Today, there are over 4.37 billion email users and 5.6 billion active phone numbers on the planet. Email and SMS marketing are still the most effective engagement channels for the vast majority of consumer brands.
For web3 brands — or brands trying to reach on-chain audiences — this is an entirely different story. Their customers are pseudonymous (or anonymous) wallet addresses and they have no way of communicating with them. We believe this is the most fundamental challenge for every business building in this space. You cannot build a durable, sustainable business without being able to talk to your customers.
In the past, people have used unconventional, ineffective methods to communicate between wallets, but new, interoperable “wallet messaging” protocols like XMTP have emerged and are blazing new trails.
With the advent of this new technology, business and marketing use cases have also evolved, giving marketers the first opportunity to reach any wallet directly with marketing platforms like Holder.
Given this momentum, our team at Holder set out to conduct the first comprehensive research study around wallet messaging in our inaugural State of Wallet Messaging. Our research surveyed nearly 200 B2C marketers to develop a benchmark around wallet messaging familiarity, goals, interest, value, and effectiveness.
In this report, you’ll not only develop a better understanding of wallet messaging but also see what other leading marketers are thinking regarding wallet messaging and the future of their marketing strategy.
We hope you enjoy.
Drew Beechler
CEO & Co-Founder
Holder
Holder surveyed 175 B2C marketers from C-level executives to individual contributors to better determine the overall awareness, adoption, and value of wallet messaging. Brands surveyed range in size, industry, and target audience (reference the downloadable report for full demographics).
Responses were collected in a blind, third-party audience panel from Centiment in the fall of 2023 — Centiment’s data collection process ensures a lack of bias and accurate data. This report was published November 15, 2023.
Although wallet messaging is still in its infancy, we found that 67% of B2C marketers are already familiar with wallet messaging as a marketing and communication channel.
It may come as a surprise considering the mass adoption of wallet messaging, but it’s very easy to see the parallel between traditional SMS messaging and sending messages to crypto wallet addresses — the functional modality and way of thinking about the marketing channel are essentially the same.
The full report also breaks down the data based on familiarity across various industries.
Any information tied to a crypto wallet is publicly displayed on the blockchain’s general ledger — meaning any customers’ blockchain-based assets, coins, NFTs, transaction history, DAO voting, and more could be used by a brand to gain deeper customer insights.
Because of this, over 79% of B2C brands are interested in wallet messaging as a new marketing channel with 40% saying they are very interested.
We also asked marketers what their timeline and plans were for adopting this new channel and technology. We were surprised by the results with over 80% having plans to adopt wallet messaging in the next 12 months. Only 12% said they have no plans or are unsure.
Over the next six months, about 70% of retail and ecommerce brands anticipate implementing wallet messaging, and a cumulative 94% plan to incorporate it over the next two years (see industry-specific data within the full report).
Wallets are the new email — a shocking 71% of B2C marketers believe a wallet address is more valuable than an email address. Wallet addresses are extremely valuable unique identifiers because they are tied to a user’s transaction history, NFTs, and onchain behavior.
When we slice the data by industry, we find that 80% of retail and ecommerce marketers value a wallet address over an email address. Additionally, the healthcare industry and food and beverage companies value a wallet address more than the average B2C marketer.
Only 5% of all B2C marketers don’t have any concerns associated with wallet messaging, while half of the study voiced two major concerns — security and consumer privacy.
Even in traditional marketing, security and consumer privacy are some of the most important challenges facing marketing executives across the board. A study done in 2023 by Salesforce showed that 76% of consumers remain more loyal to brands that provide better data security. McKinsey & Company found that 87% of consumers said they “wouldn’t do business with a company if they had concerns about its security practices”.
Even though wallet messaging is still an emerging channel, Holder customers are experiencing an incredible lift in customer engagement and conversions by connecting through native web3 channels.
A leading web3 product with hundreds of thousands of monthly active users worked with Holder to engage their existing user base to launch their new product line. They saw a 12x increase in conversions after their initial wallet messaging campaign went live. We see a 10-15x increase in engagement and conversions on average among early adopters.
Wallet messaging is an emerging — and very effective — marketing channel. Every brand should be thinking about how it plays into their marketing and communication strategy.
We plan to keep producing and publishing research and data around the XMTP ecosystem and wallet messaging as a new, web3-native marketing channel. Text ‘join’ to walletmessaging.eth on any XMTP-enabled inbox to sign up for updates on future research reports from Holder.
The participant demographics are included in the full report.
Holder was the leading provider in wallet messaging software, helping brands navigate this new technology and adopt wallet messaging. We have sunset the Holder product to focus on new opportunities, but feel free to reach out to our team.
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