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WHITEPAPER ver 1.0 bountyhunters.io
WHITEPAPER
ver 1.0
bountyhunters.io
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Contents
DisclaimerList of used terms
Introduction The main benefi ts of the project Preconditions for the platform development Solutions offered on the market History and development stages Key purposes of the platform
The business model of the platform
Infl uencer marketing industry trends Market analysis Ways the infl uencer marketing can help the business
Analysis of the competitive environment
Target Audience The volume of cryptocurrency and blockchain market Market analytics
Problems Solved
Key Advantages a) for a company, brand, startup b) Benefi ts of the platform for bounty hunter / infl uencer C) Benefi ts to the industry as a whole
Technical features of the platform Automatic activity tracking Infl uencer selection and fi ltering The parameters of the selection and fi ltration Ratings Calculation The metrics provided by the platform Google Analytics Integration Available payment options Task Timing Setting
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Two-factor authentication
Technology base (technology stack)
The tokenized model The platform token Transactions safety Security of rights of the licensed content Escrow conditions Commissions on the transactions Exchange module Automation of activities verifi cation - meta-moderation The token price Motivating Factors For Token Possession
Crowdsale details
Legal and Legislative responsibilityA list of possible risksRoadmap
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Disclaimer
This document does not provide personal, fi nancial or legal advice. It neither serves as a motivator towards the purchase of any assets of the company and is not aimed at motivation to any actions.
The purpose of this document is to provide information about the project for individuals interested in participating in the crowdsale for further decisions on a more in-depth study of the details of the company.
This document cannot be perceived as a fi nancial investment prospectus or document, offering any investment assets in any jurisdiction.
This document is not a subject to legal, civil, and any other right of any existing jurisdiction.
The company is not responsible for any risks arising as a result of reading this document or actions taken based on the information below.
The document can be modifi ed at any time without a notice of an audience previously contacted this document. However, we are doing everything necessary to keep this document as informative and relevant as appropriate to the actual market conditions.
This document may be used by our company as a reference in press releases, news items, publications, but that does not mean that it is a historical fact or legally notarized documentation.
The following token of the company is not offered for sale in those jurisdictions in which at the time of the crowdsale are prohibited the performing of such campaigns.
The company token is a utility and not a digital currency, security, product, commodity, or a security associated with the expectation of returns and investment growth.
Bountyhunters is a project operating exclusively in the fi eld of software development.
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List of used terms
Bounty host
A startup, brand, company that runs a bounty campaign to achieve its marketing objectives (increase brand awareness, perform lead generation, increase sales, etc.). The host sets the rules of the campaign, the budgets for further distribution of the allocated funds or rates, offers tasks to perform, and conducts monitoring and verifi cation of the performed activities.
Bounty Manager
A specialist whose responsibilities include setting up and managing the created campaign (communication with hunters, dealing with complex issues, if necessary, manual inspection and verifi cation of the performed activities, etc.) from the side of the startup/project/brand.
The Bounty Hunter (infl uencer)
The person who owns or manages a website, blog, or an account in the popular social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Telegram, VK, etc.) and creates a content at the request of the bounty host (makes reviews, articles, news, shares, retweets, etc.), receiving for each action a certain fee. Or has a developed communication with editors of media resources (such as large sites, publications), offering to publish interviews, articles, reviews, news, and other materials. The bounty hunter is a social infl uencer having built a trust within their target audience and got the ability to infl uence opinions, a behavior of their subscribers.
The platform allows you to fi lter, select, and target activities/tasks on several types of hunters depending on the degree of social infl uence (number of followers, statistics of an average engagement, reach, etc.):
1. Opinion leader - A hunter or infl uencer with the coverage of the audience (subscribers) ranging from 5000 to 10,000 people or more.
2. Micro infl uencer - owner of a thematic account, blog, or website with subscribers/visitors ranging from 500 to 2000 people. A micro infl uencer usually has a smaller reach but demonstrate a signifi cantly higher conversions and better ROI «return of investment.» Micro infl uencers have a higher level of engagement within their target audience because they publish narrowly focused thematic content and have closer relationships with their own followers, rather than opinion-leaders.
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Date provider Third-party services integrated into the system that provides additional information, access to databases, statistical data, etc.
Steak
An indicator, charge (illustrating the percentage of the total allocated funds) received for the execution of activities (publication of a post, review, etc.). A steak is a share which refl ects the percentage of funds earned by the hunter (in fi at currency, tokens, or other cryptocurrencies) to the total amount of funds allocated for distribution between all the participants of the campaign.
ROI
Indicator illustrating a return of investments. A ratio that illustrates profi tability of the business as a whole or its individual strategy, taking into account capex (investment) and profi ts.
CPA (cost per action)
Is a fi gure illustrating a cost for a target action. For example, making clickable links, subscribing, publishing content, etc.
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IntroductionBountyhunters is an automated infl uencer marketing platform and bounty programs managing service. It’s built on the “action=reward” model, and it’s based on blockchain technology. The platform aims to help start-ups, ICO projects, and existing companies to increase awareness of its own brand in the market and to increase the number of signifi cant mentions in social networks and specialized marketing, PR channels, and blogs.
One of the key objectives of the project is to increase a project’s effi ciency by reducing the time investment and fi nancial cost and to facilitate interaction between companies and active participants in the social networks (the hunter, infl uencer, opinion leader) by automating all business processes associated with the creation of marketing campaigns, its management, analysis as well as a selection, involvement and targeting of active infl uencers, as well as organizing the distribution of payments (in fi at currency, tokens, cryptocurrencies or steaks) in accordance with the performed actions.
Our goal is to create a safe and transparent environment in the infl uencer marketing arena. This will benefi t the company and the owners of social media accounts, receiving the opportunity to monetize their own subscription base and millions of readers, receiving more interesting and relevant content.
The platform is based on blockchain technology and backed with a utility token.
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The main benefi ts of the project
- Optimized marketing campaigns. This is an opportunity to make campaigns more transparent from the standpoint of ROI, CPA. Moreover, it reduces fi nancial and time costs associated with product launch and future management.
- Increased coverage of a target audience - It productes the ability, in the shortest possible time, to attract a new audience and to present a brand to a wide but targeted community.
- Increased ROI and conversion rates within the sales funnel.
- Saved time and resources because of the full automation of the processes and automated tracking of activities and payments.
Currently, the project is at the MVP stage (minimum viable product). It’s in the process of active testing and debugging.
We do not offer a prototype or idea. This is already a working marketing ecosystem and tested business model that generates profi t.
After running the fi rst iteration of the prototype before the launch of the beta version (present time), the system signifi cantly increased its infl uencers base, expanded the number of social channels with automated activity tracking and performed more than 10 large and successful ICO’s, including Blackmoon, Chronobank, etc. The total amount of the distributed funds within the performed campaigns is ...... million. The system automatically tracked more than a million activities, and the profi ts made are ...... $.
The project already covered its own development and workfl ow maintenance costs.
At the time of the Whitepaper writing, the platform conducted its own rebranding, updated user interface design, increased infl uencers database, and signed several long-term contracts for the maintenance of the campaigns. Over the next year, we plan to increase own infl uencers base to tens of times, attract to our system a minimum of 20% of planned (for 2018) major ICO projects with a minimum capitalization of $10 million.
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Preconditions for the platform developmentAt the moment there is strong growth in consumption of digital content and a signifi cant increase in the proportion of advertising budgets allocated to digital marketing and digital channels of communication with the target audience. However, traditional mechanisms of running and managing advertising campaigns and promoting brand awareness in the digital environment are quite expensive. Their effectiveness from the perspective of ROI and key conversions indicators (cost of customer acquisition - CAC - customer acquisition cost; the cost of converting the visitor into buyer - COC - cost of client, etc.) signifi cantly decrease, which forces businesses to seek alternative means and channels to attract and inform the audience about the product.
The problem also lies in the fact that more than 30% of users use ad blocking services that reduce the effectiveness of contextual and display (banner) advertising.
The idea of developing a platform had some precedent and was not accidental. Primarily, it was provoked by the above-described diffi culties and problems, which were impossible to solve with the existing (at the time of development) technical solutions.
Facing these diffi culties, we set the goal to fi nd a way to effectively promote our own in-house projects. Numerous tests found the most effective marketing channel, which included collaborating with opinion leaders and the pre-targeted owners of the thematic accounts in social networks. Unfortunately, we encountered a problem. There was not a single solution that would allow us automatically conduct such a campaign.
Solutions offered on the market:- were not aimed at pre-targeted audience, which includes the blockchain industry and the crypto community.
- often offered non-transparent pricing. As a result, it was not possible to assess the campaign’s effectiveness in terms of conversions, cost per action, etc. - required considerable time for the organization of the relationship between an advertiser and a content publisher
- offered limited tools of analysis and performance review both of the campaign and of the funds invested.
