How World Cup Offline Advertising Drove Online Traffic for Crypto.com

Crypto.com sponsored the World Cup, and its ads were featured prominently in tournament venues. The goal was to gain exposure and credibility among an international audience to increase Crypto.com’s user base.

The advertising program seems to have allowed Crypto.com to show traffic gains, even at a tough time for cryptocurrency companies. We used Similarweb’s digital measurement tools to track how Crypto.com’s website traffic and engagement responded to both offline advertising and external events.

The Initial Spike

On March 22, Crypto.com was unveiled as FIFA World Cup’s official sponsor, and its website experienced a 45% increase in mobile web traffic (details, login required). About 60% of the site’s traffic comes from mobile devices.

Bucking a Bad Trend

Between November 2 and November 11, news of the FTX / FTT token scandal began to surface, and all crypto exchange websites experienced an increase in traffic when users logged in to withdraw money or to transfer their assets from centralized exchanges to decentralized ones. This increase in visitations peaked on November 11, when FTX filed for bankruptcy.

Crypto.com was among the few whose traffic remained on the rise even after FTX crashed, experiencing an additional 32% increase in traffic. The positive trend was a result of Crypto.com’s efforts to reassure their existing users by publishing financial reports and to acquire new users by introducing crypto into the mainstream and gain momentum by advertising ahead of the World Cup – campaigns to buy stadium tickets with cryptocurrency as well as the ability to purchase unique tokens and NFTs of their favorite team.

Crypto.com’s mobile traffic remained high when the World Cup started and, overall, increased by 35% between November 5th and 25th (comparison details, login required).



That’s not to say Crypto.com has been immune to the downturn. Total traffic for 2022 was down 18% from 2021 levels. But compare that to Coinbase, which saw traffic drop nearly 47% in 2022.

Where the Traffic Originated: November vs. October

The main drivers of Crypto.com’s mobile traffic during November were direct and organic search, which increased by 30% and 45%, respectively. An increase in these marketing channels is a significant indicator of increased awareness and brand exposure related to the World Cup promotion (channels details, login required).

To gauge the effectiveness of advertising, we also examined the user behavior on desktop during November. The most popular page among Crypto.com users is the CRO_USDT trading page which is up more than 5,000% in views compared to last month, indicating a high conversion rate for Crypto.com’s CRO token. The ‘about’ page and the crypto.com’s World Cup sponsorship article page also went up by over 100% (popular pages detail, login required).

The learning segment of Crypto.com alone grew by 84%. Visit duration and average pages per visit rose as well, showing growing interest and willingness to learn about the world of trading and crypto (Crypto.com University segment details, login required).

Crypto.com University unique visitors

While a digital enterprise’s online advertising, search, and social strategies are central to its success, they are not the only factor. As this example shows, offline advertising can also pay dividends in online traffic.

The Similarweb Insights & Communications team is available to pull additional or updated data on request for the news media (journalists are invited to write to press@similarweb.com). When citing our data, please reference Similarweb as the source and link back to the most relevant blog post or similarweb.com/blog/insights/.

Contact: For more information, please write to press@similarweb.com.

Citation:  Please refer to Similarweb as a digital intelligence platform. If online, please link back to www.similarweb.com or the most relevant blog post.

Report By: Lee Margalit, Client Success Analyst, Similarweb

Methodology

Disclaimer: All data, reports and other materials provided or made available by Similarweb are based on data obtained from third parties, including estimations and extrapolations based on such data. Similarweb shall not be responsible for the accuracy of the materials and shall have no liability for any decision by any third party based in whole or in part on the materials.

Image: World Cup sponsorship promotion from Crypto.com