📝[Discussion topic] Overview of Bitcointalk Signature-Ad Campaigns📝

[examplens]

Any thoughts on that?
I understand the logic, but I wouldn't be surprised if other major campaigns also decided to switch to stablecoins (due to the unpredictability of BTC fees), in which case, either Mitchell would have to change the policy for his Overview thread, or we could need a new summary (perhaps in the Altcoins section) that includes all types of campaigns.

Strictly speaking, only one campaign is entirely a Bitcoin campaign. Where the payment rate is in Bitcoin and not in USD. The service section is much more "popular" than altcoin/bounty, so everyone wants to start there.
However, this is a Bitcointalk forum, BTC and altcoins should not be equated.

[BABY SHOES]

BestChange is an old campaign that has been popular on this forum, but here I am just a little curious instead of asking in the thread directly here, maybe it can be more relevant.

BestChange said that they will continue marketing to new areas, can you guess where? I mean which other forums will be targeted by BestChange, is it a local forum or other global forums such as forums about bitcoin and others?

Or the Altcoinstalks forum? I don't think this is possible. Lol

[xLays]

BestChange is an old campaign that has been popular on this forum, but here I am just a little curious instead of asking in the thread directly here, maybe it can be more relevant.

BestChange said that they will continue marketing to new areas, can you guess where? I mean which other forums will be targeted by BestChange, is it a local forum or other global forums such as forums about bitcoin and others?

Or the Altcoinstalks forum? I don't think this is possible. Lol

It can be, but it's unlikely to happen because I think the traffic on altcoinstalk isn't that good. Also, if I'm not mistaken some of signature campaigns there have also stopped.

I've been using social media and any streaming platform with crypto ads for long time, but I've never seen BestChange ads on platforms like Facebook and YouTube etc. I only found out about BestChange and saw their ads here in bitcointalk. Maybe they will run ads in YouTube and Facebook in the future.

[examplens]

BestChange said that they will continue marketing to new areas, can you guess where? I mean which other forums will be targeted by BestChange, is it a local forum or other global forums such as forums about bitcoin and others?

All assuming that the only possibility is advertising on various forums, right? Don't you think that there are other channels on the internet besides the forum and that some people don't use the forum at all?

Or the Altcoinstalks forum? I don't think this is possible. Lol

Why not?
They can have a 3x ^{or even more} cheaper campaign there. For example, for $200 per week, they can find 6-7 regular posters with quite solid quality, instead of only two members from here.
btw. Bestchange as a service has been there for a long time.

[LTU_btc]

BestChange is an old campaign that has been popular on this forum, but here I am just a little curious instead of asking in the thread directly here, maybe it can be more relevant.

BestChange said that they will continue marketing to new areas, can you guess where? I mean which other forums will be targeted by BestChange, is it a local forum or other global forums such as forums about bitcoin and others?

Or the Altcoinstalks forum? I don't think this is possible. Lol

New areas, I guess it means something wider than forums. In general, forums is considered as thing from like 2010 and popularity of forums is constantly declining.
What other ares it could be? Social media like Youtube, Twitter or probably most trending social media now TikTok. Another option can be partnership with big sports club or league. If you're following sports, you can see so many crypto related ads there. But I'm not sure that BestChange budget is big enough for it, after all they're not trading or gambling website.
BTW, why do you think that promotion on Altcoinstalk isn't possible?

[tabas]

BestChange is an old campaign that has been popular on this forum, but here I am just a little curious instead of asking in the thread directly here, maybe it can be more relevant.

BestChange said that they will continue marketing to new areas, can you guess where? I mean which other forums will be targeted by BestChange, is it a local forum or other global forums such as forums about bitcoin and others?

Or the Altcoinstalks forum? I don't think this is possible. Lol

I don't think they'd go with that other forum but who knows if they think that it's going to be worthwhile there. It's probably a better platform and it could be in social medias where they'd hire an influencers for them to get advertised or get into sponsored banner ads. Something like that but we'd definitely see that we're already onto their algorithm if ever you're using a browser and you visited them recently. We'll see those ads soon if they're on it already.

[pawel7777]

Why not?
They can have a 3x ^{or even more} cheaper campaign there. For example, for $200 per week, they can find 6-7 regular posters with quite solid quality, instead of only two members from here.
btw. Bestchange as a service has been there for a long time.

