Crypto Exchange Marketing Playbook 2025

This guide will help marketing teams of new and growing exchanges attract users and increase trading volumes. We’ll cover proven tactics at every stage of the funnel — from brand awareness to active traders.

Marketing Funnel: From Awareness to Loyalty

See Think Do Care Framework

Use this model to build an effective funnel:

• See (Top of Funnel) — User recognises a problem, searches for information about crypto trading. Your goal is to become an authoritative knowledge source
• Think (Middle of Funnel) — Studies options, compares exchanges. Show advantages and convince them to choose you
• Do (Conversion) — Ready for action, registers and trades. Simplify the process and motivate the first transaction
• Care (Retention) — Loyal user who recommends you to others. Transform them into brand advocates

See: How They Find You

Goal — become a useful resource, not just another trading platform. Win trust through value and education.

Problem-Solving Content

Don’t write about cryptocurrencies in general. Answer specific trader questions. Create detailed guides for queries like “Best Technical Analysis Tools”, “How to Securely Store Cryptocurrency”, or “Taxes on Staking”.

This approach follows Google’s E-E-A-T principles (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness). These criteria are especially important for financial topics. Kraken successfully used this strategy, increasing its organic traffic by 40% and new user sign-ups by 15% in six months by focusing its blog on comprehensive guides and market analysis.

Strategic PR

Forget generic press releases. Publish in top outlets like Cointelegraph or Bloomberg Crypto to showcase your real achievements. Offer journalists stories about significant events: passing security audits, publishing audited reserves, reaching trading volumes, and unique platform activity analytics.

Example: Crypto.com’s CEO publicly announced the publication of audited reserves during market anxiety. This transparent move attracted positive coverage and helped restore trust.

Think: Converting Visitors to Users

Goal — make registration and deposit a logical and attractive next step. Here, you convert awareness into real user growth.

Paid Advertising

Crypto advertising networks like Coinzilla, CoinTraffic, and Bitmedia are unlikely to give you new traders. Their audience already trades on other exchanges — you’re just poaching existing users.

Better to focus on major platforms like Google and Meta.

Influencer Partnerships

Work with respected technical analysts and educators, not hype influencers. The goal is for these opinion leaders to create real educational tutorials showing their audience how they use your platform for analysis and trading.

Important: Pay influencers a fixed amount plus a percentage of trading volume from referred users. This model motivates creating quality content and attracting actual trading users, not just registrations for registrations’ sake.

This approach builds trust and attracts quality registrations. Bybit’s partnership with educational channel Crypto Banter led to tens of thousands of active traders.

Attraction Magnets (Listings and Airdrops)

The fastest way to attract many new users is by listing an anticipated token. Form partnerships with marketing agencies, developers, and other market players to bring the best projects to your listing. Combine the listing with a small airdrop for users who register and pass KYC before trading begins.

Do: Activating Traders and Building Loyalty

Goal — convert funded accounts into active high-volume traders and build long-term loyalty.

Product-Led Activation

Your platform is the best marketing tool. Actively promote features that provide constant value and create stickiness:

• Staking and Earning Programs: Offer competitive yields to lock users into the ecosystem
• Token Launchpads: Provide access to new projects
• Low-Fee Trading Tiers: Implement tiered fee structures that reward high-volume traders with significant savings

Care: Converting to Brand Advocates

• Create loyalty programs for regular users
• Request feedback and actively respond to it
• Turn satisfied customers into brand ambassadors

Metrics That Matter

Focus on metrics that directly impact business results:

• Sign Up: Total number of registrations. Basic top-of-funnel metric
• KYC Completion: Number of users who passed verification. Shows user intent seriousness
• FTD (First Time Deposit): Number of users who made their first deposit. Key conversion metric from registrations to paying users
• eFTD (Effective First Time Deposit): Number of users with first deposit above a certain threshold (e.g., $100+). Shows the quality of the attracted audience
• LTV (Lifetime Value): Total revenue from trading fees per user over time. Should significantly exceed acquisition cost
• Average Trading Volume per User: Main measure of user engagement and primary commission revenue source

Conclusion

Crypto exchange marketing has become more competitive and regulated. Winning now comes not from hype, but from systematic execution. The exchange that best executes these fundamentals will win. Which tactic from the guide will you implement first?