Instagram is testing 90-minute horizontal videos called Features. Explore how the format works, who can use it, and what it could mean for creators.
The post Instagram Tests 90-Minute Horizontal Videos Called Features appeared first on TechRepublic.
Instagram is testing 90-minute horizontal videos called Features. Explore how the format works, who can use it, and what it could mean for creators.
The post Instagram Tests 90-Minute Horizontal Videos Called Features appeared first on TechRepublic.
CapCut is bringing video editing to ChatGPT, letting users create and refine videos with prompts. Here's how it works and who could benefit.
The post ChatGPT Is Getting CapCut Video Editing. Here’s How It Works appeared first on TechRepublic.
CapCut is bringing video editing to ChatGPT, letting users create and refine videos with prompts. Here's how it works and who could benefit.
The post ChatGPT Is Getting CapCut Video Editing. Here’s How It Works appeared first on TechRepublic.
Network marketing continues to create opportunities for businesses that want to expand their reach through distributor relationships and team-based selling. However, sustainable growth requires more than finding new distributors. Businesses also need a clear organizational structure, accurate commission calculations, transparent reporting, and efficient communication.
This is where Monoline MLM Software can make a meaningful difference. By bringing essential network management activities into one centralized system, businesses can improve daily operations and build a stronger foundation for long-term development.
Every successful network marketing business starts with a well-defined plan. Distributors need to understand their roles, how their network operates, and how their performance contributes to business objectives.
A Monoline structure organizes distributors within a single-line network arrangement. Depending on the compensation rules, businesses can establish their own commission structures, qualification requirements, and reward policies.
Key takeaway: A clearly defined monoline mlm plan helps businesses establish transparent operating rules and gives distributors a better understanding of how the network functions.
When participants have access to accurate information, they can focus more effectively on customer relationships, product promotion, and responsible business development.
As a network grows, managing distributor information manually can become increasingly difficult. Tracking registrations, monitoring sales activity, calculating commissions, and preparing reports may consume valuable time.
A centralized management system brings essential business information together, making daily operations easier to organize and monitor.
Instead of maintaining multiple spreadsheets or relying on disconnected records, businesses can manage essential information through one platform. This approach supports consistency, improves visibility, and helps business owners identify operational gaps before they become larger challenges.
Automation is one of the most useful capabilities of modern MLM software. Repetitive administrative tasks can slow down business operations, especially when distributor numbers and transaction volumes increase.
With appropriately configured software, businesses can automate selected processes such as distributor registration, commission calculations, sales tracking, and report generation.
Benefits of automation
Businesses looking for a solution tailored to their operational needs can explore monoline mlm software to understand how technology can simplify network management and support organized business operations.
Distributor experience plays an important role in network marketing. People are more likely to engage with a business when its processes are understandable and essential information is easy to access.
A well-designed software platform can provide distributors with personalized dashboards, sales information, commission statements, and relevant account details.
A better distributor experience starts with three essentials:
When distributors understand their progress and can access relevant information independently, communication becomes more efficient and the overall business experience can improve.
Business growth becomes easier to manage when decisions are supported by reliable information. MLM reporting tools can help administrators review distributor activity, sales performance, commission records, and overall network development.
Consider these practical applications:
Accurate reporting encourages accountability. When business owners and distributors have access to appropriate, consistent records, it becomes easier to address questions, identify improvement opportunities, and maintain trust throughout the organization.
The real value of reporting lies in using available information to make thoughtful decisions rather than relying entirely on assumptions.
Selecting MLM software is an important decision because the right platform should support both current requirements and future business plans.
Before choosing a solution, businesses should evaluate its flexibility, security, reporting capabilities, user experience, integration options, and commission calculation features.
Before making a decision, check whether the solution offers:
Working with an experienced development team can help businesses create a solution that fits their operational requirements. Businesses seeking customized functionality can consider monoline MLM software development to align the platform with their specific business processes and long-term objectives.
A thoughtful selection process helps businesses invest in technology that serves a clear purpose and supports their operational strategy.
Technology can simplify network management, but long-term success also depends on product value, customer satisfaction, distributor education, ethical business practices, and consistent leadership.
Building a sustainable network marketing business involves combining the right tools with responsible business decisions. Software provides the operational foundation, while customer-focused strategies and effective communication help businesses develop lasting relationships.
Monoline MLM Software can help businesses organize essential activities, improve operational visibility, and manage distributor information more efficiently. When combined with a clearly communicated compensation structure and a thoughtful growth strategy, it can support more organized and manageable network marketing operations.
The right Monoline MLM software can simplify network management, improve operational efficiency, and help businesses maintain better control over their daily activities. Choosing a solution that aligns with specific business requirements is an important step toward building a structured network.
By combining suitable technology with transparent practices, quality products, and consistent distributor support, businesses can create a stronger foundation for sustainable growth and long-term success.
Monoline MLM Software: Strategies for Building a Structured Network Marketing Business was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
OpenAI expands ChatGPT Ads to 89 markets, adding 26 new locations. Here's who can advertise, eligibility rules, and targeting restrictions.
The post ChatGPT Ads Expand to 89 Countries — But Who Can Actually Advertise? appeared first on TechRepublic.
OpenAI expands ChatGPT Ads to 89 markets, adding 26 new locations. Here's who can advertise, eligibility rules, and targeting restrictions.
The post ChatGPT Ads Expand to 89 Countries — But Who Can Actually Advertise? appeared first on TechRepublic.
Businesses spend heavily to attract visitors to their websites, but traffic doesn’t necessarily translate into sales. Bellevue, Wash.-based Zeacon is building AI tools to help companies connect their marketing content with customer behavior and understand what actually drives conversions.
Co-founded by Kris Naidu and Jay Gounder, Zeacon uses AI to generate videos, personalize website content and track how visitors interact with it. The platform is also designed to identify bot traffic and analyze how both people and AI agents navigate websites — an increasingly important capability as AI changes how people discover and interact with businesses online.
