studied and data collected about you. These data are sold to advertisers thereby you end up seeing certain ads and wonder how they come to be. Don't think far, your data have been sold. The Cambridge Analytica's Facebook scandal is a testament to this. Your data is never secure. Take heed!
Centralized privilege of Facebook and Google
The enormous benefits these corporations enjoy due to their duopoly in the industry is unrivalled. Others are left in their wake. There is no real competition in the industry, the only apparent competition is between Facebook and Google. Google have the largest percentage of the revenue followed by Facebook. The rest are left to share bit remaining.
They(Facebook and Google) determine the price and advertisers have no choice but to oblige regardless of the quality. This earn them lots of profits and the rest are affected as a result.
Considering these aforementioned issues amongst others, what's the way out? Kind Ads to the rescue!
Kind Ads: Making it win-win for all parties
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Kind Ads is an ad platform from the Leadchain Foundation. It is not just any ad platform but a decentralized one. Kind Ads use the blockchain technology to connect the advertisers to the publishers eliminating issues associated with middlemen in the process. Advertisers can also connect directly to the user(serving as Lead).
Kind Ads will utilize the Kind Ads protocol which decentralized on the Euthereum blockchain.
What is Kind Ads Protocol?
The Kind Ads protocol is a scoring system for both publishers and domain names. They are ranked by the amount of trust users have in them. All partakers in place with the Kind Ads protocol gives the Kind Ads ecosystem which allows the following functions;
- A scoring system for publishers and domain names based on amount of trust users have in them.
- Advertisers make use of this score to know the quality of publishers and select the best one that suit them to work with.
- By using communication channels like email and push notifications, e.t.c which are less intrusive, Kind Ads protocol allows publishers to advertise directly to their subscribers thereby annoying ads are rid of.
- It also allows user to get paid when they receive adverts and an option to opt out.
The objective of Kind Ads are;
- Save time and money.
- Best ROI(return on investment for advertisers) by reaching their target demographics and promoting brands in the process.
- Establish direct relationship between the parties by eliminating the middlemen.
- Protection of users data and privacy.
- Eliminate spam.
- Decentralized marketing platform.
- All parties get to earn.
- Instant payment.
How will these be achieved?
As a decentralized platform using blockchain technology, it will be run on the Kind token. These tokens will be used for marketing services on the platform. There will be continuous circulation of the 61,000,000 tokens on the platform as advertisers buy the tokens while the publishers, users and app partners earn them.
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With this, the objectives can be accomplished thus;
Eliminating the middlemen
By cutting out the middlemen, Kind Ads platform will save advertisers the stress and capital involved by going through the third party. They also get to capture their intended demographics. This helps the publishers due to direct contact they will have with advertisers plus they will earn more. Users get to see relevant ads based on what they subscribed to instead of disturbing and annoying ads by desperate publishers trying to earn money after paying middlemen for ads.
Decentralization
The platform will ensure the cards is placed in the hands of a particular party that is no centralization. All parties involved hold a considerable amount of power which helps create a healthy relationship. Considering the power of Facebook and Google, major players in the industry which makes them determine the market. Their duopoly is not good for the industry as explain earlier.
On the platform, publishers have their subscribers base(users). These users subscribed due to trust they have in the publisher. The advertisers then contact the publisher which fit their bill, demographics and quality. One can see power is not centralized to a certain party. Users determine how effective, efficient or trustworthy a publisher is while the publisher also determine the type of subscribers to have that fit the demographics of category he is intending to earn or good at. The choice of the advertisers is also determined by the publishers ranking on the platform. With this platform, the market is determined by all involved.
Engaging intended demographics
Kind Ads platform will help advertisers engage the target demographics they are looking for. This helps in reducing budget and facilitates effective campaign ads. Companies selling female products will know the right to publisher to show their ads. This publisher subscribers base must have fit the bill for the ads. The same goes for adult products which is not suitable for subscribers under 18. Identifying the target demographics and knowing where and when an ads is shown is strongly beneficial to the companies and is experience friendly to the user. With Kind Ads protocol which connect all parties effectively helps in solving this.
Earning more, rewards and instant payment
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Eliminating the middlemen and target demographics means that advertisers get to cut budget, publishers earn more, user earn by sharing data to see relevant ads and app partners earn based on technological input. Also, users are able to sell themselves as lead which makes them even earn more. All of these on the Kind Ads platform with no charged fee. Isn't that amazing? There is also the reward pool for publishers, users and app partners. For every relevant impression or lead generated by a publisher, 75% of the ad dollars goes to the publisher who generated it. The 25% left is shared between the publisher(10% based on Kind Ads publisher score, app partners(10% based on their ad server used) and the user(5% based on Kind Ads consumer score). These payments are paid daily.
Eliminating spam
Using channels like email and push notifications, users get to see relevant ads from publishers they subscribed to. This is less intrusive compared to annoying pop ups of display ads which spam and dent users' experience.
Privacy and data security
The use of blockchain technology ensures that users data and privacy is secure. No one can collect nor use your data for whatsoever purpose.
Opt-out option for users
There is the opt-out option for users from the Kind Ads ecosystem. After opting out, publishers and advertisers can not communicate with them.
The Team
The team consist of dedicated persons with experience and intellect armed with powerful advisors.
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Conclusion
Problems associated with online marketing did not develop overnight and it only serves the middlemen and the giants with advertisers, publishers and users at the receiving end. Nevertheless, Kind Ads will revolutionize online marketing with blockchain technology coupled with exploration of new ideas. With Kind Ads the industry is about to change for better!
Additional information and resources
This is my entry for @Originalworks contest. To join click here.
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