- were risky from the viewpoint of payments and internal transactions.
- not offered the opportunity to quickly attract a large number of infl uencers targeted with a specialized thematic content.
Our team set a goal to develop a system that could mitigate these diffi culties, and, in early 2017, they created a model, developed the system architecture, and defi ned the main tasks of its workfl ow.
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History and development stages
February 2016
Search and analysis of the existing solutions for the bounty campaign launch for the in-house projects.
January 2017 We formed the Department of Internal Community Managers, The stack of services for the bounty campaign management without possible automation were selected.
March 2017
Presented the decision on the launch of our own technological base for carrying out the bounty campaign, which included the engineering of business processes, forming a model of the system, the model of the interaction between contractors within the system, and securitization and allocation of funds deposited.
Jun 2017
The development of parsers for data collection and formation of the slice of the target audience and further identifying of potential infl uencers. By developing our own parsers, we managed to collect a targeted database of over 25,000 infl uencers, which were distributed by grades and the parameters corresponding to the quality of each account, its content, and audience coverage.
We establish integration with the social networks and channels for automated data collection.
Jul 2017
Start of the web UI and working prototype of the service for internal clients of the company.
Formed the Department on communicating with infl uencers - within six months specialists of the Department built relationships with each infl uencer, sent an invitation to the system, presented the benefi ts of using the service.
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Development of internal tools and run of the test campaigns. We addressed one of the key challenges that faced our team: how to simplify accounting activities of infl uencers when the number of activities per week can reach several thousand. Developed unique scripts for each social network channel (Facebook, Bitcointalk, Reddit, etc.), which allowed perform automated tracking of the actions (tasks completed) of each user.
Aug 2017
Full-scale launch of the projects within the platform - Blackmoon, WishFinance, SmsChain, Zangll, Acorn and modernization of the system (integration of the rating module, dynamic budgeting, preparations for the transition of the business model for PR and business direction).
Integrated primary metrics and carried out deep integration with Google Analytics (integration between the platform and the client side) to account conversion and perform the calculation of ROI for every action released. As a result, there was a signifi cant transformation of the platform model from a simple service of managing bounty campaigns into a convenient tool, operating on the CPA model and providing the marketer with comprehensive data on the actual campaign and thus allowing optimization in real time.
Actual moment
The platform is formed as a separate business unit with the full-working staff. There is a set of clear objectives and engineered business processes, as well as launched advertising, affi liate and PR campaign to increase the number of infl uencers and to attract new customers.
While testing the fi rst iterations of the platform prototype, we came to the conclusion that, for example, a startup launching an ICO is required not just a tool to simply launch the bounty campaign, but a competent and systematic establishing of meaningful contact with the target audience.
After gathering the market data and performing the analysis of numerous ICO’s bounty campaigns, the specialists of our analytical department came to the conclusion that most of the bounty campaigns were ineffective because, despite the number of performed activities, - ROI and conversions of every activity were not possible to calculate, and the total volume of funds spent (on average 1-3% of the gathered funds during the ICO) formed a considerable sum, which simply disappeared in «pockets» of owners of the aggregated accounts, often not presenting the target audience with any real value.
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As we noted above, it’s required to have a systemic approach to launch infl uencer marketing campaigns: our platform is initially built to achieve such objectives:
Key purposes the platform can be used for:
- increase awareness of the new brand - an opportunity to increase the number of people visiting the company’s website, downloading documents, leaving personal contacts, reading any content about the company, etc.
- involvement/engagement - increasing amount of valuable content which generates an active action form the target audience representatives (share, comment, repost); active involvement of the audience to affi liate and referral tools.
- audience and customer base growth - ability to increase traffi c, audience engagement and convert it into quality leads.
- lead generation - built-in analytical tools for gathering and analyzing data of each infl uencer activity allow to customize the campaign and target it at infl uencers providing the highest quality of leads/clients.
- sales - increasing points of contact of a brand with a new audience can multiply product sales.
- retaining existing customers and increasing loyalty through up-to-date and actual informing of the target audience about the news, positive events associated with the brand.
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Mission, vision, and objectives of the project
- Transform marketing processes into a more transparent (for all contractors) form thereby contributing to the development of the crypto economy.
- Increase the effectiveness of marketing strategies to make them the most predictable and measurable.
- Contribute to the growth of innovative startups and the development of an international, innovative fi eld.
- Tokenize and automate the industry of infl uencer marketing, which will solve the key problems of the industry:
- time-consuming action to attract infl uencers
- the diffi culty of accounting of performed actions/tasks of the infl uencers
- the complexity of evaluating the quality of tasks performed
- the complexity of performing transactions (in the case when more than 1,000 infl uencers participate in the campaign and the total volume of actions/tasks performed is more than 100 000).
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Platform workfl ow scheme
After creation of the campaign from the side of the campaign host (in the case of the correlation of the rating of an infl uencer/hunter and the options set by the host on the participation of a certain type of infl uencers), an infl uencer receives notifi cation in a private dashboard on the launch of the new campaign. In case of confi rmation of participation in the campaign from the side of the infl uencer and from the side of the host, the platform automatically creates a smart contract and deposits the minimum amount of money (identifi ed by the host in the campaign details) for an escrow fund. After performing each action (posting content, repost, etc.), the platform automatically monitors and tracks all these actions and charges each infl uencer a steak or some sum of money in accordance with the performed actions. After the campaign ends, the automatic calculation and allocation of funds between the infl uencers is performed.
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The business model of the platformThe platform is developed in the form of the hybrid business model, functioning as a SaaS solution (offering the subscription payment model) and the exchange model (payment for a specifi c service or an activity).
The platform acts as an underwriter of the distribution of the allocated funds, and it will guarantee automated tracking of performed activities and collecting of metrics. The platform also helps solve complex issues in cooperation with the infl uencers, leveling them due to the decentralized architecture. All parameters of the campaign and its conditions are written in the smart contract, and all activities are recorded in the blockchain. Each campaign operates an escrow fund that guarantees the fulfi llment of obligations from the side of the infl uencer and from the side of the business.
Currently, the platform’s development team is actively working on the implementation of analytical tools that enable tracking activities and a deep, real-time effi ciency analysis of every performed action. After launching the beta version of the platform, we also plan to introduce the following payment features:
CPM - cost per thousand impressions - payment for 1000 impressions of a certain information block (news, video, post, etc.).
CPE - cost per engagement - payment for 1 active interaction (like/repost/share/comment).
CPV - cost per 1 view (for youtube video).
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Infl uencer marketing industry trends
Infl uencer marketing is an alternative form of brand promotion that aims to increase coverage and conversion from the target audience. The social networks and channels - such as Youtube, Reddit, etc. - help avoid the problem of ad blocking since the advertisement becomes native as an embedded part of the natural fl ow of information. Infl uencer marketing is a form of marketing in which the focus is on the person (infl uencer) who has an infl uence (within their own, often narrow audience). In this case, an infl uencer can be described as someone having an infl uence on a certain circle of people and their decision-making process. The infl uencer is the opinion leader in his own niche. As a result, his information is perceived as more authentic and genuine than direct advertising from any brand. Therefore, it causes greater confi dence in the product than traditional advertising.
Clarifi cation: a measure of «infl uence» is not directly proportional to the coverage (subscribers, readers). An infl uencer can be considered a user of the social network with 100 readers if he produces focused, readable and good quality content. In our paper, a similar segment of infl uencers is defi ned as «micro-infl uencer.”
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Infl uencer marketing is in the early stages of development. It is one of the most effective social strategies for businesses of almost any size. Selling goods through «opinion of other person» - has always been one of the most effective forms of product promotion and is now correlated with a 20% - 50% of all purchasing decisions. It will continue to grow because there is an active trend that’s increasing diversity of products on the market, increasing competition in almost every segment of business, and the availability of «information and advertising noise» that cause the audience to look for support of their purchase decisions. This support comes from the opinions and information of people with similar beliefs, values, and socio-demographic characteristics.
The strong growth in the number of digital products, the growth of e-commerce, the growth of information fl ow, and the emergence of the «new media» has forced companies to seek new ways to effectively communicate with potential customers. Audiences are skeptical of traditional advertising, so contextual, media advertising drives customer decisions regardless of the provided information by the brand itself.
The changing marketing paradigm means that there is a positive and active growth trend of the infl uencer marketing industry and its core tools as the primary strategy for many companies.
Market analysis
In 2017, roughly 32% of professional marketers began using the infl uencer marketing tools among their key marketing strategies. At the beginning of 2018, 63% of budgets are allocated to work with the social networks and owners of thematic accounts. At the same time, about 36% of the companies spend less than $5,000 on this strategy.
Over the next 12 months, nearly 85% of professionals in the fi eld of marketing around the world will launch at least one infl uencer marketing campaign.