Zeacon’s goal is to help companies move beyond traffic and content creation to understand what turns visitors into customers. As Naidu and Gounder see it, the real measure of success isn’t how many visitors a website attracts, but how many convert.
We caught up with Kris Naidu for our latest Startup Spotlight.
In 50 words or less, give us your elevator pitch:
We help businesses deploy AI agents that optimize their entire digital funnel, with an initial focus on video. Our AI agents can autonomously generate video content without prompting, publish it across social media and websites, personalize the experience for each website visitor and identify bots, while continuously analyze and optimize performance.
What problem are you obsessed with solving?
We are obsessed with helping businesses turn the attention they already paid for into sales. Brands invest in advertising and great video content, but the website where customers actually buy often doesn’t connect with those investments. Zeacon brings that content onto the website, personalizes it to the visitor, and connects engagement to buying behavior. We can also create new videos from product photos and website data based on what converts. The question driving us is simple: How can we help this business sell more while taking work off its team?
What surprised you after talking to customers?
How much opportunity exists in what they already have. Businesses have videos, product photos, website traffic, and customer data. What’s missing is the connection between them. A marketing team wants to know: Which content helps people buy? Where are we losing customers? What should we create next? That reinforced our belief that the real value is turning information into a decision they can act on which we can provide with our platform.
How has artificial intelligence changed the way you build your company?
AI changed what we could take off the customer’s plate. Zeacon can understand website and product information, generate video from pictures without prompting, choose relevant content for a visitor, and help teams ask questions about performance in plain English. We’re building those capabilities together: create, personalize, measure, and learn. Each result can inform the next decision. That’s a much bigger opportunity than making content faster which we can also do but it means helping a business continuously improve how it sells.
What’s one thing people misunderstand about your startup?
That revenue alone does not tell you how valuable an AI company is. Revenue matters it proves customers will pay. But data deserves equal attention because it determines what the system can learn and how useful it becomes. At Zeacon, we care about the connection between visitor behavior, content, and conversion. The advantage comes from the quality of that data and our ability to turn it into better customer outcomes. Investors should ask what a company is learning with every deployment, alongside what it earns that will help them understand the true growth value. Upfront value without long term vision effects companies and we were always focused on the end goal which was delivering a product that adds value not only in the near term but cannot be easily replaced.
What’s the toughest decision you’ve made in the past year?
Deciding what to say no to. When your technology opens up several opportunities, it’s tempting to pursue all of them. But customers need you to solve their problem well. Our focus is helping businesses use video and data to improve their website experience and grow sales. We have to judge opportunities against that purpose, even when they’re exciting. The data helped us understand the entire flow of users for our customers that when we had our moment. We realized it just was not about providing outcomes for sales but helping the customers fix issues within their website journey and using the content to help fill gaps for the desired outcomes.
What’s the one piece of advice you give to other entrepreneurs?
Focus. Get close to your customers, understand the problem they will pay you to solve, and keep delivering against it. Do not confuse more features with more value. Make something customers use, trust, and want to keep. It is hard but being focused is the key to winning.
We’ll know our company has made it when…
Zeacon is recognized for creating a new business science on relating content and user behavior to actual business outcomes.
Acquiring users is one of the biggest challenges for crypto startups. Whether you are launching a cryptocurrency token, building a DeFi platform, developing a Web3 application, or preparing for a Token Generation Event (TGE), attracting the right audience requires a clear marketing strategy and careful budget management.
Many crypto projects spend heavily on influencer promotions, paid advertising, community campaigns, and exchange-related marketing without understanding which activities generate genuine users. High traffic and growing social media followers may look promising, but they do not always translate into wallet connections, product adoption, token participation, or long-term engagement.
Reducing user acquisition costs for crypto startups requires improving audience targeting, choosing cost-effective marketing channels, optimizing conversion rates, and retaining users after their first interaction. Instead of focusing exclusively on attracting more people, startups should identify the marketing activities that bring relevant users at a sustainable cost.
This guide explains how crypto startups can reduce user acquisition costs, improve marketing efficiency, and build a scalable user acquisition strategy.
User acquisition cost (UAC) is the amount a business spends to acquire a new user through its marketing and growth activities. It helps crypto startups evaluate whether their campaigns are generating users efficiently.
A closely related metric is Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), which generally measures the cost of acquiring a paying customer. For crypto projects, the most useful metric depends on the business model and the desired action.
For example, a DeFi platform may measure the cost of acquiring an active wallet, while a blockchain gaming project may track the cost of acquiring a player who returns regularly.
The basic formula is:
User Acquisition Cost = Total Acquisition Spend ÷ Number of New Users Acquired
Suppose a crypto startup spends $12,000 on marketing and acquires 600 new users during a campaign.
User acquisition cost = $12,000 ÷ 600 = $20 per user.
However, this calculation is meaningful only when the startup defines what counts as a user and which expenses belong in the calculation. A registered account, connected wallet, funded wallet, and retained user represent different levels of engagement.
Projects should track these actions separately to understand the actual cost of attracting valuable users.
Crypto marketing presents several challenges that can increase acquisition expenses.
Intense competition: New tokens, DeFi applications, exchanges, and Web3 platforms compete for attention across similar online communities and marketing channels.
Audience trust issues: Potential users may hesitate to interact with unfamiliar crypto projects because of scams, misleading promotions, security concerns, and unclear token utility.
Advertising restrictions: Cryptocurrency advertising is subject to platform-specific rules and may require approvals, disclosures, or geographic restrictions.
Low-quality traffic: Influencer campaigns and paid promotions can generate clicks without attracting users who are genuinely interested in the product.
Short-term campaign thinking: Some startups prioritize launch-day visibility instead of building a repeatable acquisition process that continues after the initial campaign.
Understanding these challenges helps startups allocate their marketing budgets more effectively.
One of the most effective ways to reduce user acquisition costs is to identify the audience most likely to use your product.
Marketing to everyone interested in cryptocurrency can waste resources because different audiences have different motivations, expectations, and levels of product knowledge.
