Innovative Strategies in Web3 Marketing with Krystyna Kozak, CMO at Cookie3 | S4E19

Ever wondered how to revolutionize your marketing strategy in the Web3 space? Join us for an exclusive conversation with Krystyna Kozak, the CMO of Cookie3, recorded live at Consensus in Austin. Krystyna shares her unique insights into leveraging innovative tools and community-driven initiatives like CookieToken and Airdrop Shield to stay ahead in the marketing game. Learn how Cookie3 is utilizing analytics and AI to combat bots and Sybil attackers, ensuring more effective airdrop campaigns. Krystyna offers a rare glimpse into her strategic vision and how her growing team allows her to focus on broader company goals.

In the second half, we delve into the phenomenal success of the Cookie3 Affiliate platform, which amassed 18,000 members without any formal promotion. Krystyna discusses the power of partnerships with the Cookie DAO, the strategic use of airdrops, and the influence of Key Opinion Leaders in fostering a competitive and engaging atmosphere. Discover the importance of regional community-building, effective communication within the marketing team, and measuring community sentiment to craft compelling narratives. This episode is packed with actionable insights on growth strategies and community engagement that you won't want to miss.

This episode was recorded IRL at Consensus 2024 in Austin on May 30, 2024. Read the blog article and show notes here: https://webdrie.net/innovative-strategies-in-web3-marketing-with-krystyna-kozak-cmo-at-cookie3/

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Chapters

• 1:13 What is it like to be a CMO at a marketing company like Cookie3?
• 3:30 What is the Cookie3 token and what does it represent within the Cookie3 ecosystem?
• 12:06 You mentioned the affiliate program's growth to 18,000 participants. What were the key reasons for its rapid success?
• 15:00 Are you leveraging events like Consensus or social media to increase awareness of Cookie3 and reach more people?
• 17:54 As a CMO at Cookie3, where do you primarily focus your time each day, given the importance of community and achieving your goals?
• 21:44 What are the key analytics you're currently focusing on to evaluate the effectiveness of your strategy at Cookie3?
• 24:41 What aspects of the event are you particularly excited about, or what are you looking forward to when you return to work afterward?

Transcript

Krystyna: 0:00

It's really cool to be a CMO of a project. When you need something, when you need a tool that's not on the market, it gets built for you because we know other CMOs and other marketing teams will need it as well.

Joeri: 0:13

Hello everyone and welcome to the Web3 CMO Stories podcast. My name is Joeri Billast and I'm your podcast host, and today I'm at Consensus in Austin and my guest on the show is Krystyna Kozak. Hello Krystyna, how are you doing?

Krystyna: 0:30

Hi Joeri, thank you so much for having me and I must say the Consensus right now has been really amazing. I've met a lot of people and then we've met up at, I think, five parties, so we've been catching up. So I'm really looking forward to have a formal conversation with you right now on the podcast to get everyone, let everyone know what we've been talking about.

Joeri: 0:59

YesIf guys, it was not only parties yesterday, it was a breakfast meeting and then, yeah, but I met Krystyna through Antony from Cookie3. If you're now wondering who is Krystyna, she's the CMO at Cookie3. Philip, the, the CEO, was already a guest on my show I don't remember, six months ago, maybe. So, Krystyna, great to have you. Yeah, maybe the first question what is it like to be a CMO at a marketing company like Cookie3?

Krystyna: 1:21

Yeah, of course, when you spoke to Philip, we actually didn't have a CMO. So now we do, we have me. It's really interesting because when I came in in January, we had a very small marketing team. It was just Anthony, our marketing manager, working really closely with Philippe, and I've grew the team. I think there is five or six of us right now and I must say last week was like the moment when I felt like the team I think there is five or six of us right now and I must say last week was like the moment when I felt like the team's really integrated. Everyone knows what they do and I can step back to look at the big vision stuff because all the operations like my team is working on them.