That's true, they already have account on ALTT and started ANN thread back in 2018. The traffic is much smaller over there, but that could be balanced by offering reduced pay rates, and there still would be takers.
But I don't think the decision to pause/close the campaign was dictated only because of the high costs. The campaign ran for 4.5 years and I believe they were paying $4/post, so much more than other campaigns. They could've easily just reduced rates.
I suspect the main reason could be some legislative restrictions, i.e. a proposed ban on cryptocurrency exchange in Russia etc. But I think it's best to ask them directly.

[logfiles]

BestChange is an old campaign that has been popular on this forum, but here I am just a little curious instead of asking in the thread directly here, maybe it can be more relevant.

BestChange said that they will continue marketing to new areas, can you guess where? I mean which other forums will be targeted by BestChange, is it a local forum or other global forums such as forums about bitcoin and others?

Or the Altcoinstalks forum? I don't think this is possible. Lol

Honestly, the Bitcointalk numbers have been going on a downtrend in terms of traffic and engagement for the past few months, especially after that mixer ban. People have moved onto other forums, while others just decided to log out.

I have been observing it lately. Boards that used to be active now have just 2–3 posts a day

Maybe some brands have noticed the decline in the impressions and decided to move elsewhere as well.

Bitcointalk is a tiny bit of where brands can advertise, there are social media platforms like Twitter, reddit, facebook, Exchange and casino review sites etc

[pawel7777]

Honestly, the Bitcointalk numbers have been going on a downtrend in terms of traffic and engagement for the past few months, especially after that mixer ban. People have moved onto other forums, while others just decided to log out.

I have been observing it lately. Boards that used to be active now have just 2–3 posts a day

Maybe some brands have noticed the decline in the impressions and decided to move elsewhere as well.

Bitcointalk is a tiny bit of where brands can advertise, there are social media platforms like Twitter, reddit, facebook, Exchange and casino review sites etc

Are there even forum traffic stats posted anywhere? I know we used to have forum stats page but it was discontinued and the track ends in 2017: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=stats

I've noticed some dips in activity, especially on our local Polish board. Some people lost spots in their campaign which led to loss of motivation to visit the forum.
But as for those who followed mixer campaigns and "teleported" to altcointalks forum - from my observation, I think most of them are just now active on both forums rather than switching to ALTT completely. But of course if you spend a lot of time there, then you'll be spending less time here etc.

And yes, this is no longer the first place to go for new people who get into Bitcoin. As it became mainstream, all major social media platforms now have their own Bitcoin communities. But most of all, most of the newcomers are only interested in buying BTC for speculation, so when pretty much all finance/banking/trading apps now allow investing in BTC, then there's no need for them even to understand any technical aspects of it or look for more information.

[Helena Yu]

Are there even forum traffic stats posted anywhere? I know we used to have forum stats page but it was discontinued and the track ends in 2017: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=stats

We can know from the posts per month statistic and total active profiles. The posts per month keep declining and last month was the lowest, while total active profiles went half compared to 2020.


https://ninjastic.space/

According to BPIP, there are 117 530 active forum members. By active, the site is considering all accounts that have logged-in over the past 3 months, regardless of their activity (they may or not have posted)

57,266 Active Profiles

Some people lost spots in their campaign which led to loss of motivation to visit the forum.
But as for those who followed mixer campaigns and "teleported" to altcointalks forum - from my observation, I think most of them are just now active on both forums rather than switching to ALTT completely. But of course if you spend a lot of time there, then you'll be spending less time here etc.

Not only that, merit distribution is keep declining too.

Many users nowadays like to distribute their merits to their own gangs or locals even though the users they merited have a same quality to other posters. There's a big difference when you post and you get paid or get merit with post without receive anything.

[BABY SHOES]

BTW, why do you think that promotion on Altcoinstalk isn't possible?

Because the traffic on altcoinstalks is small but I don't have statistics that distinguish it.

It's just my own opinion that BestChange probably wouldn't consider campaigning there, but if they do then that's even better.

Right now only mixer campaigns are there, if there are none then it might drop even more.

But we'll see, if BestChange does marketing elsewhere someday we'll find out on which platform.

[examplens]

Honestly, the Bitcointalk numbers have been going on a downtrend in terms of traffic and engagement for the past few months, especially after that mixer ban. People have moved onto other forums, while others just decided to log out.

I got this impression too, without looking at the detailed statistics. I don't know if it's because of the mixer ban, but it seems to me that the activity on the forum is significantly weaker.
They probably evaluated the results at Bestchange and may have recognized that they had reached the maximum on the forum. Looking at the history of sig campaigns here, many services ended the campaign after a short period even though they needed a slightly longer period. 4.5 years is quite long, it requires a lot of patience and of course money.