For example, a DeFi lending platform may target experienced DeFi users who understand liquidity pools and collateralization. A crypto wallet may appeal to retail users, traders, developers, or businesses looking for specific wallet functionality.
Create an audience profile that identifies:
Use customer interviews, community discussions, product analytics, and search data to validate your assumptions.
A clearly defined target audience allows your crypto marketing team to select relevant channels, create better messaging, and avoid spending money on users who are unlikely to convert.
Website traffic is useful, but not every visitor has the same potential value. Someone researching general blockchain concepts may be less likely to adopt your product than someone comparing crypto wallets or evaluating DeFi platforms.
Crypto startups should identify the search queries, communities, and campaign interactions that indicate stronger intent.
For example, content targeting queries such as “how to choose a crypto wallet for a DeFi platform” may attract users with a specific need. A detailed comparison page can then explain the product’s features, supported networks, security considerations, and limitations.
To attract high-intent users:
This approach shifts the focus from maximizing visits to attracting users who are more likely to benefit from your solution.
Crypto SEO can reduce dependence on paid campaigns by helping your website attract relevant users through organic search.
Unlike a short promotional campaign, useful search content can continue attracting visitors after publication, although rankings and traffic are never guaranteed.
Start with keyword research focused on the problems your product solves. Build content around product categories, use cases, comparisons, technical questions, and common user concerns.
For example, a crypto exchange could publish guides on exchange security, trading features, wallet transfers, and supported blockchain networks. A token development company could create resources explaining token standards, smart contract audits, tokenomics, and deployment costs.
A strong crypto SEO strategy should include:
SEO works best when content provides genuine value rather than repeating keywords. It can attract users earlier in their decision-making journey and help reduce the long-term cost of acquiring organic traffic.
Many crypto users need more information before trusting a new platform or token project. Content marketing can address this hesitation by explaining the product, demonstrating its value, and answering common questions.
Create content that matches different stages of the user journey.
Awareness stage: Publish introductory guides, educational videos, industry explainers, and problem-focused articles.
Consideration stage: Develop comparison pages, product walkthroughs, technical documentation, case studies, and detailed FAQs.
Conversion stage: Provide onboarding guides, product demonstrations, feature explanations, and clear next steps.
For Web3 startups, content can also support community discussions, email campaigns, influencer partnerships, and AI search visibility.
Avoid publishing content solely to increase article count. Each asset should address a specific user question and guide readers toward a relevant next step.
Measure content performance through qualified organic traffic, assisted conversions, product activation, and returning users rather than page views alone.
Crypto influencer marketing can generate awareness quickly, but poorly matched partnerships can increase user acquisition costs.
A creator with a large following may not reach the people who need your product. Audience relevance, credibility, engagement quality, and campaign objectives are more useful selection criteria than follower count alone.
Before choosing an influencer, evaluate:
Use unique campaign links, referral codes, and appropriate attribution methods to measure results. Track meaningful actions such as qualified registrations, product activation, and retained users.
Start with a controlled pilot before committing a large portion of your marketing budget. Compare performance across creators and scale partnerships that demonstrate relevant outcomes.
All paid promotions should comply with applicable advertising rules, platform policies, and disclosure requirements. Avoid misleading claims about token prices, guaranteed returns, or investment outcomes.
A well-managed community can support user acquisition by helping potential users understand the product, receive answers, and engage with the project over time.
Crypto startups commonly use Telegram, Discord, X, and relevant developer forums to communicate with their audiences. The best channel depends on the project’s users and purpose.
However, community size alone is not a reliable measure of acquisition success. Thousands of inactive members may generate less value than a smaller group of people who actively use the product and provide useful feedback.
To build a stronger community:
Community managers should also maintain transparent communication during delays, product changes, and security incidents.
Measure active participation, onboarding completion, returning users, support resolution, and community-driven referrals. These metrics help identify whether community marketing is contributing to sustainable growth.
Even well-targeted traffic can become expensive when a website fails to convert visitors into users.
A confusing landing page, unclear product benefits, complicated onboarding process, or missing security information can prevent interested visitors from taking action.
Start by reviewing your most important conversion pages. Make the product’s purpose clear, explain its primary benefits, and provide a visible call to action.
Effective crypto landing pages should include:
Run controlled A/B tests on headlines, calls to action, page layouts, and onboarding steps. Change one important variable at a time when practical so you can interpret the results.
For example, if 2,000 visitors produce 40 completed registrations, the registration conversion rate is 2%. If a tested page produces 60 registrations from the same number of visitors, the conversion rate becomes 3%.
If acquisition spending remains constant, the cost per registration decreases because more users complete the desired action.
The key is to improve conversions without making exaggerated promises or hiding important information.
Referral marketing can help crypto startups reach new audiences through existing users. When users understand the product and have a positive experience, they may introduce it to relevant peers or communities.
A referral program can reward qualifying actions, but incentives should be designed carefully to avoid fake accounts, referral abuse, and low-quality registrations.
Consider the following practices:
Strategic partnerships can also reduce acquisition costs by connecting your product with established audiences. Potential partners may include complementary Web3 applications, developer communities, blockchain ecosystems, and relevant educational platforms.
Choose partnerships based on audience fit and mutual value rather than the number of promotional announcements.
Sustainable growth requires more than simply acquiring new users. If users leave shortly after registering, the startup must continually spend money replacing them.
Retention-focused improvements can make existing acquisition spending more productive.
Begin by identifying where users abandon onboarding. Review product analytics, support requests, surveys, and user interviews to understand the obstacles.
Depending on your product, improvements may include:
Track activation rates, repeat usage, cohort retention, and relevant product outcomes. The right retention metric depends on the business model.
For example, a blockchain gaming platform may track returning players, while a DeFi application may measure repeat protocol interactions and retained active wallets.
Better retention does not automatically lower the initial cost of acquiring a user, but it can reduce the need for repeated replacement campaigns and improve the long-term value generated by each acquired user.
Reducing user acquisition costs requires reliable measurement. Without consistent tracking, a startup may continue investing in campaigns that generate attention but fail to produce meaningful outcomes.