In the U.S. monthly budgets on this strategy amount to more than $255 million. It’s not a coincidence because the number of users (devices) having ad blocking specialized applications has already reached 700 million as on the beginning of 2017. 1
In 2017, three social platforms were considered most popular: Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter. However, local platforms and chat services are also gaining signifi cant popularity. Platforms like Wechat, Telegram, Snapchat, and specialized content sharing services like Reddit, Golos, Steemit, and others are gaining signifi cant attention from users.
1 https://pagefair.com/downloads/2017/01/PageFair-2017-Adblock-Report.pdf
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What’s more, it’s notable that 74% of the audience gets information about new products and services from social networking channels, and about 50% of the audience decides to make a purchase based on the opinions of infl uencers (blogger, friend, or colleague) who are published in the social networks.
This strategy attracts leads with higher quality, which further demonstrate the higher conversions (LTV, COC, etc). According to Research by Tomoson, 51% of marketers appreciate this channel as more effective from the point of view of the quality of the attracted leads. A study by eMarketer found that the strategy also demonstrates higher ROI (on average 6.85 for invested dollar) than other channels attracting target audiences. Pay Per Click and targeted advertising, where, because of an overabundance of advertisers, high cost per click does not allow businesses to build an effective model of work with potential customers since the performed purchases of a product / service does not cover the expenses.
Statista found that the average marketing expenses in the social networks will reach $17 billion by 2019.
What’s more, BI intelligence found that the native advertising segment will grow by 30-40% by the end of 2018.
2 https://blog.tomoson.com/infl uencer-marketing-study3 https://www.emarketer.com/Article/Infl uencer-Marketing-All-Its-Cracked-Up-Be/10122304 https://www.statista.com/statistics/666485/role-infl uencer-marketing/5 http://www.businessinsider.com/the-native-ad-report-forecasts-2016-5
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This data shows a positive conclusion about the potential demand and the need to develop a system that operates in this market and solves its key problems.
We can also note the popularity ratings of the main communication channels:
Instagram - 91%Facebook - 80%Youtube - 73%Pinterest - 33%Snapchat - 32%
It is also possible to note the age dependence of the effi ciency of social channels. According to our intelligent system shown below, it’s obvious which channel and which target audience slice will be more effective for a brand. For example, 62% of the 18-24 year-old audience makes a positive purchasing decision when taking into account the information fl ow from Youtube.
Among the most common criteria that are assessed before infl uencer marketing campaign launch can be noted the following:
Quality, uniqueness, and authenticity of the content - 75%.The size of the audience and the social impact index - 70%.Audience engagement - 64%.Infl uencer cost - 56%.
Ways the infl uencer marketing can help the business
- The increase of the audience coverage - By building partnerships with infl uencers, a brand also gets access to their subscription database, which is, in the most cases, already pre-targeted based on interests and demographic characteristics. This increases the size of its potential audience. As a result, conversions and client base increase.
- The increase of confi dence in the brand and its products - According to numerous studies, buyers are trying to base their purchasing decisions on reviews and opinions of similar audiences. Compared with previous years, this fi gure increased by 70%. According to the econsultancy report, the reviews of the product from third-party users are 12 times more effective than the product description on the offi cial website.
6 https://activate.bloglovin.com/docs/whitepaper/bloglovin_marketers_survey_report.pdf
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- Improvement of the SMO and SEO parameters - Because of the constant process of the complication of website estimation algorithms and fi ltering/banning of purchased links, search engines take into account the natural growth of backlinks weight and already non-anchored brand mentions (without URLs) in the text. That increases the rank of a website in search engines and also brings a natural increase in traffi c.
Analysis of the competitive environment
At the moment, we can note only one direct competitor and approximately 10 indirect competitors. We are taking into account the projects that are working with the same target audience including the blockchain and crypto startups or companies.
Indirect competitors with a similar target audience or who are using blockchain technology for the development of advertising platforms or protocols:
Blockchain solutions (platforms and protocols), solving key problems of the digital advertising industry.
Native advertising platforms
Projects at the ICO stage, solving different digital ads industry issues.
7 http://consumerist.com/2015/06/03/nearly-70-of-consumers-rely-on-online-reviews-before-making-a-purchase/
8 https://econsultancy.com/blog/9366-ecommerce-consumer-reviews-why-you-need-them-and-how-to-use-them#i.35yv7v2okfp7yq
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Comparing the project with indirect competitors, marketing platforms, freelance platforms, etc. it is possible to note a key difference of our platform from the competition: full automation and the ability to attract to the campaign hundreds of infl uencers over a short period of time. The key difference is integrated calculations of CPA indicators, which means that the owner of a startup can evaluate the effectiveness of the campaign with the help of integrated metrics. In most cases, the bounty or infl uencer marketing campaigns on the market are conducted “as is.” The main task, in this case, is only the coverage and the number of infl uencers. The quality of performed activities and their impact on improving website traffi c and conversion is not assessed.
Among the major indirect competitors (with the similar business models), operating on the market, we can defi ne:
- The classic ads marketplaces, content exchanges, native advertising platforms.- Platforms for lead generation.- Companies automating marketing processes.
The majority of these projects often focus on a single channel (i.e. exclusively YouTube or Instagram). They often have a limited amount of infl uencers and often are not fully automatized. One of the key problems of existing solutions is the lack of targeting and the lack of an actual working base of infl uencers related to the blockchain/crypto industry.
AdChainAdexAminoFaktorKochava (XCHNG)NYIAXRebel AiThe Basic Attention TokenQchainMadHiveAdex.networkPapyrus.global
FractlTrypleLiftVoluumAdsNativeTheTradeDeskSolveMedia
socialmedia.marketnarrative.networkqaazqaaz.com (efi r.io)tokensale.snov.ioindahash.commavin.networkdopameme.iowardz.ccvevue.comico.enjoy-life.worldpotentiam.ioadhive.tvloyalcoin.ioretainly.co/icoico.kickcity.ioloyaltychain.ioadperks.ioico.galactikka.comwitcoin.iohttps://www.hoqu.io/
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Target Audience
The target market of the platform - We are pursuing companies that are developing decentralized solutions that are based on the blockchain technology. In addition, we are seeking PR and marketing agencies that can provide the services of our platform based on the affi liate scheme for private customers of the crypto / blockchain / start-up related niche.
Indirect target audience - bounty hunters/infl uencers involved in the creation of content, perform marketing/pr related activities in social networks for further monetizing of social accounts. After many years of experience launching the largest ICOs and several in-house projects, including one of the fi rst successful ICOs - Chronobank - we created a unique solution, which signifi cantly simplifi es communication of a startup with opinion leaders and allows increase the coverage and engagement of a target audience in a short time.
The system is designed for maximum convenience especially for the representatives of the blockchain industry.
However, the application of the platform is not restricted to the blockchain industry. The system can be used by any company, both technological and of the traditional sector, working with a similar target audience.
The volume of cryptocurrency and blockchain market
The total market size of blockchain technology grew by almost 300% in 2017. This sector is becoming more regulated, and many jurisdictions are beginning to offi cially support the existing tools offered by technology companies. The recognition of bitcoin as a legal means of payment in Japan and Switzerland, the launch of bitcoin futures in the United States, and wide adoption of the blockchain technology fueled an interest in the industry and signifi cantly increased the number of investments made by the large institutional investors in the blockchain startups. The biggest global brands including Microsoft, Dell, Expedia, HSBC began working on the integration of solutions of existing blockchain startups (IOTA, EOS, RIPPLE, etc.) in their own technological ecosystems.
Market growth of the ICO industry, despite the natural and «healthy» regulation from the market and government, continues demonstrating a positive trend. In 2017, ICOs raised $3.8 billion, and they already secured nearly $3 billion in 2018. It has continued growth potential as the industry is still in its early stages of development.
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Market analytics
- $1.7+ billion was invested in blockchain startups by major venture funds. - Over the last year launched more than 280 new startups based on the technology of decentralized ledgers.- Capitalization of the crypto-currency market reached $170 billion and continues to grow. - Every day more than 30 ICO campaigns are being launched in English-speaking countries and this number will grow (with the expected correction at the end of 2018). - The volume of the target audience (people who either invest in startups, either use the software developed by the blockchain companies or use investment instruments - stock exchanges, short/long investments, futures, etc.) increased 2-5 times for 2017 and continues to grow. - The number of users of cryptocurrency wallets continues to grow and is estimated at between 2.9 million to 5.8 million active users.
This leads to a conclusion about the necessity and feasibility of developing an ecosystem that would help new companies and existing brands more quickly, cheaply, and effectively build a valuable contact with a target audience.
After conducting the prototype testing and starting the beta testing of the platform, we can say with certainty that the market already shows an interest in such solutions, and its representatives are willing to invest in their own brand promotion a signifi cant amount of funds.