Krystyna: 1:57

But what is it like to be CMO of Cookie3? It's interesting because I'm a CMO for a marketing solution. So basically, whenever I need something, I use our products. So, as probably Philip said in the previous podcast, we're the analytics solution for marketers. Then we do a number of other things which I am sure we will cover in this podcast, but basically because we provide marketing solution.

Krystyna: 2:21

So if I see a need or I see something that could be improved in our analytics, I can go to our product team and say guys, I need this for our marketing. This is what we did with the cookie token airdrop, for example. So we're working with Cookie DAO, they're our partner, we're helping them with marketing and I said I need these functionalities for the airdrop. I want to do like an ecosystem campaign bring our partners, give people points for interactions on chain with our partners, and then the product seems okay, we'll build it and then we see it works. So then we package it and we're ready to actually sell it to clients in the future and we already have projects interested. So it's really cool to be a CMO of a project. When you need something, when you need a tool that's not on the market, it gets built for you because we know other CMOs and other marketing teams will need it as well.

Joeri: 3:15

Yeah, that's amazing and also for me. My background is actually in business analytics. I had a business analytics company before I went into marketing, so it all comes together with Cookie3. Therefore, it's for me an interesting solution and also a partner. But you mentioned the Cookie3 token. For people now listening, maybe they heard about CookieTree, maybe they did not. Can you explain a bit more what the token is about?

Krystyna: 3:40

Yes, so the token is called the CookieToken. It's actually issued by the Cookie DAO. So Cookie DAO emerged from the cookie three community. As cookie three, we are mostly like the technology provider and the analytics company. We don't have a token ourselves, but our community was so excited about what we do that they were like we want a token, we want to monetize it in a token, we want to be a part of it, we want to make it really in the Web3 spirit. They created Cookie DAO and then they came to us and they were like how can we work together? And our business model was still getting tailored and we're thinking about how to best approach it. So for our analytics it's subscription fee, but then we added a number of products recently and then the cookie token is integrated into all our platforms and our technology, gathering value from the ecosystem. So very briefly because I could talk about our technology and the token for hours, but very briefly, the token has several touch points with our ecosystem.

Krystyna: 4:49

So one thing that we do we have something called airdrop shield. We discover that with most airdrops, about 70% of tokens goes to bots or Sybil attackers. So from a marketer or a project perspective, this is not someone you want to be giving your tokens to like. You want to be giving your tokens to people who will actually engage. So we've utilized our analytics and AI models to determine characteristics of bots and Sybil attackers versus real humans and real users. So our tool once you have your airdrop participants, you can give us the list, we run the airdrop shield on it and basically score your airdrop participants on a scale and tell you there is eight out of ten probability that this person is like a bot or a civil attacker. Or we say this person connected five wallets. Do you want to give all the five wallets an airdrop? We've recently run like preliminary analytics, airdrop shield analytics on the cookie token airdrop and I think we saw that one person like at the top of the leaderboard connected 45 wallets, which is we spoke to the cookie doll because it's their decision after all, it's their token but they said, well, probably you will not be giving them an airdrop, but then it's not airdrop shield.

Krystyna: 6:11

I think it's really fascinating about airdrop shield it doesn't tell you like you have to act this way. It gives you information and then you decide what to do with this information, how you want to penalize people who weren't playing by the rules. If you want to, maybe three wallets per person, maybe you want to allow this, but no 45, come on, especially because the cookie airdrop was giving points for referrals, so you just refer yourself over and over again. But yeah, basically, coming back to the token, when we run an airdrop shield for a company, we save the airdrop. There are tokens that are saved that can be given back to the valuable users and it's a service. We take a service fee around 10 to 20% of the saved tokens and then these tokens that we saved and we take in as a fee are returned back to the community. To the cookie token stakers we say that a cookie token is like an endless airdrop token. You stake it and then you get airdrops from projects using the cookie through ecosystem.

