How a Liquidity Protocol Marketer Mines Web3’s ‘Most Sacred Data’

When marketer Yakov Sychev joined cross-chain liquidity protocol Eywa a month before its launch in November 2023, he was shocked to discover that there “were no really good tools” to measure how users interacted with blockchain contracts. Through Eywa’s cross-chain index, CrossCurve, users swap tokens across different chains — a layer Sychev, now Eywa’s Chief Marketing Officer, says “was getting neglected before I saw Cookie3.”

This interview is part of CoinDesk’s Web3 Marketing Week.

A MarketingFi company, Cookie3 “is basically Google Analytics for Web3,” Sychev says, where Eywa’s users value anonymity and decentralization above all. To attract and retain these customers while giving them the power and privacy Web3 has to offer, Sychev needed to figure out the user journey without relying on Web2 analytics. How were users getting to Eywa’s products? What partners could Eywa work with to entice new ones?

Cookie3 could answer these questions without revealing any information that’s not already on the blockchain. “They’re giving me the format and tools to read this data in a way that doesn’t require a developer,” Sychev says. “As a marketer, I don’t want to be writing code.” Cookie3 translates the blockchain into marketing speak for him.

What work were you doing before becoming CMO at Eywa?

I was working on a crypto accounting app that was in between Web2 and Web3. We used a lot of Web2 tools and didn’t need Web3 analytics. Before that, I was mostly working on Web2 projects, including automation for educational webinars. We needed to connect incoming traffic to its sources, like a Telegram username to that user’s actions in a webinar room.

We built funnels that showed users’ journeys and automated them. We could see how many were on different stages of the funnel and how many minutes the user was on the webinar. You could see, for example, if a customer went through a bot to a webinar, or from a Facebook ad.

How do those funnels look different in Web3?

I started to understand how different they are with the Eywa project. With Web3, you have another layer of data in the blockchain. Users don’t just interact with your websites or systems in-house. They interact with your blockchain contracts by buying, selling, or swapping tokens.

Before Cookie3, I couldn’t measure the quality of the audience or the metrics on blockchain. I could see how people went to my website through Web2 analytics tools, but I couldn’t see what people were doing on-chain, which is the most sacred data in Web3 projects. On-chain data is very valuable to investors. It shows how much you’re growing.

Of course, you have specific tools for blockchain analytics. But the problem was I would see 1000-plus wallets, but I didn’t know what channels brought them to us. I didn’t know the quality of these wallets — how many tokens they’re holding or how many transactions they’ve made. You couldn’t see how off-chain actions transitioned users on-chain. As a marketer, you need to understand that.

How is Cookie3 providing that information?

I can give you an example. We were participating in a Cookie3 ecosystem campaign, a drop with a couple projects. Their website had a link to our website, which I provided and had basic parameters like those in Google Analytics. We were using Cookie3 before we integrated in this campaign, so when users got to our page with this link, I could see how many wallets were connected through it. The key is I can see how many wallets this source — the Cookie3 ecosystem campaign — brings me.

That just scratches the surface. I can go deeper. Cookie3 has an on-chain explorer, where I can see the overview of the wallets that interacted with our smart contracts. I can see the transaction count. Then I can go deeper and investigate the quality of those wallets. Is it better than what I see from other partners? Worse? This has helped me identify and compare different channels, bloggers, KOLs, influencers — all the sources I’m using to bring in traffic. It also adds a new layer — ID, the wallet.

Through that drop, Eywa users could get free Cookie3 token airdrop points for their engagement with Eywa’s products. How did users earn points?

It’s easy to track the wallet addresses that interacted with our contract, so we shared those addresses with Cookie3. They let those wallets claim airdrop points for past interactions. Each user who made even one transaction cross-chain could get points.

For present interactions, we have our smart contracts configured in Cookie3. Working with Cookie3, I don’t need a developer. I have some data from the developer side, like which contract to use, and then I can configure everything myself through Cookie3, which I did a couple months ago. Now, Cookie3 is tracking all the interactions with our smart contracts.

How many airdrop points have Eywa users collected so far?

I don’t have that data. But I checked my own address, and I could claim 2,500 points for interacting with Eywa contracts. Users will get the points-to-tokens conversion rate later.

What have been the most valuable insights you’ve learned with Cookie3?

We’re acquiring an audience that’s interested in our product category. They’re not coming from NFTs or GameFi, but exchanges or DeFi protocols — our competitors — as a source. Lots of users come from different Dapps, so I know the exact Dapps they use. That helps me know who to approach for partnerships.