The interest in our solution is also fueled by the signifi cant growth of marketing budgets. At the beginning of 2016, the average budget for the preparation, launching, and conducting of the ICO was about $70,000 (including marketing, PR, attracting a pool of advisers, but excluding costs for the team, development and testing of the prototype). However, by the end of 2017 budgets increased by 3-4 times, reaching $200,000 only for promotion of the company in the European region.
The increase in costs (especially in the case of international expansion) causes startups to seek new and better ways to deliver their marketing messages to the audience. Working on a startup from a marketing point of view includes dozens of processes, many of which are not automated and are very time and money-consuming.
If we consider that almost 90% of the start-ups launch bounty campaigns and also the campaigns of the targeted native advertising or allocate the budget for the purchasing of testimonials from the thought leaders and distribute the average from 1-3% (of the total fees of the collected funds) for such activity, it is quite a large fi nancial fl ow that allows our platform even now reaching the zone of the payback.
In this regard, it is possible to speculate a great market interest in the project.
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Problems Solved Until developing our own in-house system for the management of the bounty campaigns, we personally experienced many of the same problems that plague the blockchain industry. These problems were disruptive enough that they reduced the effectiveness of the bounty campaigns.
The fi nancial and time costs for fi nding infl uencers: Finding infl uencers usually takes a lot of time and requires the creation of a separate pool of managers to contact the potential infl uencers, to search for suitable social accounts, and to build communication with each social representative. Therefore, companies must invest additional funds to increase their staff.
The diffi culty, and often the impossibility, of an adequate assessment of the work performed by infl uencers:
Infl uencers make mistakes, are confused with the documents, don’t have a uniform system of operating the received links or documents. That’s why they often publish materials that don’t correspond to the timing of the overall PR/Marketing strategy (outdated links or content), don’t have a clear marketing component, don’t have sales and conversion effi ciency, and don’t position the brand properly being not relevant to the core brand message. The market doesn’t have a solution for the problem of an infl uencer with an aggregated account (botted subscribers, spam content).
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Theft of funds in the advertising industry:
Unfortunately, this is a common practice. In 2017, around $16 billion was spent on advertising within the sites with aggregated content and aggregated traffi c.
The problem of the environment:
For the brand launching an ad campaign, an important question is a visual and textual context, within which users will communicate with an advertisement. One of the key issues, especially for the automated advertising platforms, is the inability to publish the advertising message in an adequate environment relevant to the brand.
The lack of Analytics and Predictive Analytics for evaluating the effectiveness of the selected channels: It’s diffi cult to understand that the selected channels (e.g., Twitter) are really effective from the standpoint of ROI, CPA.
The lack of standardized contracts between an advertiser and a contractor. A lack of content licensing:
The industry lacks standards for regulating the relationship between an adviser and a contractor. If an advertiser is faced with the necessity of launching a campaign in several countries at the same time, and in the case of operating a large number of contractors, he has to fi nd consensus among multiple and differing campaign strategies.
Large commission to launch advertising campaigns on existing platforms According to a study by Mediatel, more than 70% of advertising budgets are spent on commission of the platforms and operating expenses (caused by the presence of a sophisticated supply chain: advertising message > content provider > publisher > data provider > contractor > web-site, etc. - each of which charges a special commission). Auctions, bids (per click, per impression, per location, etc.) existing on many platforms, are often opaque, highly dependent on the environment (the presence of other brands and advertisers), and do not allow conducting measurable and predictable (from the point of view of costs and results) advertising strategy. It’s also worth noting the diffi culties in signing contracts with advertising platforms since signed agreements / contracts often do not regulate key terms of the ad placement.
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Key Advantages
A) For a company, brand, startup1. The infrastructure of the platform allows maximizing future profi ts by increasing brand awareness through the coverage of a new audience. Moreover, the platform helps by mitigating risks, conducting automatic tracking of infl uencers activities with the ability to fi lter and target tasks only on quality accounts.
2. The platform reduces operating costs. Traditionally the launch of the bounty and infl uencer marketing campaigns is very costly in time and fi nancial resources. Working with our platform, there is no need to hire additional staff or pay for expensive services of specialized agencies. Full automation of the system allows for signifi cantly reduce costs, both for an advertiser (bounty host) and for the platform (allowing us charging smaller fees).
3. Automatic calculation of activities and results of the performed actions. The representative of the company has no need to hire a separate staff of managers to track activities and perform steaks / payments distribution, as the system performs the automatic tracking of all actions, monitors key indicators (ROI, CPA, see further, the «Analytics» section), automatically distributes the funds on a pre-established plan of the budgeting and allocation.
4. The real-time data fl ow. No need to use Excel or other services for accounting and management of the marketing campaign.
5. All-in-one - the maximum convenience for the manager - all existing social networks and communication channels in the single manageable space - Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Reddit, etc. The platform provides an opportunity to include additional (narrow-targeted channels), creating custom campaigns (for specialized tasks). 6. The absence of the «stealing» steaks / funds problem. The platform allows avoiding the common problem of spending funds on low-quality social accounts (aggregated or containing a large percentage of subscribers-bots), and on tasks that don’t carry any value (for example, posts that contain irrelevant or copied content, not unique content).
7. Deep verifi cation of all infl uencers accounts and the presence of reputational system - special algorithms (see the section “calculation formulas for ratings and metrics”) provide a full transparency of a campaign for a business. The platform carries out verifi cation of each user account in a social network and analyses the potential effectiveness of social activity of each infl uencer by parsing the data provided by the API of the social network.
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Quality control - The platform gathers additional data that allows us to determine the «quality/engagement» ranking of each infl uencer. For the bounty host, it allows targeted tasks for infl uencers with the desired rating.
Deep learning algorithms are used to provide recommendations (after several months of analysis of each infl uencer activity) regarding the selection of the most effi cient infl uencers depending on the task and the content type.
Accounts verifi cation is held according to the following parameters:
- The account quality. The platform analyses the following parameters: age of account, number of followers, the total number and size of posts, the average reposts volume, the average number of likes and comments on a post, growth of audience and audience retention rate).
- the quality of a site / blog including domain authority, domain age, amount of content and its average size, the domain search engines rank, the dynamics of the traffi c growth, traffi c quality (purchased / natural), and the social infl uence of a content (shares, likes, reposts in social networks).
- the quality of a video account (on YouTube) including the age of the account, the number of followers, the number of views, likes, reposts, and comments.
Furthermore, using these indicators, special formulas calculate the correlations, and each infl uencer is awarded a multi-dimensional rating. The rating illustrates the infl uencer’s activity and the quality of performed tasks. A higher overall rating allows an infl uencer to obtain additional performance coeffi cients, which enhances the ratio of each steak or task cost.
The system continuously analyzes the quality of each performed task by each infl uencer, taking into consideration the above-mentioned indicators and continuously correcting the ratings of all infl uencers.
8. High-quality and comprehensive database of the infl uencers who are not just registered but are taking an active part in the development of the ecosystem of the platform. The database has been tested on numerous projects and is narrowly targeted and is aimed at the crypto / blockchain community that allows achieving higher ROI and engagement rate within the target audience.
9. Intelligent selection of infl uencers - allows the platform to automatically choose releva�� infl uencers based on the campaign objectives. This feature is available thanks to the embedded analytical tools, data collection and continuous analysis of the big data for all activities, the calculations of audience engagement, etc. The brand can serve several purposes, depending on the sampling of infl uencers.
a) increasing a brand recognition by increasing audience coverage b) lead generationc) upsell of the previously sold products d) formation of the primary customer base for further «warm up»d) leveling of negative news about the companye) creation of positive information fi eld about the brand
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Integrated systems for analysis and processing of data allow with the help of the intelligent tips choose the most effective channels of infl uence and content types. The platform uses «templating,” which helps to set the campaign confi guration based on available data by comparing previous estimates from similar campaigns.
10. The speed of the campaign launch, as well as the speed of attracting infl uencers to the project. One of the key problems of launching the bounty campaigns is time needed for establishing contacts with potential infl uencers. The platform allows reducing time costs to a minimum. The average time of starting the project and inviting the required number of infl uencers takes from 1 to 5 days.
11. The absence of the «missing» activities. A common problem is when the bounty manager either forgets to check the performed action or that action is lost because it wasn’t marked by the infl uencer itself. The platform avoids this situation by automatically tracking each action. In the case of «custom» channels (e.g. translating content or creating a video), all activities that were accepted by an infl uencer, are automatically fl agged. And when they are executed, the bounty manager receives a special notifi cation. While these labeled activities are not checked by the manager of the bounty program and are not approved, the activity is ignored and the steaks are not charged.
12. The ability to target activity at certain infl uencers with specifi ed parameters and projected indicators, such as the number of views, coverage, number of clicks, etc. Therefore, funds are not wasted while also developing a more systematic marketing campaign that clearly meets the stated objectives and allows more predictable results.