Krystyna: 7:11

Similarly, and I'm sure we'll talk more about this we've got like a KOL launchpad that is actually launching Monday, which is the 3rd of June. So we're launching with 15 projects that are conducting KOL rounds, just for your audience, because I know many retail audience doesn't know how KOL rounds work, although there is becoming more and more popular and more people are talking about this. So projects in the pre-TGE phase allow influencers and KOLs to invest into the project on preferential terms in return for some promotion of the project. So rather than paying influencers for advertising, you give them opportunity to become investors. I know sometimes communities are getting really annoyed because as they're investing they want their token to go to the moon and then the community cannot get in on this KIO all around, and we're actually changing this with the cookie token as well. So we have the Cookie3 affiliate platform and we've onboarded 18,000 KOLs into this platform with 400 million followers, and right now we are speaking to projects that are about to host their KOL rounds. They're posting the terms of the KOL round on Cookie3 affiliate. Influencers and KOLs who want to take part sign up. The projects decide whether they want to onboard them and then, as any KOL manager, we take a fee. And we take a fee in the KOL round token. So the tokens that have like preferential vesting and cliff terms and then these tokens again are being directed to the Cookie stakers.

Krystyna: 8:46

And finally, there is a third part where there is more airdrops coming to Cookie stakers, which is the cookie three score. So that's the platform that we haven't launched yet. We've used part of it for the Cookie Airdrop ecosystem campaign. So for scoring users for their activity on and off chain. But basically, Cookie3 Score will be a platform for retail users Galaxy, you know the quest platform, so we're like a next layer of it because it's rewards platform, but without having to do these mindless quests of liking social media and therefore getting it. Basically, in Cookie3 Score, a user will need to connect their wallet, connect their twitter and, in the future, other social media and they will receive a score like a Web3 quality score.

Krystyna: 9:31

So if you're an airdrop hunter, you get airdrop, get airdrops, get tokens and dump them immediately like we can track this on chain. And you're an airdrop hunter, you get airdrops, get tokens and dump them immediately Like we can track this on chain and you're not going to get a high score because you're not a very quality user to anyone. But if you hold tokens and you stake them, you are a quality user. Then, similarly, for your social media interactions if all you do you do the farming post like farm, cookie, farm, param, farm block and you have botted followers and buttoned impressions, yeah, you can see it like people don't know, but you can actually see this. If you look into the data, you're going to get a low score. But if you're publishing like educational content and people are engaging with it, you've got, you know, other quality followers following you. So you can see the social network of a person on Twitter who follows them, who they follow, and if that's of quality, all of that feeds into you having a higher score.

Krystyna: 10:28

So then businesses that are using our analytics part can come in and can say, oh, we want to do an airdrop or we want to give, like, an exclusive NFT collection to people who are potential users for me.

Krystyna: 10:40

And then there is a general score. But then let's say, you're like an NFT project, so we're probably going for this project score people who hold a lot of NFTs a bit higher because they're more likely to be of value to this project. Similarly, for an airdrop, we can see is this an AI project? Is it a DeFi project? What sort of token is that? And then these businesses can give these rewards in forms like airdrops or exclusive NFT collections to people who are likely to at least go and discover the project. And then someone might say, oh, but they might cheat. They might then keep selling these things, but that's going to immediately affect their score. Their score is going to plummet. So it's a thought-through fault-proof and similarly, as with Airdrop Shield and the Cookie3 affiliate, we take a cut of the rewards and distribute it to the cookie stakers for their support of the whole marketing economy. So this is in a nutshell, how the cookie tree ecosystem works and how the token is like an integral part of it.

Joeri: 11:44

That's a lot, but you explained it really well. A lot of things are in there. I am also approached as a KOL, like for this project, so I know what you're talking about. With these tokens it always depends, of course. Yeah, what's the value, what's the project, what are they offering, which it's not about just you know tokens, but really a value? Now you mentioned the growth of the affiliate. So 18,000, that's a lot. I've seen that. What was like the reason for the success of this fast growth? Can you explain that?

