A presentation I gave at the Blockchain & Bitcoin conference in Cyprus, November 2017. Check out icomalta.com and RefToken.io for more details.

1. Supercharging
Blockchain Adoption
Jan Sammut – CEO RefToken.io
http://linkedin.com/in/jansammut

2. What is this about?
• We’re going to learn how blockchain startups can truly deliver on their
promise to disrupt major industries by eliminating middle men from
the marketing equation
• We’re going to explore how a pay-per-performance model will
empower blockchain startups to deploy global marketing campaigns
and fight toe to toe with their incumbent competitors
• How the blockchain will eliminate the single largest drag on marketing
efficiency – Ad Fraud
Jan Sammut - RefToken.io

3. Who are you?
• Founder and CEO of RefToken, the worlds first blockchain affiliate
platform and ICO Launch Malta – A full stack ICO platform
• Over 10 years experience in the online gambling industry on both
affiliate & operator sides
• Held executive positions at heavyweights IGT, Amaya & HLM
• Hodler and blockchain investor & ICO advisor
• Based in Malta
Jan Sammut - RefToken.io

4. Key takeaways
• A deep understanding of the economic inequalities in marketing that
major corporations have set up to protect their position
• How your company can leverage pay-per-performance or affiliate
marketing to compete with major competitors
• How you can deploy global marketing campaigns effectively, even if
you don’t have a seven figure war chest
Jan Sammut - RefToken.io

5. First, some context
• We hear how blockchain technology will disrupt every industry from
banking to identity, gambling, trading and asset sales
• Hundreds of new blockchain projects are launched every week,
promising to disrupt industries and make the world a fairer, more
transparent place via decentralization and disintermediation
• There is however an elephant in the room
Jan Sammut - RefToken.io

6. Mainstream adoption is tough
• A technology can only be said to be mainstream if the average user
does not need to be aware that they’re using it. This requires scaling
to millions of MAUs
• The current marketing channels are expensive, inefficient and prone to
ad fraud due to the middle-men who’s interest is diametrically
opposed to the client’s
• Incumbent companies have created a barrier to entry by inflating cost
per acquisition (CPA) to levels that new entrants can’t afford to
compete against
Jan Sammut - RefToken.io

7. Marketing costs are
going parabolic

8. CPCs increased by 300% since 2013(src: SE Land)
Jan Sammut - RefToken.io

9. User acquisition costs have exploded (src: Fiksu research)
Jan Sammut - RefToken.io

10. User acquisition costs have exploded
Jan Sammut - RefToken.io

11. Ad fraud compounds the
issue

12. Ad fraud rates are shocking (src: Pixalate)
Jan Sammut - RefToken.io

13. Ad fraud rates are shocking (src: Pixalate)
Jan Sammut - RefToken.io

14. Ad fraud rates are shocking (src: Pixalate)
Jan Sammut - RefToken.io

15. Startup killer
• Ad platforms have for all intents and purposes become an extension of
the incumbent companies competitive moat as they have allowed
them to price smaller players out of the market by driving costs up
• This market dynamic permits large players to exclude a threatening
startup from the market by outbidding them (often on their own brand
name) long enough to cut them out of the market
• Ad Platforms proactively encourage this activity as it generates greater
revenues for them
Jan Sammut - RefToken.io

16. Ad platforms aren't your ally
• Ad platforms run on an auction model allowing companies with large
budgets to choke out smaller players
• Their single objective is to extract as much revenue from each slot as
possible, regardless of who’s running the ad
• They openly encourage companies to cannibalize each other’s
trademarks to provoke bidding wars in which they are the only winners
Jan Sammut - RefToken.io

17. Startups are defenseless (src: Google kb)
Jan Sammut - RefToken.io

18. Scaling across markets is tough
• Language barriers (translation of copy, creative, LPs, PR, T&Cs)
• Time and resource costs associated with international SEO
• Local market knowledge (e.g. ”Boku+casino” keywords are low player
value ones in the UK, but high value in the Netherlands)
• Time and resource costs associated with hiring and managing local
agencies
• Hesitancy to commit significant budget to international campaigns
Jan Sammut - RefToken.io

19. Most ad spend is not really spent on ads
• Publishers are underpaid as a matter of course, with ad platforms
keeping over 1/3rd of a brand’s media spend for themselves
• This imbalance stifles innovation, creativity and limits the value that
they can offer to their users
• There is a real need for a disintermediation protocol that will allow
publishers to keep 100% of their ad revenue
Jan Sammut - RefToken.io