Some people lost spots in their campaign which led to loss of motivation to visit the forum.
But as for those who followed mixer campaigns and "teleported" to altcointalks forum - from my observation, I think most of them are just now active on both forums rather than switching to ALTT completely. But of course if you spend a lot of time there, then you'll be spending less time here etc.

Not only that, merit distribution is keep declining too.

Many users nowadays like to distribute their merits to their own gangs or locals even though the users they merited have a same quality to other posters. There's a big difference when you post and you get paid or get merit with post without receive anything.

It is a completely wrong attitude that forums are used exclusively for the sake of signature earnings. Once this attitude changes, maybe things will get better.

BTW, why do you think that promotion on Altcoinstalk isn't possible?

Because the traffic on altcoinstalks is small but I don't have statistics that distinguish it.

It's just my own opinion that BestChange probably wouldn't consider campaigning there, but if they do then that's even better.

Right now only mixer campaigns are there, if there are none then it might drop even more.

But we'll see, if BestChange does marketing elsewhere someday we'll find out on which platform.

For mixers, forums like Altcoinstalks are one of the few, if not the only, channels for promotion.
I am also sure that the primary goal of the Bestchange business is not to have its own signature campaign and to give money to forum users. Earlier, I expressed doubts about the effectiveness of their campaign because the participants were a bit lazy, it seems as if they did not pay attention to the campaign goal.

[Helena Yu]

It is a completely wrong attitude that forums are used exclusively for the sake of signature earnings. Once this attitude changes, maybe things will get better.

It's up to you if you think it's completely wrong, but the reality is like this.

I would say people become more active due to signature earnings and it's make sense because who gonna reject an opportunity to earn money by just making posts?

But, people would still active in this forum and read other people posts, they just reduce their activity since they didn't earn anymore.

[TheUltraElite]

We know the truth, most people who visit the forum come here for the signature campaigns. You dont see people like me hang out for 8years straight and even post regularly when I am devoid of any campaign everyday, do you?

Still we must try to keep the forum active, of course that is not a responsibility but an act we can all work upon.

Merit distribution is one regular rant, I would agree. People tend to favour giving merits to those whom they have merited before and thus circles are formed. We all want to be part of such circles so we can get an impetus to be active but does anybody really care about that to change anything?

[mindrust]

BestChange is an old campaign that has been popular on this forum, but here I am just a little curious instead of asking in the thread directly here, maybe it can be more relevant.

BestChange said that they will continue marketing to new areas, can you guess where? I mean which other forums will be targeted by BestChange, is it a local forum or other global forums such as forums about bitcoin and others?

Or the Altcoinstalks forum? I don't think this is possible. Lol

Honestly, the Bitcointalk numbers have been going on a downtrend in terms of traffic and engagement for the past few months, especially after that mixer ban. People have moved onto other forums, while others just decided to log out.
I have been observing it lately. Boards that used to be active now have just 2–3 posts a day
Maybe some brands have noticed the decline in the impressions and decided to move elsewhere as well.
Bitcointalk is a tiny bit of where brands can advertise, there are social media platforms like Twitter, reddit, facebook, Exchange and casino review sites etc

I feel the same. The forum looks like a ghost of its former self. People don't even care enough to post spam anymore, it is that bad. Few years ago, the forum was like Times Square of the internet and now it is a desert in Africa. The worst part of all this, there really isn't something to talk about.

No new tech, no news...

Crypto heros like Roger Ver and CZ are getting arrested, FTX did this, Sam Bankman did that, somemixer service was taken down and that's it.

People used to think something to solve bitcoin's high fee problem and nobody even cares about that anymore. Bitcoin is expensive? Meh, use something else.

[pawel7777]

(...)
We can know from the posts per month statistic and total active profiles. The posts per month keep declining and last month was the lowest, while total active profiles went half compared to 2020.

I've no idea how I managed to forget about ninjastic despite starting a topic myself on this very subject over a year ago.
Reposting the chart for comparison:


Too lazy to produce a new chart with the added 2023 column, but the total number of posts for 2023 was 1,887,185. That's almost 30% decline.

That being said, in terms of signature campaigns (up until the ban on mixers) 2022-23 was a really good time. If I remember correctly from the past, the usual earnings from campaigns say around 2015-2016 were much lower than in 2023, maybe with some exceptions.

And it's hard to ignore the general trends in how younger generations use social media is also at play here. When you spend a lot of time on platforms like TikTok or alike, which were deliberately designed to be addictive and give dopamine hits, a classic form of a forum may not be attractive enough.