Krystyna: 12:20

Yes. So we were really like breathless when we saw, wow, the impact of it, and especially because we didn't promote the launch of Cookie3 Affiliate anywhere yet anywhere. So the incentive for joining the platform was our partnership with cookie dow. So we've made like a separate kol airdrop so they could get points within the platform for inviting other kols and then climb up the leaderboard and then get an airdrop and then the kols with the higher score will also have like preferential access to KOL rounds. So for the score, again, we score them similar like in this car, so like the quality of post, who follows them and also how many other KOLs are inviting into the platform. But we didn't advertise it anywhere. We had a couple of KOLs that we work in, we've got a good relationship with, so we've just messaged them and then we're like we've launched this platform, this is how it's going to work. You've got the codes and then basically if you invite someone as a kol, you get a percentage of points from anyone like they invite into the platform. So that was a huge incentive for kols to get in early because they grow. I call it like our cookie three affiliate family. So that was a really working marketing strategy. But then only word of mouth. So referrals airdrop plus word of mouth. And we announced affiliate once we've hit, I think, 15k. Then we said this platform's live.

Krystyna: 13:52

Other than this, it was just in the groups of KOLs, people sending themselves links. We were keeping it on the download. If there was a question like in the community, what's this? We would say silent, like no communication would have come out of it. We would not say yes, this is happening or no, this is not happening. And we were waiting to see. It was really good for building hype. People were like what's happening, what's this, what are these codes? Non-k high people were like what's happening? What's this, what are these codes? Non-kos were like why can't I get in? Is this only for kls? And then, like it grew big and then we announced listen guys, this is it. And at the same time, together with the cookie dao, we announced the user and retail facing airdrop of cookies. The community and retail users didn't knew that the airdrop is not only for KOLs. There is like a KOL airdrop in the affiliate platform and there is like a larger airdrop for the retail community and users.

Joeri: 14:44

Yeah, when I see everything that happens for Cookie3 the fast growth I also like the brands. It's short, it's about how it looks, the website and stuff, the design also. The tool looks really great. But for the future growth you're now here at Consensus. Are you active? Do you already doing campaigns? I think not. But are you active on social media to to get the brand out for, to get the word out about Cookie3 or like these events like Consensus? Um, so what do you do for that more and more people know about Cookie3?

Krystyna: 15:21

yes. So we mostly onboard people through our partners because obviously we have a lot of businesses using cookie three and then we bridge their community to us. So when we come to events we network a lot with businesses, especially ConsenSys, which is very B2B driven. So we're here fighting projects that we have synergies with. I'm speaking to other CMOs, my BD team is speaking to other CMOs and we're showing them how we can bring value and bringing in quality audiences and then once they start using the Cookie3 ecosystem especially if they use the airdrop shield or the affiliate or later, the score, like our community, is going to be airdropped their tokens. And this is also how we are promoting ourselves to the community and onboarding the community, which I like to say like endless airdrops and I hope that all of their projects in this space will use cookie three in the future. So it's if you want rewards from all the projects from the ecosystem, buy cookie soon pge is coming soon stake it and then see these projects. Just come into your wallet and explore them and decide like where you want to, what you want to be part of, and then we're really going to be onboarding new community members once cookie three score launches in q4, because right now there is the airdrop for cookie, which is, we call it, like the score white list. So if anyone listening, once again early access to score. Just the airdrop is finishing soon, so make sure to get there and get in there.

Krystyna: 16:54

But then we're really like start reaching out to community, going out to more community facing events. But also right now we have some community leads in different regions, so we're making sure that we're not only limiting ourselves to english-speaking communities, I think, but like a nigerian community, we've got like a japanese community, korean community or polish community, obviously, which their whole team is really involved in, because that's, you know, that's our home, that's our like early backers and early community was in poland. So I think we've got about 10 regional communities right now and I can say that very shortly we'll be also launching like an ambassador educational program to again leverage education and word of mouth rather than promotion and advertising. We'd love to use the power of community because I feel like it's really effective in web free. If you get people who are exciting about your projects, your champions, then these are the people and the community members you really need to look after, because they're treasure.