13. The transparency of costs - integrated analytical tools (ROI, CPA, CTR, conversions, number of clicks, impressions, etc.) allows users to more accurately meet the marketing objectives without budget lost. They can make decisions on the fl y by adjusting the strategy and optimizing its work. Analytical tools allow building a measurable sales funnel, in which the key goal is not just to increase «buzz» around the brand but to fuel monetization.
14. Global, international expansion - our infl uencers database is international and helps reach an audience not only in European countries and the USA, but also in Asia, Russia, India, Turkey, etc.
15. Easy to use - a separate support staff will help the bounty host arrange the campaign and manage the created campaign from its launch until the stakes/funds are distributed.
16. The increase in natural traffi c volume (SEO, SMO). The actions performed by the infl uencers, even of the non-popular social accounts, increases the quality indicators of the web domain within the search engines like Google, Yandex, and Yahoo. The search engines perform tracking of all mentions of a brand and a domain. Currently, this occurs without any hashtag and anchor links, and it increase the rating of a website. As a result, the company gets a higher position on the key search queries and therefore gets the increase in natural
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traffi c, which greatly reduces the cost of carrying out SEO and PPC campaigns. The increase in mentions of a brand in social networks signifi cantly improves the «trust» of a website for search engines, which also eliminates the costs of specialized SMO (Social Media Optimization) strategies.
17. Flexibility in confi guring and selecting activities. At the moment, the platform offers to manage the following activities:
Main activities:
- Sharing content- Reposts on Twitter / Facebook- Creating news, articles, post on Facebook, VK, Twitter, Bitcointalk- Likes- Activities in discussion groups, forums- Work with subscribers in a telegram chat rooms and channels- Tagging and hashtagging- Writing blog posts or articles on owned or third-party sites, media.
Custom activities:
- Translation of content- Writing specialized documents (white paper, reviews, analytical reviews, etc.).- Subscription in newsletters, etc.- Video recording - Writing SEO / SMO content- Lead generation 18. Convenient and well-designed interface. This allows users to deeply and fl exibly adjust the parameters of each campaign by using built-in fi lters.
19. Gamifi cation models encourage more active involvement of the infl uencers. The system has integrated badges, tips, and ratings that motivate users to actively participate in the process and to create more high-quality content.
20. The lack of document fl ow and paperwork. Excessive tasks like the need to fi ll numerous checklists and questionnaires, great slows the content creation process. Our platform allows avoiding complex and long process of “briefi ng” because the briefi ng model is built into the platform. It is a more convenient and obvious format because it shows the predictive metrics of each step, parameter, or condition.
21. The ability to view the activity history of each infl uencer and his interactions with other advertisers.
22. Proof of Result (PoR) or activities verifi cation algorithm. Often, the advertiser has no way to evaluate the quality of the campaign. The metrics provided by the contractors are often aggregated. For example, when the arbitrage model is used, the purchase of cheap traffi c creates the illusion of involvement. Our system is built on the PoR algorithm. It builds real-time correlation of tens of parameters, analyzes the analytical data, and compares it with the predicted parameters.
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b) Benefi ts of the platform for bounty hunter / infl uencer1. Verifi cation of the companies. This alleviates a common industry problem: non-payment of funds / steaks to a bounty hunter. Even responsible projects might not collect, for example, a company might not receive the required amount of funds during an ICO campaign, and they might have to cancel any further business activity. In the end, hunters lose their time and money. To avoid these issues, our platform uses verifi cation of the companies by performing an overall project audit, making an evaluation of the project team, assessing media presence and the feedback from the audience, and a preliminary assessment of a business model.
2. Automatic payouts after completion of the campaign or one of its stages: the platform helps avoid a delay in payments. On our platform, the payout happens automatically and immediately after the end of the campaign or one of its stages. In the personal profi le, every infl uencer can evaluate the result of his own activities. A dashboard with key indicators of an account demonstrates the actual amount of funds earned.
3. Escrow fund and escrow conditions
Every company that works with our system signs the escrow agreement with each infl uencer This is done automatically through the integrated blockchain functionality and issuance of smart contracts. Deposited funds will be paid to infl uencers (for more details see “The tokenized model”). 4. Content monetization - the process of monetizing a personal social media account is a laborious task because it takes time to fi nd suitable advertisers. The platform equips companies to monetize social activities as soon as possible and to perform it on a regular basis.
5. Access to the platform even for beginner social account holders - Most of the platforms and agencies in the market have high entry threshold for the owners of social accounts. In our system, there is no limit on the age of the account or the number of subscribers. Integrated tools for calculating ratings allow even the novice bloggers to participate in the new campaigns. According to the rating of each infl uencer, the system will adjust the payments ratios.
6. The opportunity to participate immediately in several bounty campaigns. The platform does not limit a participation to only one ongoing campaign. On the contrary, the system allows an infl uencer to take the decision to participate immediately in several campaigns.
7. Access to a large number of bounty campaigns in the same space - Hunters often have trouble locating advertisers to support and monetize their social accounts. Our platform provides a marketplace for those advertisers (bounty hosts) that are highly relevant to the content strategy of each infl uencer and the characteristics of its core audience.
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8. The affi liate program and opportunities for further monetization - Any contractor on the platform can participate in the referral program of our service, which attracts new audiences A successful referral earns a percentage of the performed activities as well as compensation for providing internal content / activities audit services for the brand.
9. The absence of a security deposit - On many existing ad platforms, an infl uencer is forced to save part of the earned funds in his own profi le as a guarantee of fulfi lling the received orders. Usually, market platforms require a minimum balance of 1-5% of the transaction amount of an order. The balance is deposited to guarantee completion of a task. In our platform, this practice is not used because it increases the complexity of the interaction with an advertiser. This practice also increases the time for implementation of transactions within the system, which is not stimulating the overall performance of the platform.
10. Additional monetization through participation in the scoring mechanism. The platform gives any infl uencer the ability to receive additional bonuses through participation in the verifi cation (checking for compliance with the terms of the order) of activities performed by other users.
C) Benefi ts to the industry as a wholeBecause of the integrated tools for assessing the quality of infl uencer accounts and every performed action, the infl uencers are forced to create more engaging and interesting content (to increase the number of views and CTR), which stimulates the industry as a whole and increases the quality of the information fi eld in this niche.
Technical features of the platform
Automatic activity tracking
Currently, the framework automatically parses and performs permanent action tracking for every registered infl uencer. Automatic parsing is carried out in the following channels:
- Facebook- Vk- Twitter- Bitcointalk- Reddit- Instagram
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The system analyzes each post on several parameters including the number of words in the post, the presence of a hashtag with a mention of the brand name, the presence of specifi ed keywords, links, and unique text. These parameters are used in the formulas for the calculation of the total rating for each infl uencer.
If it’s impossible to carry out an automatic activity tracking, verifi cation is done manually by the bounty hunter.
Examples of such tasks:
- Translation of content- Publication of articles / interviews / reviews on third-party media resources- Registration for third-party resources, creating the subscription lists, etc. For the convenience of task management and verifi cation of actions, an instant messenger will be integrated into the system that will allow direct communication with each infl uencer. This is especially useful in the case of
Hunter
Performedactivity
Getting average metrics on hunter’s social account
VERIFIED
NON-VERIFIED
HUNTERACTIVITY
Activity predictive metrics
Getting post-activity metrics:
Engagement rate /CTR / Replies/comment sLeads / CPA / etc.
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custom tasks when a bounty manager has to communicate separately with each infl uencer.
Infl uencer selection and fi ltering
Within the platform, there are several ways to select infl uencers: 1. Automatic invitation of all available infl uencers into the campaign.2. Invitation of infl uencers selected by certain options (rating, communication channel (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc.), metrics (coverage, average number of reposts for the post, etc.). 3. Manual invitation of infl uencers or creation of a closed bounty program, which is accessible only to selected users. The parameters of the selection and fi ltration
These parameters allow users to more fl exibly and accurately defi ne their potential audience, which is likely to have similar interests.
- Themes. This includes broad subjects like «ico,» «investment,» «cryptocurrency,» «trading,» etc. This setting is very important because it refl ects the relevance of the interests of an infl uencer and his audience to the main thematic of the task.
- Communication channel. This is selected according to the main social channel such as website, blog, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, forum, etc.- Gender - male / female- The age of the audience ... to. ..- Coverage - the number of followers or subscribers. - Geo-targeting - region, which includes more than 70% of followers of an infl uencer. - Language.
Ratings Calculation
To avoid participating in campaigns for infl uencers with aggregated accounts (bot-subscribers, irrelevant, copied content, etc.), the system calculates the rating of each infl uencer and his actions. Depending on the rank score, the system adjusts the cost for each action (in case of using CPA model for the campaign payout).