20. Jan Sammut - RefToken.io
What does this cost in real terms?

21. Increased marketing efficiencies
are the only way blockchain
start-ups can compete against
their billion-dollar a year
competitors

22. So, what's the solution?
Affiliate marketing - performance-based marketing in which a business
rewards affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate's
own marketing efforts.
Jan Sammut - RefToken.io

23. Why does it work so well?
• Influencers, news sites and media houses possess the most under-
utilized asset in the modern economy – high intent user traffic
• They spend hundreds of thousands a year to research and create
content that is relevant to their audience
• Current monetization models are suboptimal as they’re limited to
CPC/M networks that keep an unreasonable share of revenue for
themselves, sometimes openly refusing to divulge their fee
• Affiliation can improve a site’s revenues by orders of magnitude
Jan Sammut - RefToken.io

24. This doesn’t seem fair does it? (src: Google kb)
Jan Sammut - RefToken.io

25. The case for affiliate led user growth
• In affiliate marketing a company only pays a pre-agreed commission
amount for a pre-determined outcome
• Allows absolute budget and ROI control
• Affiliation accounts for ~30% of an online retailer’s revenue
• Affiliation is extremely effective in high value markets such as banking,
finance, insurance, trading, casino
• Affiliate marketing will grow to $6.8B over the next five years (Forrester
Reports)
Jan Sammut - RefToken.io

26. How it works in practice
• A P2P blockchain insurance company kicks off a user acquisition
campaign and notes that the CPCs for their vertical are over $36 per
click (src: Google stats)
• Assuming an optimistic 10% conversion rate from visitor to paying user
would infer a $585.96 CPA
Keyword Monthly Searches Average Cost per Click
car insurance quotes 110,000 $70.03
auto insurance 110,000 $69.41
insurance 110,000 $36.08
Jan Sammut - RefToken.io

27. How it works in practice
• The company decides to run an affiliation campaign by contacting car
blogs, news sites and influencers to offer them a $100 commission per
paying user they refer
• The sites, seeing that this would generate more revenue than their
current monetisation model agree to the terms and promote the
company’s product in their content
• The result is that the site can take down intrusive banner ads that
under-pay them and alienate their users, offering a better user
experience
Jan Sammut - RefToken.io

28. User case
• A start-up with limited seed funding based in Spain looking to enter the lucrative Swedish
market
• The start-up forecasts that the average Swedish user’s life time value is €450 compared to
€120 for their domestic market
• The agency costs to conceptualise a campaign, produce creative, deploy the campaign,
and ongoing fees are prohibitive and exposes the company to the possibility of a
significant impact to their bottom-line.
• Affiliation empowers the start-up to connect with bloggers, influencers and media outlets
in their target market and offer them a €200 commission per converted user
• Once the start-up assesses the profitability of the arrangement they are able to scale this
month on month, growing revenue without risking profitability at any point.
• Should the deal not be profitable the company can re-negotiate the deal in order for it to
be equitable to both parties
Jan Sammut - RefToken.io

29. Its not all sunshine and
roses

30. Challenges facing the affiliate model
• Withheld commissions – Rouge brands often withhold payments to affiliates
for spurious reasons
• Cash flow issues – Affiliates pay for marketing on the fly and often face cash
flow issues due to the industry standard 30 day payment cycle
• Affiliate fraud – CPA fraud is rampant as affiliates pay users a portion of their
commission to effect a converting action (e.g. an affiliate will pay users €50
to deposit €20 in a casino offering a €100 commission on depositing players)
• Conversion disputes – Affiliates and merchants play a constant tug of war in
defining conversion thresholds
• Sales skimming – Current affiliate platforms depend on the merchant to
upload sales data, allowing them to skim on sales figures
Jan Sammut - RefToken.io

31. The solutions
Jan Sammut - RefToken.io
Challenge Solution
Withheld payments Escrowed campaign funds gov’nd by smart
contracts
Cash flow issues Instant payment on conversion (from SC)
Affiliate fraud Complex conversion requirements to negate
profitability in CPA fraud
Conversion disputes Transparent audit trail on a permissioned
blockchain
Skimming Third party wallet sitting between the user and
client application

32. Thank you for your time
http://linkedin.com/in/jansammut
Skype: Jan.Sammut
ICOMalta.com | RefToken.io