Adbank Q2 Review: What Happened & What’s Next
The second quarter of the year has already flown by and it’s amazing to see what has been achieved in such a small period of time.
From development to media coverage to core business goals and beyond, there were many wins across all areas in Q2 for Adbank.
Here are some highlights from the last three months:
- Tech delivered ahead of schedule
- Beta platform delivering millions of impressions per month
- First ad network acquired & conversion ahead of schedule
- Technical conversion complete with the business conversion occurring now
- Strong media coverage
- 7 conferences attended
- 4 new team members
- 1 new high profile advisor — Twitter #1 employee in Canada
- Adbank becomes founding member of IAB Blockchain Committee
- 2 community giveaways worth over $100,000 USD
- 14 ICOs and publishers onboarded to Intergalactic Ads
Our primary goal continues to be driving liquidity through true utility and we will continue to leverage our acquisition and launched ad network on the back of Adbank tech to make that happen.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the exciting things that have happened in the last quarter…
Tech Milestones: On Time or Ahead of Schedule
Beta 2.5 Delivered & AI Data Collection Has Begun
The tech team made incredible progress with version 2.5 of our beta platform arriving on schedule and data collection underway in preparation for release of our anti-fraud AI engine in Fall 2018.
How Adbank Fights Ad Fraud: Explained
Dr. Fodé Touré had a popular Medium post outlining how the Adbank Publisher Reputation System works in great technical detail. You can read the post here.
New Roadmap Released
Adbank released its new roadmap outlining key business and tech milestones to be achieved in 2018 with the launch of Adbank 1.0 (non-beta) coming this summer.
First Step of Ad Network Conversion Was Successful
Converting our recently acquired ad network, EcigMedia, to Adbank’s technology is also ahead of schedule and compatibility with third party ad servers was achieved in early June. This will make adoption of Adbank’s technology much easier for existing ad tech solutions and is a critical milestone in our roadmap.
Kudos to the tech team!
Key Business Objectives Complete
ECigMedia Acquired
We made our first ad network acquisition at the start of Q2 and have since made quick progress to get it ready for converting to Adbank’s tech.
Crypto Ad Network Successfully Launched
Our crypto ad network, Intergalactic Ads, is live and already serving 3M impressions monthly in its first phase. The goal is to drive volume and add on additional publishers as advertiser demand increases.
Media Coverage
In a recent piece entitled How Female Founders Help ICO Campaigns Succeed, Forbes contributor Geri Stengal featured Adbank and our CSO Kelsey Cole. It was an amazing piece of coverage that few get in crypto on a publication like Forbes.
Kelsey continued her press streak with an interview on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange for Blockchain Global News and a mention in a CoinTelegraph piece called “Women In Blockchain & Crypto: How To Tackle Gender Inequality”.
The discussions around women in crypto continue to be a hot topic in the media and having a female founder has helped Adbank become a part of the conversation.
The cryptoverse also showed some love with prominent coverage by The Crypto Lark, Crypto Gent, In It For The Money and several other mentions.
Event Presence: Adbank Around The Globe
From New York to Prague to right here in Toronto, it’s been a busy quarter of travels to speak at various events to spread the word about Adbank.
- Takeover Innovation Conference (Toronto, ON): Panel discussion on blockchain with Kelsey Cole, Brian Wong (CEO of Kiip) and Katrin Shechtma (blockchain @ Thomson Reuters). The event was put on by TribalScale, an innovation lab based out of Toronto run by Adbank advisor Kirstine Stewart.
- UN Blockchain For Impact (New York, NY): Invite-only invite to the United Nations to contribute in discussions on global policy for blockchain as a means to solve major world issues. Global leaders of industry and government attended and Kelsey Cole & Angelo Dodaro were personally invited.
- Crypto Affiliate & Marketing Conference (Prague, CZ): Angelo gave a presentation on content marketing strategies that build trust. It was a great opportunity to debut Adbank to a group that is very interested in the intersection of crypto and marketing.
- Zero-In Tech Conference (Amsterdam, Netherlands): Kelsey delivered a keynote on female equality in the tech industry and Angelo ran a workshop on digital advertising strategy.