For the formation of rating indicators and key metrics (for each registered account), the platform uses the following formula:
The formulas for calculating the engagement rates. These fi gures demonstrate how the target audience reacts to the posts made by an infl uencer.
Facebook engagement rate: Post engagement rate = (# of likes + comments + shares (per 1 exact day) / Total of FANS (per 1 exact day)) * 100
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Twitter engagement rate: Twitter engagement rate = ((# of replies + retweets) / Followers)* 100 Engagement rate for other channels: (( Likes × X + Comments × Y + Shares × Z ) × 100%) / Fans
Automatic generation of the UTM marks for each infl uencer task
For more accurate tracking of the parameters (clicks, conversions, etc.), each link provided by the bounty host is marked with UTM label with embedded parameters generated separately for each infl uencer.
On the basis of Deep Learning instruments
We are currently testing the deployment of the neural network on the basis of Tensor Flow API, and analytical tools of the Python environment - Pandas, MatPolib, and others.
Example: When creating a new campaign, the platform will calculate the potential coverage, an indicator of engagement and the expected CTR rate for the overall campaign, which are based on the characteristics of the selected infl uencers.
Predicting performance is possible because of the continuous collection and analysis of data on every account of all registered infl uencers and the use of averages over a certain period (at least six months) of these accounts, integration of the corrective indices for the «weight» of each indicator. For example, the average «weight» for the metric «likes» for a single account is calculated as follows: the average number of likes for 1 post (with a certain number of characters) for the year / number of followers for the half year (excluding new followers increment).
Please stay tuned to the offi cial website and our blog. We plan to publish a series of articles related to the development of analytical tools on the platform. We will also release case studies and descriptions of the development of the internal processes of our system. We welcome your comments and advice.
For more information on the topic «analysis of social networks,” please consult the following articles and research papers:
Lyon, E. 2009. Differing Approaches to Social Infl uence. http://sparxoo.com/2009/10/01/differing-approaches-tosocial-infl uence/. Granovetter, M. 1983. The Strength of Weak Ties: A Network Theory Revisited. Sociological Theory 1 (1983), 201-233. S. M., “Return on infl uence: The revolutionary power of klout, social scoring, and infl uence marketing.” in McGraw-Hill Professional: London, 2012.
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J. Tang, J. Sun, C. Wang, and Z. Yang, “Social infl uence analysis in large-scale networks,” in SIGKDD’09, 2009. N. Agarwal, H. Liu, L. Tang, and P. S. Yu, “Identifying the infl uential bloggers in a community,” in WSDM’08, 2008. J. Weng, E.-P. Lim, J. Jiang, and Q. He, “Twitterrank: fi nding topic-sensitive infl uential twitterers,” in WSDM’10, 2010. D. Kempe, J. Kleinberg, and E. Tardos, “Maximizing the spread of infl uence through a social network,” in SIGKDD’03, 2003. W. Chen, Y. Wang, and S. Yang, “Effi cient infl uence maximization in social networks,” in SIGKDD’09, 2009. S. Chen, J. Fan, G. Li, J. Feng, K.-l. Tan, and J. Tang, “Online topic-aware infl uence maximization,” Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment, vol. 8, no. 6, pp. 666–677, 2015. A. Khrabrov and G. Cybenko, “Discovering infl uence in communication networks using dynamic graph analysis,” in IEEE Second International Conference on Social Computing (SocialCom), 2010.
The metrics provided by the platform
For more in-depth analysis and statistics of the used communication channels and infl uencers, as well as updating the ratings of the users, the system collects, analyzes and calculates the following indicators. Metric calculations are used as internal resources. Analysis of the obtained data with the help of parsing tools and social networks API requests) and third-party data providers (SproutSocial, Klout), which provide application-specifi c data that meets the more narrow objectives.
Organic Page Likes / Unlikes: the total number of natural likes / unlikes, obtained by the post which wasn’t advertised using Adwords, Facebook Ads, of unique visitors of the page. Post Reach / Impressions: the number of unique visitors of the account that saw an informational message (content, post, video, etc.).Engagement rate: the number of unique visitors who clicked a link, liked, commented on or share / retweet the post or add the post to Favorites. Link Clicks / CTR (click through rate): the number of users who clicked on the links inside the post. Replies / comments: the number of comments on a post or replies to tweets.Content rate: the Number of units of content (posts, tweets) that an infl uencer is producing for a certain period. Audience growth rate: the growth rate or the outfl ow of followers for a chosen account. Infl uence score: a measure of impact - calculated as the ratio of the quality of
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the posts, engagement rate and the infl ux of new followers.Cost Per Engagement: allows evaluating the cost of effi ciency of an infl uencer activity in real time.
Google Analytics Integration
For tracking deeper marketing metrics, our platform has a built-in tool to integrate a campaign with Google Analytics. Our company also offers a specialized platform that offers a personalized presentation the Google Analytics on the client side. The following indicators, as well as a more customized calculation of the specialized micro-conversions, are available:
Average purchase value/average order value: the average value of each purchase. LTV: Lifetime Customer Value: the profi t that a customer generates in a certain period of time (six months, a year, etc.)ARPU / Average revenue per customer: the average profi tability per client. Conversions: the number of email database registrations, documents downloads, website registrations etc. CPA (cost per acquisition or cost per action): the cost for the fi nal action committed by the client. CAC (customer acquisition cost): the cost of attracting a potential customer to a web-site. COC (cost of a client): the cost of converting a visitor into a real customer. RPC (revenue per click): the average profi t for one click. ROI (return on investment): return on investments spent on an advertising campaign or bounty campaign.Product sales: number of sales.Bounce rate: the number of visitors who clicked the link, went to the site, but immediately returned to the social network.
The platform provides several payment options:
- The allocated amount for a certain action/task.
- Steaks with the distribution of the allocated budget in fi at or cryptocurrency. Distribution of funds occurs automatically after each reporting period (e.g., once a week).
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- Steaks with the distribution of a specifi ed pool of tokens of the future project. The distribution of funds occurs after the end of an ICO after the automatic calculation of steaks for each infl uencer. The platform integrates with the ICO project server-side, creates a separate smart contract, and the distribution of steaks happens automatically after the ICO end.
Campaign setup
Allows setting the following parameters:here are screenshots and a list of parameters with the explanation of each item:- --
Task Timing Setting
The setting of the start / end date of a publishing task. Timing allows for a more systematic and fl exible marketing and PR strategy. This feature was introduced for the convenience of building systematic marketing campaigns. For example, when certain activities outside the bounty program (scheduled interview publishing or an event/conference), are supported inside the platform with a specifi c type of tasks (publishing of post-release, press releases, reports - only in a designated and regular time interval). Two-factor authentication Is used to protect accounts and payment information.
Technology base (technology stack)Used technology: 7 PHP (Yii2), NodeJS, RESTful, Python Doctrine 2, MySQL(Galera cluster), MongoDBRabbitMQ, Redis, ZeroMQAngular 4, 4 Bootstrap, SCSS, Jade, WebpackDocker (compose, swarm hub)Git, Bitbucket, Gitfl owRancher, Nginx, Traefi k, CircleCI, Satis, Cloudfl areAmazon AWS, Google Cloud, Linode, DIgital oceanJira, Confl uence, Gmail, FreeIPA
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Centos 7, Ubuntu
- Secure transactions with blockchain and smart contracts - Docker-containerization of services, a unique sandbox for each service, reliable identical environment for each version of the product; the containers orchestration, reliable and individual service deployment; Two protocols for communication between services - TCP/HTTP, insulated data transfer within the overlay network, JWT authentication between services during the connection period;
- The application is deployed in the cloud, with automatically scaling resources depending on load rate, built-in protection against DDoS attacks; Development of applications using agile (Scrum), multi-level testing versions (including testing errors) during the development.
Microservice architecture:The architectural style of microservices is an approach allowing developing an application as a set of small services, each running in its own process and communicating with others.
Connection security is provided by JWT-authorization (JSON Web Token / JWT contains all the minimum necessary information for authentication and authorization in an encrypted form). There is no need to save user data in session because the token is self-contained.
Cloud storageStoring data in a cloud repository on multiple distributed servers with the ability to scale resources.
Protection from DDOS attacksAt the moment besides the in-house tools, developed especially for the platform, it uses also the service provided by the Cloudfl are.
Data structure and platform architecture
- Infl uencer register - contains information about the profi les of infl uencers, their ratings and an information used for further targeting (geographic region, age, gender, interests, content themes, etc.).
- Register of social accounts and websites - contains information about the metrics and indicators of social accounts and platforms (blogs, websites) of infl uencers (number of subscribers, visitors, virality, engagement, etc.)
- The register of companies - contains information about the hosts, their activity, internal ratings.
- Financial register contains information about the current activity (the orders) and deposited funds, performed and paid activities (orders), and other procedural information (currency of a transaction, time of a transaction, etc.).