Joeri: 18:49

Indeed, community is everything. If you look at because you have your team, of course, as a CMO for a company like Cookie3 and with the goals you have in mind, where are you spending the most time actually in your day-to-day?

Krystyna: 19:03

In community as in.

Joeri: 19:05

In community, but also in your general day-to-day you have your team. So with for a company, because it's interesting for people having a company wanting a startup in Web3 and wanting to grow. Yeah, where to put your attention on? Where you need to focus on? Maybe you have some advice. It's actually a question.

Krystyna: 19:27

Yeah, I was actually joking with my marketing manager lately that I spent my whole day in our calendar. So we've got like a very detailed calendar of everything we want to announce, of how we want to make the community more active, of all the incentive, what we're going to announce where, what spaces. And then we've got six people right now. So I'm working with KOL, social media person, marketing coordinator, partnerships manager, so they all are doing their bits, but it all comes together. So my role as a CMO is to make sure, like once all of these puzzles come together, like you get an image and you don't get a blur. So I've got this calendar and I'm I'd say I'm running a tight ship when it comes to this calendar and I was joking with my marketing manager that meeting after meeting, I am taking everyone through the calendar. Similarly, when we have partners. So I often get on calls with Cookie Dao and their launch pads right now because their TGE is coming soon. So then I take the partner. So, like calendar, I'm like look, we're going to do this here, do this there. We think, like partnership is going to work best on this day.

Krystyna: 20:36

So my day is spent mostly in the calendar and then planning things like a month ahead, two months ahead, because once it's planned, I brief my team and they're working on it, but I need to know what's coming. I need to know what's coming in a month, I need to have a plan and, finally, communication. So, you know, I gather feedback from the community, I gather feedback from the team and I see what narratives are working, what narratives are not working. I spend a lot of time on Twitter and just discovering what other projects are doing and what narratives work for them and then just reshaping our narrative so it fits in our market. I feel our narrative since I joined in January like we've already had a couple of like shifts, but it's it's hit and miss, like you see what's working and then that's the right direction to take. So, yeah, my time is mostly narratives, research, calendars and meetings. I think I've got seven or eight hour meetings every day and then the rest of the time we're in between these meetings. I need to find the time for anything else.

Joeri: 21:38

I feel you and, of course, also measuring what, like you said, what works, what doesn't having the right analytics in place. What are now, for you, the most common analytics that you are looking at to see if your strategy works?

Krystyna: 21:53

I am definitely looking at the community. I am looking at the sentiment in my community because we had this problem some time ago that we had community just shitposting a lot. So we needed to find a way to limit these members, because they're great for numbers, but I want community members who are going to be truly exciting and not just writing cookie over and over again. So we've actually been running some competitions for community, for education, so that was working really well. And sorry, what was the rest of the question? There was a second part of the question. um, I was listening to you actually.

Joeri: 22:29

I was listening to you actually. Yeah, about, about the analytics, what you are looking at. I will cut this out.

Krystyna: 22:39

Okay so what I'm looking at is the sentiment in the community and also visits to the website. I'm spending a lot of time looking at our own analytics, which is actually really funny because I said this morning in our management meeting I was like, oh, I'm looking at our analytics and our CPO was like, oh, do you use our analytics? Do you actually use it? And I was our analytics, do you actually use it? And I was like yes, I use it every day. Like you, you've made a really good product. And he was like oh, I'm super glad to hear it because I he's a perfectionist, so he's nothing's ever like fully done and ready for him. So when I tell him like, yes, I use our analytics every day, they're amazing he's oh, I'm so glad, so we're actually doing a good product. And I'm like yeah, we're doing a good product, like it's you.

