Airdrops could also be one of the crucial prevalent types of advertising in web3. Airdrops reward customers who’ve helped the mission & generate consciousness of the token by depositing free tokens into their wallets.
Lately, Dune Analytics revealed an evaluation of the Uniswap UNI token airdrop.
Some background on the UNI airdrop: To be eligible, customers should have transacted on Uniswap earlier than September 1, 2020. Uniswap distributed 150m UNI tokens – about half went to insiders (buyers, workers, and so on.). Uniswap gave 400 tokens to every eligible consumer, price about $1200 on the time. Immediately, UNI tokens’ market cap tops $5b.
Dune’s evaluation reveals that airdrops attain many individuals however could not drive long-term habits:
- About 220k folks have been eligible for the airdrop.
- 6.7% of the unique airdropped wallets nonetheless maintain UNI immediately which raises the query of whether or not airdrops retain their customers.
- 0.6% of airdropped customers have elevated their UNI possession over time.
- 30,000 customers haven’t claimed their airdrop for 400 UNI tokens every. These 12m tokens are price about $65m & can’t be recouped.
There’s far more within the evaluation that’s price studying.
Entrepreneurs wager loss-leader campaigns like airdrops generate extra income than the price of the marketing campaign. Used “greenback airdrops” PayPal deposited $10 into every new consumer’s account when registering of their first progress section.
Since information is public on the blockchain, we are able to estimate the effectiveness of this airdrop.
With about 88m tokens distributed at a worth of roughly $4, the marketing campaign price $351m. Airdropped customers generated about 17% of cumulative buying and selling charges because the September 2020 airdrop or $208m in about 2 years.
| Section | Payback Interval in Years | A number of |
|---|---|---|
| Non-public Software program Startups | 1.4 | 1.0 |
| Public Software program Corporations | 1.6 | 1.2 |
| Uni Airdrop Annualized | 11.8 | 8.4 |
| Uni Airdrop Cumulative | 5.9 | 4.2 |
That means about 5.9 years payback on advertising {dollars} invested. The standard personal startup has a 1.4 12 months payback on advert spend & the common public firm is at 1.6 years.
In 2021, I estimated that airdrops have been 4-7x as costly as spending enterprise {dollars} on gross sales & advertising. This second evaluation reveals that Uniswap’s token launch falls inside these bounds.
Each of those analyses reaffirm airdrops – as structured immediately – stay an inefficient advertising channel for web3 startups.
The place would possibly airdrops go from right here? Search for an upcoming submit on the subject.