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- Orders register - contains information about performed and current orders (tasks), including terms, parameters.
- Register of the referral program - contains information about the referral activity, payout percentages.
The performance
For maximum performance, the project adheres to the following principles:
1. Storage of key processes in memory.2. Storing key business logic in a separate thread.3. The use of object-oriented information model.4. Using separate databases for information fl ows related to different business processes.
Taking into account these principles, the platform was developed as a framework of separate interconnected modules. Each module has its own version and can be modifi ed individually without affecting the operation of the system as a whole. This provides the fl exibility to adjust and complement the functionality of the system and to track bugs directly in the event that they occur.
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Key system modules
The analytical module - analyzes the information obtained during data-parsing. The module consists of multiple internal models, each of which performs certain calculations - of conversions, rankings, predictive parameters.
Data parsing module for the social accounts and activities - provides data parsing from social accounts of infl uencers, as well as from third-party platforms (websites, blogs).
A module for calculating infl uencer ratings - conducts a weekly calculation of quality indicators of social accounts and performed activities and their compliance with the objectives of the campaign.
Activities verifi cation module - performs automatic verifi cation of activities; distributes activities for additional manual verifi cation among infl uencers with high ratings.
Transactional module - a trigger based module (works in case of fulfi llment of conditions prescribed in the smart contract) interacts with a smart contract, ensures the payment and conversion of funds.
Messaging module - provides instant communication within the system between infl uencers and hosts.
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The tokenized model
Technologically, the project represents the hybrid model built as with the use of traditional tools (relational databases, etc.), and blockchain technologies that are integrated with each other to ensure ease of use, greater speed of internal transactions and more secure data storage.
One of the key advantages of using blockchain technology in the framework of the project are:
- Ease of conducting fi nancial transactions within the platform.- The lack of the need for signing additional regulatory documentation for each contractor. In particular, the interaction of different contractors from different geographical regions with different legal and legislative framework). - Reduction commissions on currencies conversion and transaction during the payment process (particularly in the case of numerous microtransactions).- Secure storage of digital assets (representing high value - data; funds, etc.).- Ability to scale the system to millions of users.
However, taking into consideration the experience of developing our own blockchain project and the experience of other industry representatives, we are aware of the disadvantages and limitations of existing blockchain solutions and protocols. For example, using the popular blockchain platform Ethereum obviously limits the project in achieving high transaction volumes because Ethereum can only provide up to 20 transactions per second. Another signifi cant problem is the implementation of micropayments.
Tokenized model
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Currently, the average transaction cost within the Ethereum is about $5-10 for a 10-minute transaction. For large payment volumes, this imposes signifi cant limitations on the overall speed of the system and increases costs. Most of the projects of traditional (non-blockchain) industry which use mechanics of microtransactions also offer very high commission rates for the processing and withdrawal of funds. For example, on popular freelance exchanges, the average fee rate is about 30%. We understand that this might be a rational decision when offering a real value to the client. For example, the ability to fi nd the order executive in the shortest period of time is a value-proposition. However, within our platform, we aim to avoid this problem.
In this regard, we decided to use a multivariate framework, which uses multiple protocols and tools. Realistically understanding of the complexity of the simulation, launch, testing, and development entirely in-house solution / protocol, we have decided to use tested and proven platforms and protocols, demonstrating real effectiveness for high-load systems.
- Ethereum - to issue smart contracts.- To ensure speed and scalability - all of the data that do not bear the critical value is written in a traditional relational database. And then the key results of the interaction of the information clusters among themselves (i.e. metric calculations), is committed to Ethereum. - Bitshares Graphene - using an open-source Protocol «Graphene» allows signifi cant scaling up the capabilities of the platform. Graphene allows the algorithm to handle up to 100,000 (tps) transaction per second (for comparison, the Bitcoin Protocol has tps about 7, while the cost of each transaction is 25$). During the prototype development and testing of the Protocol, we encountered a technical limitation, but there are simple solutions for this problem. The Graphene Protocol validates a transaction on average for 1 second, but the speed is directly proportional to the used resources of RAM. A slight decrease in the speed of transactions can signifi cantly reduce the resource-intensiveness of the hardware side and does not affect the provision of value (convenience, simplicity, the speed of use) to the contractors of our system. Because even with the most optimistic scenario of the development of the platform the peak number of transactions will not exceed 50,000 per day.
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Additional advantages of the Graphene protocol
- A reliable and fl exible Consensus Protocol - DPoS - Delegated Proof of Stake.- Dynamic allocation of rights to existing accounts - (Dynamic Account Permissions) - enables to distribute access to accounts; increases the security level of storing funds and data, which is especially important when working with corporate clients.- The referral program built into the Protocol allows increasing the motivation of using the system, and motivation of token ownership to third-party users. - Recurring & Scheduled Payments and the integration of fl exible settings and permissions for funds withdrawal. This is particularly important in the framework of our platform, as payments distribution and withdrawal to infl uencers is made at specifi ed time intervals, or after achieving certain conditions (indicators, metrics).
The platform token
HNTRHNTR T Tokokenen HNTRHNTR SP SP ToTokekenn
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The value of the platform is represented by the HNTR token, local currency, secured with the cryptographic algorithm and that can be used to purchase the subscription to use the service, as well as for internal transactions. The HNTR token functions as a utility token. The following table shows characteristics (marked in bold) of the HNTR utility token :
Our platform’s utility token can be compared with the API key that is provided to access the service and acts as an internal means of payment backed by the smart contract, which is generated for each signifi cant activity within the platform (the launch of the campaign, funds distribution, etc.).
The purchase of the token during the ICO provides the opportunity to its owner to use internal services and gain access to the entire infrastructure of the platform. The token contains the transaction value. It may be transferred, donated, sold to a third party, to a counterparty, and purchased on the relevant exchanges. This transactional mechanism increases the potential market value and liquidity of the token.
The token is issued on the basis of the Ethereum blockchain, and it is ERC-20 compatible.The platform takes a commission from each completed contract. These fees will be used to improve the operation value of the service and to update the technical functionality and increase infl uencers database.
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Transactions safety
The Token is designed with the aim to increase the safety of internal transaction between the counterparties (bounty hunters, infl uencers, and hosts) of the platform. The smart contract, integrated with the token, allows confi guring the fl exible parameters of each transaction (for example, if the host does not receive the content of pre-defi ned quality (the posts don’t meet the stated metrics), the smart contract algorithm will automatically either reduce the payout per performed action or cancel the payment.
Our platform uses a 3-level approach (host < > infl uencer, as well as the system itself) with a focus on its own verifi cation system - Proof of Result (PoR). This verifi cation system calculates the effi ciency of each performed action and builds correlations (the compliance of action to the pre-defi ned conditions and campaign objectives), uses the above-described estimation algorithms of the infl uencers accounts, averaged metrics obtained from the performed actions of other infl uencers and many other parameters. It provides a system with a real opportunity to assess the work of an infl uencer and make the solution (automatically) about the possibility of payoffs and the volume of additional bonuses (in the case of increased performance) to each infl uencer.
The use of such mechanical verifi cation process avoids the traditional problems of the advertising / marketing industry. For example, it eliminates the expenses for any fake actions that do not provide any value. It also helps avoid additional costs by avoiding long advertising chains in which each step of the chain adds extra costs. Our platform allows eliminating these expenses and “theft” of funds, as well as to build the maximum transparent scheme of the campaign launch with clear performance indicators and standards.
All data (campaign conditions, the conditions of achievement of predictive indicators) of new orders are encoded in the smart contract and stored in a decentralized ledger.
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Security of rights of the licensed content
Let’s note also an important component of our project: the ability to tag license content in a smart contract and to introduce certain conditions for its use. Operating with licensing and potential content theft are incredibly prevalent in the industry. The appearance of programmatic advertising platforms, unfortunately, did not solve the problem, because such systems are composed of numerous contractors (websites, data-providers, publishers, content generators) that frequently complicate the work and can’t guarantee the proper content ownership.
The platform’s smart contracts embed the licensing details on the created units of content (content as provided by a brand and the content that is generated by an infl uencer). The conditions of use of this type of content are confi gured. For example, geographical restrictions or temporary limitations are included in the smart contract. This is particularly important in the case of operating with other geographical regions and taking into account local legislation. The system automatically checks compliance of the license and its conditions to the actual facts of performed publications. Integrated tools of linguistic analysis of the content (with the help of Natural Language Processing units) allow the platform to automatically decide whether the content is copied or modifi ed, etc., and then if necessary (if these parameters are set during the order creation), to conduct a verifi cation of performed activities and conditions of the license.
As a result, we can confi dently say that our project contributes to the transformation of the advertising industry in a more measurable and transparent class.