- Mogul Women In Crypto (New York, NY): Kelsey delivered a keynote on Blockchain 101 that received rave reviews at the Hearst Tower for Mogul, a publication that reaches over 18 million readers. A Forbes writer noticed this presentation and subsequently featured Adbank because of it. Way to go, Kelsey!
- ICO Marketing Crash Course (New York, NY): Angelo and Kelsey gave a presentation for ICO founders as a marketing initiative for the newly launched Intergalactic Ads.
- Women In Tourism (Toronto, ON): Angelo and Kelsey gave a presentation on Blockchain 101 for a group of executives working in the travel, tourism and hospitality industries. This led to an offer to speak for the Coffee Association of Canada in November for an audience of executives from companies such as Starbucks, McDonald’s and more.
New Team Members
This quarter saw growth in both the tech and marketing teams with Blair Macneil as dev ops engineer, Thomas Spangler as full stack engineer, Tyler Pratt on UX/UI, Steph Craig as marketing coordinator and, last but not least, Mckay (aka “The Intern”).
Former Twitter VP and media all-star Kirstine Stewart joined the Adbank advisor board to help with pitches to major brands and we’re looking forward to working with her more closely in Q3.
Partnerships Secured
Crypto partnerships are too often rushed through to gain PR value with no real substance at their core. We’re confident that the partners we gained in Q2 will provide long lasting benefits to ADB holders.
IAB Welcomes Adbank To Start Blockchain Committee
Adbank joined the ranks of other high profile members of the IAB including Google, Facebook, Amazon, L’Oreal, McDonald’s and many more.
“IAB Canada is thrilled to welcome Adbank to its member community. Blockchain will have a profound impact on ad tech in the coming years and we are excited to launch our IAB Canada Blockchain Committee with Adbank amongst its founding members.” — Sonia Carreno, President of IAB Canada
Verasity: Bringing Video Ads To The Blockchain
Adbank teamed up with Verasity, a video-sharing platform enhanced with blockchain technology, with a plan to bring video ads on the blockchain.
The alignment both companies have on their mission, values and goals makes it a great partnership to explore how these two powerful platforms can work together to solve problems like ad fraud and a severe lack of transparency.
HowDoo Gave Away $65,000 in uDoo Tokens To The ADB Community
Our contest with Howdoo, a social platform that you control built on the blockchain, saw $65,000 in uDoo tokens given away to the Adbank community, which boosted the company’s social media numbers by 20% in a week.
The two companies partnered to take steps to integrate ADB technology into the Howdoo platform as a means to provide creators with another way to monetize their content.
Cool Cousin: Revolutionizing Travel with Blockchain
The booming Israel based startup — crowned as an up-and-coming travel service by New York Times, Guardian, USA Today, National Geographic and TechCrunch — is one of the latest strategic partners in the Adbank ecosystem.
Cool Cousin also airdropped CUZ tokens to the ADB community after their ICO ended. Not too shabby! ;)
Advertiser & Publisher Partners with Intergalactic Ads
The launch of Adbank’s crypto ad network, Intergalactic Ads, resulted in a sharp rise in partners via advertiser and publisher relationships.
Some of those partners include CoinCodex, KryptoCal, Tatatu, Howdoo, Tokens24, BitcoinMagazine.nl, WELL, Cherr.io, Skeincoin, Omnitude, TipBlockchain, ICOCreed and more.
Advertisers on the network have been seeing up to a staggering 5X the industry average for display banner ads.
What’s Next For Adbank
With the release of our anti-fraud AI and Adbank 1.0 around the corner, we are actively pursuing major brands to test ADB tech to witness how it can dramatically improve results in their business.
The next two quarters will be action packed with tech milestones and marketing initiatives aimed at getting broader awareness of Adbank.
We have officially signed a new PR agency that will be helping us push to mainstream publications for wider brand recognition. Adbank remains committed to bridging the gap between the crypto world and the $230B advertising industry.
Check out the video below with CSO Kelsey Cole discussing our media and PR strategy for the next few months on last week’s live AMA.