Build a dashboard that connects marketing sources with the actions users take after arriving.
Important KPIs include:
Separate paid, organic, influencer, referral, and community-driven acquisition wherever possible. Use consistent attribution rules and account for the limitations of cross-device tracking and privacy restrictions.
For crypto projects, on-chain data may complement website analytics, but wallet activity does not necessarily identify unique individuals. A connected wallet is not always an active customer, and transaction volume alone does not prove sustainable adoption.
Review campaign performance regularly and reallocate spending based on verified results.
There is no need for startups to activate every marketing channel simultaneously. A phased strategy can help teams validate assumptions before increasing expenditure.
Define the target audience, identify the primary conversion event, research acquisition channels, and establish baseline metrics.
Run small campaigns across selected channels, publish high-intent content, test landing pages, and evaluate audience quality.
Identify weak conversion points, improve onboarding, refine targeting, and stop campaigns that consistently fail to meet agreed objectives.
Increase investment in channels that produce qualified, activated, and retained users at acceptable costs. Continue testing new opportunities instead of assuming past results will remain constant.
This approach allows crypto startups to make decisions based on evidence rather than marketing hype.
Reducing user acquisition costs for crypto startups requires a coordinated strategy that combines audience research, crypto SEO, content marketing, influencer partnerships, community building, conversion optimization, and user retention.
The most effective approach is not necessarily to spend less on every channel. It is to invest in the activities that consistently attract relevant users and help them achieve meaningful outcomes.
Start by defining your ideal audience, measuring the complete acquisition journey, and identifying where users drop off. Then improve the channels and experiences that have the greatest impact on growth.
At INORU, we help crypto and Web3 businesses develop marketing strategies that support brand visibility, community engagement, user acquisition, and long-term ecosystem growth. With the right combination of data-driven marketing and continuous optimization, your startup can make better use of its budget and build a more sustainable path to adoption.
Crypto startups can reduce user acquisition costs by targeting high-intent audiences, investing in SEO, improving landing-page conversion rates, choosing relevant influencers, building engaged communities, and measuring cost per activated user instead of focusing only on traffic or registrations.
There is no universal benchmark for a good crypto user acquisition cost. It depends on the product, target market, acquisition channel, revenue model, and user quality. Startups should establish their own benchmarks and compare acquisition costs with activation, retention, and long-term user value.
Crypto SEO, educational content, community marketing, referrals, and relevant partnerships can be cost-effective when they attract users who remain engaged. Influencer marketing and paid advertising may also work, but performance depends on audience fit, campaign quality, and compliance with platform policies.
Startups should track total acquisition spending, new users, activated users, conversion rates, retention, and channel-specific performance. Analytics tools, campaign tracking links, referral codes, and carefully interpreted on-chain data can help connect marketing activity with user behavior.
Crypto SEO helps startups attract users through organic search without paying for every individual click. Helpful content, relevant landing pages, strong technical SEO, and clear internal linking can improve discoverability and support long-term acquisition, although organic rankings and traffic are not guaranteed.
Retention helps startups understand whether acquired users find ongoing value in their products. Better retention can reduce dependence on replacement campaigns and improve the long-term value generated by marketing, although it does not necessarily reduce the initial cost of acquiring each user.
A startup should consider scaling when it has reliable tracking, a clear understanding of its target audience, repeatable acquisition results, acceptable conversion and retention metrics, and sufficient product capacity to support additional users. Increasing spend before validating these factors can amplify inefficiencies.
How to Reduce User Acquisition Costs for Crypto Startups was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Hiring a PPC company can help businesses manage paid advertising campaigns, attract relevant visitors, and generate leads or sales. However, the cost of hiring a pay-per-click service provider depends on the management model, advertising budget, campaign requirements, and level of expertise involved.
According to Clutch’s PPC pricing guide, PPC agencies listed on its platform commonly charge between $100 and $149 per hour. Clutch also reports an average monthly project cost of approximately $7,165 for reviewed PPC projects. This figure reflects the projects reviewed on its platform rather than a universal market average.
PPC is one of the common types of online advertising that businesses use to reach targeted audiences, generate leads, and drive sales through paid campaigns on search engines and other digital platforms.
Understanding PPC company pricing helps businesses estimate their marketing budgets and compare service providers more accurately. This guide explains how much PPC companies charge in the United States, including monthly management fees, hourly rates, advertising-budget-based pricing, and setup costs.
PPC companies in the United States typically charge through monthly retainers, hourly rates, percentage-based management fees, or fixed-price packages. Some providers also charge a one-time fee for campaign setup, tracking configuration, or account audits.
For many businesses, monthly PPC management fees range from around $500 to $5,000 or more, depending on the scope of work. Larger accounts, complex campaigns, and multichannel advertising programs can cost considerably more.
The following table provides indicative pricing benchmarks to help businesses estimate the cost of hiring a PPC agency.
| PPC pricing category | Indicative cost in the U.S. |
|---|---|
| Entry-level monthly PPC management | $500–$1,000 |
| Small-business PPC management | $1,000–$3,000 per month |
| Mid-sized business PPC management | $3,000–$10,000 per month |
| Enterprise PPC management | $10,000+ per month |
| PPC agency hourly rates | $100–$149 per hour |
| Percentage-based management fees | Approximately 10%–20% of ad spend |
| One-time campaign setup | Varies by campaign scope and provider |
These figures are planning estimates, not fixed industry-wide rates. The hourly benchmark comes from Clutch’s PPC pricing research, while the percentage-based range is discussed in NEWMEDIA’s PPC management pricing guide. Monthly retainers and setup fees vary between providers, so businesses should confirm the actual charges and deliverables before signing a contract.
Monthly retainers are a common way for businesses to pay PPC companies for ongoing campaign management. The fee usually covers an agreed scope of work, such as campaign monitoring, keyword optimization, bid adjustments, performance analysis, and reporting.
The monthly cost often depends on the number of campaigns, advertising platforms, account complexity, and amount of ongoing work required.
