Many Web3 teams struggle to measure the return on investment (ROI) from their marketing efforts. The core problem is fragmented data. User journeys are split across offchain touchpoints like your website and onchain activities like transactions, making it difficult to get a clear picture. Traditional Web2 metrics simply don't capture the full story from a website visit to an onchain transaction.

Successful Web3 marketing requires tracking unique metrics that connect anonymous visitors with their wallet activity. Effective onchain analytics bridge this gap, giving you the insights needed to grow.

This post covers five critical Web3 marketing metrics your team should be tracking:

1. Onchain Attribution

2. Wallet Engagement

3. Web3 Conversion Funnels

4. Onchain Retention Rates

5. Community Growth Indicators

1. Onchain Attribution: Connect Marketing to Real Activity

Onchain attribution means linking your marketing campaigns directly to blockchain transactions. It answers the question: "Did my campaign lead to actual onchain usage?"

Tracking UTM parameters to the point of wallet connection is essential for measuring the true impact of your campaigns. For example, a campaign might drive 1,000 website visits, but if it only results in 50 wallet connections and 10 onchain transactions, you know something is wrong. Without attribution, you're flying blind.

Tools like Formo can track the complete user journey, from the first click on an ad to their onchain activity, giving you clear insight into your crypto campaign tracking.

2. Wallet Engagement: Go Beyond Daily Active Users

In Web2, Daily Active Users (DAU) is a standard metric. In Web3, you can get much more granular with wallet-based engagement metrics. Instead of just counting visitors, you can measure what they are actually doing.

Key wallet engagement metrics include:

• Active Wallets: The number of unique wallets interacting with your protocol.

• Transaction Frequency: How often wallets are making transactions.

• Wallet Retention: The rate at which wallets return to perform actions.

You can also use wallet scoring based on a user's holdings, transaction history, and onchain behavior to segment your audience. This helps you distinguish power users from casual visitors and identify high-value community members.

3. Web3 Conversion Funnels: Map the Path from Visitor to User

The Web3 conversion funnel has unique steps that require specific tracking. A typical funnel looks like this:

Website Visit → Wallet Connection → First Transaction → Repeat Usage

Each stage presents potential drop-off points. Users might face friction when connecting a wallet or be deterred by high gas fees before their first transaction. Analyzing this funnel helps you identify and fix these weak points. Tools that provide funnel analysis allow you to measure the drop-off rate between each step and optimize the user journey.

4. Onchain Retention: Measure Long-Term Activity

Retention in Web3 isn't just about repeat website visits; it's about users returning to perform onchain actions. True retention measures long-term engagement with your protocol.

Using cohort analysis for wallet behavior helps you understand how different user segments, like token holders or specific protocol users, behave over time. Onchain retention metrics give you a much clearer picture of your product's stickiness and long-term value, providing better ROI insights than traditional web analytics.

5. Community Growth: Look Beyond Follower Counts

Vanity metrics like follower counts don't tell you much about the health of your community. Instead, focus on actionable community growth metrics that show a direct link to product usage.

Track metrics like:

• Wallet Connections from Social Campaigns: How many users from Twitter or Discord connect their wallets?

• Token-Gated Participation: What is the engagement rate for events or channels exclusive to token holders?

Measuring the cross-platform journey from a social platform to your dApp reveals which communities are driving real value. This approach helps you measure community quality through onchain behavior, not just follower numbers.

Start Measuring What Matters

Tracking these five Web3 marketing metrics is essential for building sustainable growth. By combining onchain and offchain data, you get a complete picture of your marketing performance and can make data-driven decisions.

Take a moment to audit your current analytics setup. Are you tracking these key metrics? If not, it's time to implement the right tools.

You can start tracking your onchain attribution and other key metrics today with Formo's free analytics tools.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you measure user acquisition in Web3?

Measuring user acquisition requires a shift from traditional models to focus on onchain activity. Instead of tracking clicks or sign-ups, you should analyze wallet interactions with your app or protocol. Effective Web3 marketing metrics include monitoring new wallet addresses that engage with your smart contracts. Implementing onchain attribution helps connect marketing efforts to specific onchain actions, allowing you to see which channels drive the most valuable users. Analyzing initial wallet engagement patterns provides insight into user quality and helps refine your acquisition funnels. This approach gives you a clear view of where your most active users come from and how they behave from their first interaction.

What are the best metrics for tracking user retention in crypto?

For user retention, it's essential to move beyond basic user counts and focus on sustained activity. Key Web3 marketing metrics for retention include tracking repeat wallet interactions over time and analyzing user behavior through crypto-native cohort analysis. This method groups users by when they first interacted with your app, allowing you to monitor their long-term wallet engagement. You can measure how many wallets from a specific cohort return to perform actions week after week. This provides a direct indicator of your product's value and stickiness, helping you understand what keeps users coming back and how to improve the user experience.

How can I effectively track the ROI of my Web3 marketing campaigns?

To track Web3 marketing ROI, you need to connect your spending to measurable onchain value. This starts with setting up onchain attribution to link specific marketing campaigns to user actions like swaps, deposits, or mints. By assigning a value to these actions, you can calculate the revenue generated from users acquired through each channel. Compare this revenue against your campaign costs to determine ROI. Advanced Web3 marketing metrics, such as customer lifetime value (LTV) based on a wallet's total transaction volume, can offer deeper insights, helping you optimize your budget and focus on the most profitable channels.