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Escrow conditionsEscrow of allocated funds also allows securing the work of infl uencers, guaranteeing payment from the side of the host. Our platform solves a major problem of the industry: dependence of an infl uencer on the persons who take the fi nal payment decisions. In our case, an infl uencer doesn’t interact directly with the manager of a startup, but with the platform that deposits funds, thus guaranteeing the safety and fi nal payouts.
While creating a campaign, a host can choose the options of conducting a campaign:
1. CPA - pay-for-performance - the platform calculates the cost of campaign using the averaged metrics and indicators of infl uencers-participants and locks / deposits funds of the campaign host prior to the launch of performing of activities and achievement of objectives).
- click (see ip fi lter / trim cheat) or give the host the opportunity to reject the activities of the bounty hunter with a subsequent ban.- YouTube (views)- lead (api development)- purchase (api development)
2. In the case of the traditional “bounty” campaign launch (with the distribution of steaks from the specifi ed overall amount, or a dedicated pool of tokens of the project), to avoid problems with upcoming payments (in the case of cancellation of the crowdsale), the host deposits 10% of the specifi ed campaign funds (according to the cost of buying 1 token during the ICO period) in liquid currency / cryptocurrency (eth, btc), but not the tokens (as before they are available on crypto-exchanges, they do not carry real fi nancial value). Therefore, even in case of cancellation of the ICO, infl uencers will receive funds for completed activities.
Upon completion of the project, the platform releases the allocated funds and process their distribution. Each transaction is recorded in a decentralized ledger that guarantees the transparency of the funds’ movement within the ecosystem of the platform.
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Commissions on the transactionsCurrently, high commissions inside the advertising industry are a real problem. In the case of using multiple advertising systems by a startup, overall commissions, in most cases, exceed the specifi ed conversion parameters needed to attract new customers and ensure the profi tability of the company and preserve the margin parameters of the product). Our platform takes only 10% of the total cost of the campaign or of each completed and verifi ed activity.
Exchange moduleThe exchange module will be developed to simplify interaction with the platform both of infl uencers and representatives of companies. It aims to:
- transfer of funds from personal accounts / wallets to the system itself- transfer of funds within the system between users (tokens can be transferred to another user, donated, paid as a personal bonus).- the conversion of the token to other currency (for further withdrawal to the popular wallets or exchanges).
Automation of activities verifi cation - meta-moderationThe decentralized framework integrated into our platform also reduces time spent on manual activity verifi cation. To increase the motivation of using the system from the part of the infl uencer, the platform offers an additional monetization tool - the opportunity to participate in the evaluation of other users activities.
For the brand, it brings the following benefi ts: no need to manually check all activities (although this could be done at any time). For checking other users’ performed tasks - an infl uencer gets a bonus. The ability to check other users’ activities is available only to infl uencers with a high rating. In this case, we use an analog of the PoW algorithm, increasing the quality of verifi cation process within the system and reducing the subjective factor (in the case when one manager verifi es all the activities). A single activity is offered for inspection for few hunters simultaneously, and the general decision on the fi nal verifi cation of this activity is taken by the system based on an average rate for other completed checks.
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The token price
The value of the token at the time of the crowdsale will be 1 HNTR = 0.5$.The fi nal cost of the token as a market asset couldn’t be determined at the moment because these indices are affected by many factors including supply and demand for the token, trading volumes, news and media factors (news about the development of our project), correlation factors related to the development of the crypto industry as a whole and to the indicators of other popular currencies.
Motivating Factors For Token Possession
To ensure the development of the platform and to increase the interest of the counterparties of the platform, additional motivators of token possession are introduced:
- Possession of a number of tokens from BontyHunters enables an infl uencer to obtain the status of a delegate and to participate within the Management Board of the platform and to vote on the strategies and tactics of further development of the system.
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Stage Token price, USD
Tokens issued Ratio, %
White-list (private) 0,25 4,00 % Pre-ICO 0,3 3,33 % General ICO 0,5 2,00 % From 2 mln. cap 0,7 1,43 % From 5 mln. cap 0,85 1,18 % From 8 mln. cap 1 1,00 % Distribution: Bounty allocation 100000 0,83 % Referral program 200000 1,67 % Team incentives 1200000 10,00 % Advisor incentives 1200000 10,00 % Pr/Marketing 3000000 25,00 % Development 5500000 45,83 % Legal (trademark registering, etc.)/Administration 160000 1,33 % Contingency 600000 5,00 % Rounds: Round 1 12000000 Round 2 potential Round 3 potential
Total: 12000000
Crowdsale details
Token issuance and distribution
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- 12 million is offered for the sale.- 200 000 tokens are distributed to the referral program.- 100 000 tokens are distributed to the bounty program.- 100 000 tokens are distributed on a long-term basis within the team of the platform as a consolation prize and incentive.
The process of the crowdsale occurs in the following stages
1. Up to reaching 2 million of tokens sold - tokens are offered at a cost equivalent to 0.5$ (you can pay in the following currencies.....).2. From 2 million - the cost of the token is 0.7$.3. From 5 million - the cost of the token is 0.85$.4. From 8 million - the cost of the token is 1$.
Whitelist registration is valid from the purchase volume from 5,000$ and allows purchasing the token with 50% discount, i.e. $0.25.
Referral program
For each attracted investor the user receives ....% of the amount of purchased tokens.
Legal and Legislative responsibilityOur project adheres to the principles of full legal responsibility. Given the current regulatory and legislative framework, crowdsale participate is not allowed by users with IP addresses from countries that fall under the restrictions of the existing legislation that classifi es digital assets as securities or limiting the access of non-professional investors to participate in fundraising campaigns. For more information, see Statement of the Securities Commission (SEC - The United States Securities and Exchange Commission) of 25 July 2017; Statement of the Central Bank of China, the Statement of the Financial Commission of South Korea (Financial Services Commission (FSC)).
The full list of countries, citizens of which are restricted to participation in the platform crowdsale:USA, Canada, China, UK, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Malaysia, UK.
During the crowdsale with all participants will be concluded the «click-wrap» contract - Public Offer/Terms of conditions, describing the legal characteristics of the token and the buyer’s rights and other conditions regulating the relationship of the parties.
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A list of possible risks
The risk associated with the effect of violated expectations: the complexity of the development of the above-described functionality of the platform. Risk category: low.
At the moment, 70% of the functionality of the platform is already developed, 60% is tested, the platform is in its operation state, having successfully passed the stage of beta testing. And at the moment 70% of the developed functionality fully covers the existing needs of our real customers.
Ethereum functionality violation and related to this risk the problem of not issuing of tokens. Risk category: low.
Taking into account and performing a deep analysis of the experience of ICOs of the major market projects that had problems with a) receiving payments b) website overload, c) longer (compared with the planned) time of tokens release, etc., we have developed our own failure-resistant platform (integrated with Ethereum), which acts as an intermediary-service for accepting payments in all popular currencies, and also allows to avoid problems with possible failures of the website due to an instantaneous large fl ow of users. This platform was successfully integrated into the ICO campaigns of many major projects: Micromoney, Blackmoon, etc. You can get more information on the platform via this link.
Risks associated with new legislative regulations. Risk category: medium.
Our decentralized project operates in a non-fully regulated legislative side of the market. In this regard, there is a risk of introduction of certain restrictions on the conducting of crowdsales, as well as on the class of digital assets, digital products in some jurisdictions. The decisions taken within the legislative frameworks of the target markets may affect on the workfl ow of our project and may cause possible changes of dates of the crowdsale launch, or its cancellation. In case of cancellation, all the raised funds will be returned to all participants.
Active development of a competitive environment. Risk category: medium.
Our project operates on a fairly competitive, but not yet fully saturated market. Among the possible risks, it is possible to note the emergence of similar projects with a similar concept and business model, or the transformation of the business models of existing major players (operating, at the moment primarily as programmatic advertising platforms). These factors can increase the payback time of the project, as well as a possible decline in the token market value. However, these factors are taking into account by our team, and niche uniqueness inherent in the platform, as well as unique functional elements, will provide the platform a strategic perspective and will help to stand out from competitors and to offer to the market a valuable and unique product.
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Roadmap
The platform works in a beta testing mode and already is generating profi t.
Plans for 2018:
1st quarter:
- Crypto- and tokenized framework integration.- Creation and audit of smart contracts.- Attracting an array of new infl uencers.- Integration with Wechat, Snapchat, Telegram.- Launch of the rating system.- Deep integration with Facebook API, Twitter API for further analytics calculations of each social account. - Intellectual property protection (patent and copyright for the development and brand name).- Launch of paid channels to attract the target audience (infl uencers and new companies) in - Google Adwords, Yandex Direct, Facebook Target, Twitter, Linkedin.- Modifi cation of interfaces and UX adjustment.
2nd quarter:
- Integration of deep analytical tools and advanced calculation of metrics and conversions. - Multi-localization and multi-language support. - Global marketing and PR campaign. - Involvement of large brands and agencies.
bountyhunters.io