These ranges are illustrative rather than verified averages for each business size. A small company running one local search campaign may pay less than a growing business managing multiple product categories, while enterprise accounts may require dedicated specialists and more extensive reporting.
Businesses should also check whether the quoted monthly fee includes campaign setup, landing page development, creative production, conversion tracking, and other services. These items may be billed separately.
Some PPC companies calculate their management fees as a percentage of the client’s monthly advertising spend. Under this arrangement, the agency fee increases as the advertising budget grows.
For example, if a PPC agency charges 15% of ad spend, the management fee would be calculated as follows:
| Monthly advertising spend | Management fee at 15% | Total monthly cost |
|---|---|---|
| $2,000 | $300 | $2,300 |
| $5,000 | $750 | $5,750 |
| $10,000 | $1,500 | $11,500 |
| $20,000 | $3,000 | $23,000 |
| $50,000 | $7,500 | $57,500 |
The total monthly cost includes the advertising budget plus the agency’s management fee. It excludes additional charges, such as landing page development, creative production, or applicable taxes.
Percentage-based pricing is not the only option. Some agencies set a minimum monthly fee, while others use fixed retainers or combine a base fee with a percentage of ad spend. For businesses with smaller budgets, a percentage-only arrangement may not cover the agency’s minimum operating costs, so the provider may charge a minimum retainer instead.
Hourly pricing is another option when a business needs limited PPC support rather than continuous campaign management. It may be suitable for account audits, troubleshooting, campaign consultations, or short-term optimization projects.
According to Clutch’s PPC pricing guide, the typical hourly rate listed for PPC agencies is $100–$149. Actual rates vary according to the agency’s location, expertise, specialization, and project requirements.
Here is how different hourly rates translate into estimated service costs:
| Hourly rate | 5 hours of work | 10 hours of work | 20 hours of work |
|---|---|---|---|
| $75 | $375 | $750 | $1,500 |
| $100 | $500 | $1,000 | $2,000 |
| $125 | $625 | $1,250 | $2,500 |
| $149 | $745 | $1,490 | $2,980 |
These are mathematical cost examples, not claims that every PPC company offers each rate. A business should confirm the estimated hours, the work covered, and whether ongoing support is available at the same rate.
Hourly billing can provide flexibility for occasional tasks. However, businesses requiring regular monitoring and optimization may find a monthly retainer easier to budget for.
PPC service providers use different pricing structures to accommodate campaign size, service requirements, and client preferences. The structure determines how the agency calculates its fee, but it does not necessarily indicate the quality of its services.
The best pricing arrangement depends on the services required and the business’s budget. When comparing PPC companies, evaluate the total expected cost and the actual deliverables rather than choosing an agency solely because its initial fee is lower.
In addition to ongoing management fees, some PPC companies charge a one-time setup fee to prepare advertising accounts and campaigns. The setup cost depends on the work involved, such as account configuration, keyword research, conversion tracking, campaign structure, and initial ad creation.
For U.S. businesses, published agency pricing examples show that one-time PPC setup fees can range from several hundred dollars to several thousand dollars. For example, Karma Softech’s U.S. PPC pricing guide cites setup costs of approximately $500 to $2,000, while other providers publish higher fees for more extensive account builds. These are provider-reported estimates rather than a universal industry rate.
Businesses may also incur additional charges when their campaigns require services beyond standard PPC management. Common examples include:
Before agreeing to a proposal, businesses should confirm whether the setup fee is included in the first month’s retainer or billed separately. For example, a company paying $1,500 per month for PPC management with a $1,000 setup fee would pay $2,500 in the first month, excluding advertising spend and other charges. From the second month onward, the recurring management fee would be $1,500, assuming the service scope and pricing remain unchanged.
Reviewing these costs upfront helps businesses calculate the actual first-month investment and avoid unexpected expenses during the campaign.
PPC companies in the United States may charge a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars per month for campaign management, depending on the advertising budget, campaign complexity, and services required. Hourly rates, monthly retainers, percentage-based fees, and one-time setup costs can all affect the total investment.
When comparing PPC agencies, businesses should consider both management fees and advertising spend to calculate their actual monthly budget. Reviewing Top PPC companies can help businesses compare providers and find options that fit their marketing goals and budget.
The post How Much Do PPC Companies Charge? A Pricing Guide appeared first on TopDevelopers.co.
Most crypto brands don’t have a content problem. They have a trust problem that shows up as a content problem.
You can see it on almost any project blog. Forty posts, all published in the last year, all titled some version of “What Is X and Why It Matters.” No author name. No data you couldn’t find on page one of Google. Traffic that peaked in the last bull run and never came back.
The audience hasn’t gone anywhere, though. Crypto.com’s Crypto Market Sizing Report for H1 2026 puts global crypto owners at 774 million in June 2026, up 4.5% from 741 million in December 2025. Chainalysis found something even more telling in its 2026 Global Crypto Adoption Index. Total crypto market cap fell about 50%, yet on-chain economic activity slipped just 1.6%, from $9.5 trillion to $9.4 trillion.
People are still using crypto. They’re still researching it. They’re just not reading the way they used to.
Ahrefs’ latest research found that AI Overviews now drive a 58% lower average clickthrough rate for top-ranking pages. SparkToro’s data shows 68% of U.S. Google searches ended without a click in early 2026. And in the Content Marketing Institute’s 2026 B2B research, only 12% of marketers said their content was highly effective.
So the real question for founders and marketing leads isn’t whether to invest in content. It’s how to build content that still earns attention when the search page answers the question for you.
Here’s the playbook we’d use.
The old model was simple. Pick a keyword, write 1,500 words, build a few links, wait. That still works for some queries, but it no longer covers the whole job.
That last point gets ignored more than it should. A post that hypes token returns isn’t just weak content in Europe. It can be a compliance problem.
Content without a narrative becomes a pile of unrelated posts. Before you touch the editorial calendar, decide what your project believes and who needs to hear it.
Write a one-sentence thesis
Make it something a journalist could repeat. “We make cross-border stablecoin payments cheaper for small exporters” beats “We’re building the future of finance” every time.