[Poker Player]

Too lazy to produce a new chart with the added 2023 column, but the total number of posts for 2023 was 1,887,185. That's almost 30% decline.

That being said, in terms of signature campaigns (up until the ban on mixers) 2022-23 was a really good time.

If we add the graph posted by Helena Yu above we see that the trend in 2024 is still downwards. Surely this is at least one of the reasons that have decided Best Change to end its signature campaign in the forum.

It reminds me a bit of what happened with online poker. There was a moment when everything started to go down, we had lived a golden age and we didn't even realize it. We only did it afterwards.

[shield132]

Too lazy to produce a new chart with the added 2023 column, but the total number of posts for 2023 was 1,887,185. That's almost 30% decline.

That being said, in terms of signature campaigns (up until the ban on mixers) 2022-23 was a really good time. If I remember correctly from the past, the usual earnings from campaigns say around 2015-2016 were much lower than in 2023, maybe with some exceptions.

And it's hard to ignore the general trends in how younger generations use social media is also at play here. When you spend a lot of time on platforms like TikTok or alike, which were deliberately designed to be addictive and give dopamine hits, a classic form of a forum may not be attractive enough.

I think that most of us on this forum were very young in our early years with fewer responsibilities and had lots of time to post on this forum. Almost 8 years have passed since I registered on this forum and I clearly remember what my goals, my ambitions were... This forum helped me to improve my English, I was one of the earliest people to know about Bitcoin in my country, and this forum really helped me like nothing else. I will never be able to thank this forum enough for where I am in life right now.
I still stayed on this forum because believe it or not, I think about this place all the time. I can't imagine my life without this forum, this forum is a second house for me.

In terms of signature campaigns, 2016-2017 years were the best years. Bitcoin started increasing in 2017 and prices started rising. Many campaigns were paying the traditional pay rate set originally in Bitcoins. For example, Bitsler was paying 0.04 BTC per week when the price was 400$ and it was also paying 0.04 BTC per week when the price was 1.5K and more. Now imagine what a pleasant surprise it was in fiat when your pay rate was the same regardless of the price. CM was also paying a fixed 0.0007 BTC per post for a very long time. After 2016-2017, there really were golden times last year too by the way.

If theymos restarts the development of new forum software with new UI/UX design, this forum will become very popular.

[PX-Z]

Too lazy to produce a new chart with the added 2023 column, but the total number of posts for 2023 was 1,887,185. That's almost 30% decline.

That being said, in terms of signature campaigns (up until the ban on mixers) 2022-23 was a really good time. If I remember correctly from the past, the usual earnings from campaigns say around 2015-2016 were much lower than in 2023, maybe with some exceptions.

I think that most reasons why the posts from 2017-2018 is so high because of campaign requirements and campaign availables in the forum.

2017 was the first remarkable ATH to me as campaign participant. 2018 was the year of ICO i mean lots of ICO, IDO, IEO i dont remember others but thats the reason why those stats rise and even doubled.
2019 are the realizations of people that it's useless having them and too many scam projects already.

The next 3 years are just casino campaigns availables with 25 minimum post requirements with minimal payments too, i remember 2017-2018 payment rises above $200. Then now $100 max pay is rare, the lowest is $50 with very minimum requirements like 10-15 posts only.
Not to mention lots of campaign abusers/cheaters, even a person with more than 10 accounts were hunted and tagged on 2019-2021.

Just my ovservation that's why we see those stats.

[logfiles]

I think that most reasons why the posts from 2017-2018 is so high because of campaign requirements and campaign availables in the forum.

2017 was the first remarkable ATH to me as campaign participant. 2018 was the year of ICO i mean lots of ICO, IDO, IEO i dont remember others but thats the reason why those stats rise and even doubled.
2019 are the realizations of people that it's useless having them and too many scam projects already.

The next 3 years are just casino campaigns availables with 25 minimum post requirements with minimal payments too, i remember 2017-2018 payment rises above $200. Then now $100 max pay is rare, the lowest is $50 with very minimum requirements like 10-15 posts only.
Not to mention lots of campaign abusers/cheaters, even a person with more than 10 accounts were hunted and tagged on 2019-2021.

Just my ovservation that's why we see those stats.

The requirement for most signature campaigns was actually just 10 posts per week. However, then number of campaigns was so huge, and the biggest number of posts was probably from bounty reports since bounties were so profitable at the time. People could easily make $1,000+ from a couple of ICO bounty campaigns just by retweeting and reporting. It became so lucrative that people started creating account farms and spamming in the forum the more.

Theymos had to intervene and introduce the merit system.

After the ICO hype died, activity when do so fast.