Krystyna: 23:24

So I'm looking at our community. I'm looking at their on-chain data. So we've got a very big Turkish community right now, which I found out, which was interesting to see, but Turkey is a very like hot market for Web3 right now, so that kind of makes sense. I'm looking what chains they're using. So, for example, with cookie dao, we recently released the news that the cookie token is launching on ethereum and base, and that was a very much data-driven decision. We looked at the on-chain data of the cookie community participants so people who are participating in the cookie airdrop and we saw that I think they're trading like seven billion dollars of monthly volume on base, and then the second most popular chain was ethereum for them. So we were like that's our communities on base, that's launch on base as a primary chain, so it's understanding of your community. So, when it comes to analytics, I feel understanding where your community is, what they're doing, and then adapting your marketing strategy to it is really important, and Cookie3 Analytics lets you do that, which is even more amazing.

Joeri: 24:33

Yeah, I love that. You can use your tool for your own strategy, of course. Yeah, so we are now now, I think, in the middle of consensus any things that you are now, I would say, especially excited for at the event year or maybe when you get back to work after the event. so we just had our event two days ago, which was amazing to see people come in and say, pat on the back and be like you're doing a good job, which all of these events are amazing for.

Krystyna: 25:03

So we just had our event two days ago, which was amazing to see people come in and say, pat on the back and be like you're doing a good job, which all of these are amazing for. And then I've got like my cookie3 hats that I'm walking around with. And when I have people like when I'm like, hi, you're from Cookie3 and I'm like, and you're Krystyna, I like I know you, which for me, I'm like, wow, amazing. Because if you, especially if you work remotely, and I myself I live in the middle of the forest in the like small village, so no one knows what wet free is there, so it's not like I get a lot of questions, so I'm a bit detached. And then I come to an event and I see that people are actually recognizing our brand. So then it really builds up your confidence in the business because you see, okay, people are using it, people are using it, people are hearing about this, people are talking about it. Like we must be doing at least a little bit of a good job. So that's amazing.

Krystyna: 25:48

And then, coming back from Consensus, we are helping the DAO with the Cookie Token launch. So it's oh, it's like a 24-7 job right now Like we really want it to go well. So I'm really looking forward to the TGE and seeing the community and all the hype that we've been building like how it converts into the token launch and then, after this, we will be all engines powering, first of all for the KOL campaigns that are launching and then for the launch of the score, because, because we want to, I can tease that we will launch it with a big bang and huge incentive for the community. We're getting all of that nailed and polished.

Joeri: 26:28

Maybe people here, there are people around us. Of course. We are a consensus on the ground. So now, Krystyna, I feel your passion for Cookie3. So now, Krystyna, I feel your passion for Cookie3. And if now people are listening and they want to know more about Cookie3 or they want to connect with you, where would you like to send them?

Krystyna: 26:47

First of all, visit our website, which we redid three times I think, recently. But, as I said, our team like we're a team of perfectionists, so unless something's perfect, like, we're not going to be happy and we will keep modifying this. But also that's something interesting that we do, because then we release and then we see how it's working and then we work on making more perfect, so we don't make it. You know, we try to make it as perfect as we can from the start and then we learn from the data and the community and adapt it to the needs. But so you can find us on our website, which is cookie3.com. When it comes to the cookie airdrop, you can find it on the Cookie DAO website, which is cookiecommunity. You can find us on Twitter. It's cookie3_ com. Our Telegram communities are called cookie3 underscore co. And then we're on CoinMarketCap Just type cookie3 and you'll find us. We also have Instagram and TikTok. So if you search for cookie3 and you'll find us.

Joeri: 27:44

Amazing. So, like my listeners know, there are always show notes linked to this podcast episode. There is an article. All the links that Krystyna mentioned will be found in there. So, Krystyna, thank you so much. It was really fun to have you on the show.

Krystyna: 27:59

Thank you so much, it was great speaking. So, guys, again, thank you so much. It was really fun to have you on the show. Thank you so much, it was great speaking.

Joeri: 28:03

So, guys, again, an amazing episode. If you think that this story from Cookie3, or the solution that they offer their token, is interesting for people around you, be sure to share this episode with them. If you're not yet subscribed to the show, this is a really good moment to do this. Also, if you would like to give me a review on apple podcast or spotify, if you give me these five stars, it will really help me to reach even more people and, of course, I would like to see you back next time. Take care, bye.