Map your real audiences
Most crypto brands speak to at least four groups: retail users, developers, investors or partners, and institutions. Each searches differently and trusts different proof.
Choose three or four content pillars
Pillars are the topics you want to be cited for. A payments project might pick stablecoin rails, compliance, merchant adoption and fees. Every piece should ladder up to one of them.
Keep a “we don’t say this” list
No price predictions. No guaranteed yields. No “to the moon.” Write it down so freelancers, community managers and founders all work from the same rules.
Search volume tells you what people type. Your sales calls, Discord threads and support tickets tell you what they need to know before they trust you. Start there.
Mine questions from your own channels
Export the last 90 days of Telegram, Discord and support messages, then group the repeats. Those are your first briefs, and competitors can’t easily copy them.
Cluster by intent, not keyword
Learning questions (“how do stablecoin payouts work”), comparison questions (“custodial vs non-custodial wallet for a business”) and decision questions (“cost to integrate”) need different page types.
One primary intent per URL
Ten posts chasing the same idea split your authority and confuse both Google and AI engines. Merge overlapping articles and redirect the weaker URLs.
Prioritize comparison and question pages
Seer’s analysis found AI Overviews appear on around 95% of comparison queries and 86% of question queries. Those are exactly the searches where being cited matters most.
Refresh on a schedule
Crypto facts expire fast. Fees change, rules shift, protocols upgrade. Put your top 20 pages on a quarterly review with a visible “last updated” date.
Crypto sits squarely in what Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines call Your Money or Your Life territory, where bad information can hurt someone’s finances. That raises the bar for experience, expertise and trust on every page.
Put real names on the work
Every substantial article needs a named author and, ideally, a technical reviewer. Link to bios that show actual experience: contracts shipped, audits handled, years in compliance.
Bring first-party data
Your own on-chain metrics, user surveys or support trends are the most citable thing you own. A small original dataset beats another rewrite of public stats.
Show sources in plain sight
Name the report, the organization and the date for every figure. AI engines and editors both favor claims they can verify.
Build compliance into the template
If you market to EU audiences, MiCA’s Article 7 requires marketing communications to be clearly identifiable, consistent with the white paper, and to carry a statement that no competent authority has reviewed them. Add risk language once, at template level, so nobody forgets it.
Get technical claims checked by people who build
This is where a lot of crypto content quietly falls apart. A writer can explain staking. Only an engineer will notice the explanation is wrong for a particular consensus model.
That gap is why many teams bring in outside help. Working with a crypto content marketing agency like Blockchain App Factory gives projects writers who sit alongside blockchain developers, so a piece on token vesting or bridge security gets checked by someone who has built those systems before it goes live. Whoever you work with, the standard should be the same. Technical review is part of the process, not an afterthought.
Getting cited is partly about authority and partly about making your best sentences easy to lift. Engines pull short, self-contained passages. Give them those passages on purpose.
Answer first
Open each section with a 40 to 60 word direct answer, then expand. Bury the answer under three paragraphs of context and a competitor’s cleaner page gets quoted instead.
Write stat lines that stand alone
“Global crypto owners reached 774 million in June 2026, according to Crypto.com” works out of context. “As mentioned above, this number grew” does not.
Keep your entity consistent
Use the same company name, description and founder names across your site, LinkedIn, Crunchbase, GitHub and press bios. Engines connect brands to topics through consistency.
Use structured data
Organization, Article and Person schema help search engines understand who wrote what. Google’s own structured data documentation explains how each type should be implemented.
Check you aren’t blocking the crawlers
Review robots.txt and your CDN’s bot settings. Plenty of crypto sites block AI search crawlers by accident through aggressive bot protection, then wonder why they never show up in answers.
Publishing a page is not distribution. Crypto audiences gather in a handful of places, and each rewards a different kind of contribution.
Reddit and governance forums
Answer questions as a person, not a brand account. Link only when your page genuinely answers the thread. Given Reddit’s share of AI citations, one thoughtful reply can outlive a blog post.
X, Telegram and Discord
Turn each pillar article into a short thread and a community post. End with a question. The replies become your next brief.
YouTube and short video
A five minute screen recording of your product, or an explainer pulled from your library, reaches people who will never read 2,000 words.
Digital PR with original data
Journalists need numbers. Package a quarterly data report, pitch two or three angles from it, and earn coverage that strengthens your authority in search and AI.
Repurpose with a plan
One research report can become a pillar page, three supporting posts, a thread, a newsletter, a video and a PR pitch. Decide those outputs before you write, not after.
If you only track sessions, the AI Overview era will look like failure even when it isn’t. Widen the scorecard.
Give it two quarters. Content compounds slowly, then quickly.
Crypto content marketing in 2026 rewards teams that are specific, verifiable and genuinely present in their community. Volume won’t rescue a weak narrative.
Trust will.
What is the main goal of crypto content marketing in 2026?
To build trust that converts. That means ranking in search, getting cited in AI answers and earning community discussion, all pointing back to pages that move readers toward a decision.
How long does crypto content marketing take to show results?
Individual pages can rank or get cited within weeks, but a content library usually needs two to three quarters to deliver steady, compounding traffic and pipeline.
How do I get my crypto project cited in AI Overviews and ChatGPT?
Answer questions directly at the top of each section, back claims with named and dated sources, keep brand details consistent everywhere, and earn mentions on forums and in the press.
Do crypto marketers need to worry about regulation?
Yes. In the EU, MiCA requires crypto marketing to be fair, clear and not misleading. Other regions have their own promotion rules, so get legal review for anything touching returns or token sales.
Should a crypto startup build content in-house or hire an agency?
In-house works if you have technical experts with time to write and review. An agency makes sense when you need writing, SEO, technical review and distribution together without hiring four people.
Crypto Content Marketing in 2026: A Practical Playbook for Trust, Rankings and AI Citations was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Your Telegram group hits 20,000 members the week before launch. Two days later, a fake admin DMs half of them a “whitelist link,” the chat fills with bots selling pump signals, and your real holders quietly mute the group.
That is not a growth story. It is a liability.
Telegram is still where crypto communities live. Pavel Durov announced in March 2025 that Telegram had passed one billion monthly active users, and that the average user opens the app 21 times a day and spends 41 minutes on it. For a token launch, that is the room where buying decisions, rumors and support questions all happen at once.
It is also where attackers spend their time. Chainalysis estimates that crypto scams took in about $17 billion in 2025, with impersonation scams up 1,400% year over year. The FTC reported that Americans lost $2.1 billion to scams that started on social media in 2025, and investment scams made up $1.1 billion of that. Telegram itself says it has blocked more than 27 million groups and channels so far in 2026.
So the job has changed. Crypto Telegram marketing now means three things running together: bringing in real people, pointing their energy outward through raids, and keeping bots and scammers out of the room. Here is how to do all three without burning your community.
· Build the Structure Before You Pay for Growth
· Group Growth: Getting Members Who Stay
· Raids: Turning Your Group Into Reach
· Anti-Bot Moderation: A Layered Defense
· A 30-Day Telegram Launch Playbook
· Mistakes That Quietly Kill Crypto Communities
· Frequently Asked Questions
Most projects buy attention first and fix the structure later. That order is backwards. When 5,000 people land in a group with no rules, no topics and no gatekeeping, the first impression is chaos, and chaos is exactly what scammers feed on.
Member count is the number everyone screenshots. Active members is the number that predicts whether your launch has buyers. Bought members show up in the counter and nowhere else, and they make your group an easier target because nobody notices when bot accounts start talking.
The first few hundred members set the culture for everyone after them. Bring in early contributors, testnet users, advisors’ networks and the X followers who already know the project.
Then have the core team actually reply, every day, for the first two weeks. A group that answers questions in minutes attracts people who ask good questions.
Airdrop and points quests bring numbers fast. They also bring farmers running dozens of accounts. Tie rewards to verified actions such as wallet activity, time in the group and real participation, and filter duplicate wallets before any payout.
A 10,000-member group where 8% talk every week is worth more than a 60,000-member group where almost nobody does.
A raid is coordinated engagement on a specific post, usually on X, organized from inside your Telegram group. Done well, it puts your announcement in front of new people in the first hour, when the platform decides whether a post travels. Done badly, it gets accounts flagged and makes the project look desperate.
Post the target link, the action (reply, repost or quote), the time window and two or three talking points. Raid bots can track who completed what, but keep the instruction itself short and human.
X’s Platform Manipulation and Spam Policy prohibits repeatedly posting identical or nearly identical posts, along with coordinated activity that uses fake accounts or automation. Fifty identical “LFG” replies is exactly the pattern that gets filtered.
Give raiders angles instead of scripts: a question to ask, a feature to mention, a use case they care about. Let them write in their own words.
This is usually the point where teams realize growth, raids and moderation cannot run as three separate jobs. A crypto Telegram marketing agency like Blockchain App Factory handles them as one system, so the people inviting members, coordinating raids and removing bots work from the same playbook and the same data.
Raiders speak for your project whether you like it or not. Ban price predictions and promised returns from every talking point. If you market to UK users, the FCA’s cryptoasset financial promotions rules cover promotions shared on social media, and “this will 10x” from your community is a risk you do not need.
Track impressions, profile visits and new group joins from each raided post. If raids produce replies but no new members, the talking points need work.
No single bot stops everything. Spam accounts get cheaper every year, and AI tools make impersonation far more convincing. Chainalysis found that AI-enabled scam operations were about 4.5 times more profitable than traditional ones. The answer is layers, so whatever slips past one gets caught by the next.
Use join requests or a verification bot so every newcomer passes a check before they can post. The Telegram Bot API supports chat join requests, which lets a bot approve or decline people after a captcha, a button tap or a quick question. Even a simple check stops most scripted joins.
Keep the check light for humans. A verification step that takes more than a few seconds costs you real members, especially on mobile, so test it yourself on a slow connection before launch.
Impersonation is where members lose real money. Scammers clone admin names and profile photos, then DM anyone who just asked for help in the group.
Bots handle volume. Humans handle judgment. A global crypto group needs moderator coverage across Asia, Europe and the Americas, written rules for warnings, mutes and bans, and a private mod channel for escalation.
Brief moderators on the project itself, not just the rules. A mod who can answer “when is the snapshot?” or “which wallet is supported?” stops members from going looking for help in their DMs, which is exactly where scammers wait. Give them a living FAQ document and update it after every announcement.
Once a week, read the admin log and the deleted messages. Look for new scam phrases, new bot naming patterns and the hours when attacks spike. Feed those patterns back into your filters and your moderator schedule. Spam operators adapt every few days, and your rules should too.
You do not need everything on day one. You do need it in the right order.
After day 30, keep the same rhythm: one community metric review and one moderation audit every week. The groups that survive a bear market are the ones that kept this routine when nobody was watching the price.
Trust is the real product people are buying inside your group.
How fast should a new crypto Telegram group grow?
Fast enough to stay active, but not so fast that growth outruns moderation. Most healthy groups grow in steps tied to AMAs, partnerships and announcements, with the active ratio holding steady as membership rises.
Are Telegram raids against X’s rules?
Coordinated engagement by real people is common, but X’s Platform Manipulation and Spam Policy bans identical replies, fake accounts and automation. Keep raids human, original and limited to real members.
What is the best anti-bot setup for a crypto Telegram group?
A layered one: join verification, restrictions on new members, Telegram’s native anti-spam, scam keyword filters and human moderators across time zones.
Should we buy Telegram members to look credible?
No. Bought members inflate your count, drag down engagement and make the group easier for scammers to exploit. Experienced investors check activity, not member totals.
How many moderators does a crypto Telegram group need?
Plan for at least one active moderator per time zone your community covers, then add more during launches, listings and major announcements.
Crypto Telegram Marketing: Group Growth, Raids and Anti-Bot Moderation was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Leadership changes at Bellevue, Wash.-based companies are dominating the news in this week’s Tech Moves, plus some notable items in neighboring Redmond.
— Former Amazon leader Asic Demberel is now chief technology officer for Scala, a Bellevue-based startup offering an AI operating system for contact centers and customer operations. Demberel was with Amazon for 15 years, first working on fraud technology for AWS and leaving the company as general manager and engineering leader for Amazon Pharmacy Kiosks.
“You don’t walk away from 15 years at Amazon for an incremental challenge. It takes an exceptionally complex problem and an opportunity so massive that you simply can’t look away,” Demberel said of his decision to leave.
Scala was founded by Smartsheet CEO Rajeev Singh and former Accolade executive Ardie Sameti. It raised an $8.5 million seed round in February.
— Flyhomes, a Bellevue-based company providing financial tools for home buying and selling, has named three leadership hires:
— Heinz Marketing, a Redmond, Wash.-based B2B marketing and consulting firm, is shaking up its leadership. The company has named Jenn Steele as its chief operating officer and president, while Matt Heinz, who started the business 18 years ago, is moving from president to CEO.
Steele joins Heinz Marketing from Seattle’s SoundGTM, which she co-founded and led. She has held executive roles at numerous Seattle-area companies including CEO of Kissmetrics and top marketing and revenue positions elsewhere.
Maria Geokezas is retiring as COO after nearly 17 years with the firm. The company credits her leadership with shaping the organization and said “the whole team is deeply grateful and will miss her.”
— Ludovic Fourrage announced that he is co-founder and chief AI officer for Untamed Intelligence, a Bellevue startup launched in May.
“Untamed Intelligence is an innovation studio dedicated to advancing human possibility. We begin by asking what human beings need to flourish and then explore how technology and learning science might help us get there,” the company said on LinkedIn.
Fourrage was previously senior program officer for the Gates Foundation. Before that, he was with Microsoft for more than 13 years, working in certification and learning leadership roles. Fourrage is also the founder of Nucamp Coding Bootcamp, serving as board chairman of the company.
The startup’s other co-founders are CEO Paul LeBlanc and Chief Product Officer Rachel Koblic. LeBlanc was president of Southern New Hampshire University for 21 years until 2024. Koblic has her own learning-focused consultancy and was chief learning officer for Matter and Space.
— LogicGate, a Chicago company offering a no-code governance, risk and compliance platform, has named two Bellevue-based leaders:
— The Technology Alliance has appointed Matt Medlin, a longtime CPA with a focus on venture-backed companies, chair of its board of directors. Two current board members have taken new roles, with Helion’s Jessie Thomas becoming vice chair and EY’s Alissa Garner Byersdorfer serving as treasurer.
The UW Climate Risk Lab has named two new members to its leadership council:
— Seattle-based Nimbus Aerospace, which recently completed a test flight of its quarter-scale prototype, has added two advisory board members:
— Evergreen Goodwill has promoted Derieontay Sparks to chief revenue officer, overseeing operations that support the nonprofit’s tuition-free education and workforce development programs.
— And in case you missed it, two top Microsoft executives shared this week that they’re leaving the Redmond tech giant: Peter Lee, the former head of Microsoft Research, and Ryan Roslansky, Microsoft executive vice president overseeing both LinkedIn and Microsoft Office. See the whole story here.
After working together for years — including at Seattle logistics startup Flexe — Adam Kapel and Ryan Morel reunited this spring to launch Kompeld, a Bainbridge Island startup focused on helping companies build better narratives.
Kompeld has developed a system for measuring how well companies explain what they do and why customers should care. The startup has tested it on more than 150 technology companies and found that about half have messaging that falls somewhere between average and weak.
The two-person, bootstrapped startup is using AI to turn the founders’ experience in business messaging into a system that helps companies focus their sales stories on what customers need, rather than on the products they sell.
We caught up with Morel for this edition of GeekWire’s Startup Spotlight to learn more about the startup.
In 50 words or less, give us your startup’s elevator pitch?
Kompeld narrative systems turn subjective storytelling into an objective revenue driver. We continuously diagnose, architect, improve and align commercial messages across every revenue funnel stage. We replace gut-feel branding with the structural logic that creates demand, increases win rates and accelerates growth.
What problem are you obsessed with solving?
The hidden revenue barriers caused by self-centered, product-first corporate messaging. Most B2B organizations plateau at one point or another because they focus entirely on themselves rather than the buyer’s operational reality.
What surprised you after talking to customers?
How many B2B leaders passionately want to be customer-centric yet lack any concrete framework to actually be customer-centric? Everyone treats it as a core goal, but struggles to turn that into action across the organization. They simply do not know how to hardcode buyer perspectives, behaviors and outcomes into their daily revenue process. That leaves customer-centricity as an abstract aspiration rather than an institutionalized system. And without that, go-to-market teams default to product-first habits, dilute messaging impact and hinder pipeline growth.
How has AI changed the way you build your company?
Three direct ways. First, AI allows us to turn our narrative expertise and best practices into the repeatable, defendable diagnostic structures and processes that customer-centric narrative systems require. Second, AI tools automate routine steps so we can deliver much faster. Third, AI shapes our delivery model. Instead of traditional software, we can deliver purpose-built narrative protocols based on customer’s specific needs.
What’s one thing people misunderstand about your startup?
Executives misunderstand the difference between a creative brand story and a revenue narrative. And as a result, they misunderstand the focus, approach and value of narrative. Brand stories serve a subjective purpose aimed at emotion, whereas narratives are structured, repeatable systems built strictly to drive revenue and growth.
What’s the toughest decision you’ve made in the past year?
Telling Adam (Kapel) he had to come out of semi-retirement to build Kompeld.
What’s the one piece of advice you give to other entrepreneurs?
Recognize that it’s not about you. Founding a company requires deep personal passion for your idea, but winning requires turning that perspective entirely toward the buyer. Step away from the internal origin story and feature pitches and focus on the customer’s operational reality, their daily disruptions, their urgent challenges and their decision-making criteria.
We’ll know our company has made it when:
Adam retires.
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