Google, Twitter, and Yandex to Ban Crypto Ads. What’s left for Forex brokers?

What many feared earlier in the year has finally happened: following Facebook’s steps, Google has announced a complete ban on all the crypto ads that will enter into force in June 2018.

An official Google’s statement says: “Google will update the Financial services policy to restrict the advertisement of Contracts for Difference, rolling spot forex, and financial spread betting. In addition, ads for the following will no longer be allowed to serve:

• Binary options and synonymous products
• Cryptocurrencies and related content (including but not limited to initial coin offerings, cryptocurrency exchanges, cryptocurrency wallets, and cryptocurrency trading advice).”

Along with Google, leading Russian search engine Yandex, with 54% market share, also notified its users about the immediate and complete ban of crypto offers promotion, leaving thousands of businesses without actual means of spreading the word about their products.

What Google’s Ban For Crypto Ads Really Means https://t.co/cGpDzjhNST

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 18, 2018

On Sunday, March 18, another story (still unconfirmed though) hit the newswires: Twitter is also planning to change its advertising policies in two weeks’ time in a way to completely ban cryptocurrency ads.

UPDATE: Twitter confirms the ban on Cryptocurrency ads.

Will that hurt ICOs and Forex brokers?

There have been long concerns over the legitimacy of Forex trading as many European countries are tightening their policies on financial products and conditions of their promotion.

Although most of the serious Forex businesses are the main victims of the bad reputation Forex has earned over the years due to multiple fraud firms; legit Forex brokers are the ones to suffer the consequences.

Last year, the majority of Forex brokers made a bet on crypto products, and that seemed like a smart move. Traders were growing bored with CFDs, the crypto rush was getting traction, competition among forex brokers was beyond imaginable – the stars aligned, and CySEC, ASIC, and FCA started granting licences on crypto products.

Needless to say, traders were excited with the new opportunities, and Forex business was flourishing again.

But peace did not last.

The first hit came with Facebook suddenly announcing the ban of crypto products.

And even not so popular with Forex advertisers, Twitter, is now joining the unanimous decision of Media giants.

Well, that is disappointing, but Social Media was never the primary source of traffic for Forex brokers. Simple relocation of the budget to AdWords could do the job.

Yet, last week, another announcement shook the financial world. Two of the biggest search engines Google and Yandex announced the changes in their advertising policies, making it impossible for Forex brokers to promote some of the financial products.

With the loss of one of the main traffic sources, Forex companies and ICOs will have to rethink their marketing strategy and diversify websites’ traffic sources.

What Traffic Sources to Opt for?

Organic Search Traffic – while search engines are banning crypto ads, the role of SEO is just increasing. It would never bring you the same volumes and same fast as paid advertising but, on the upside, the traffic you are getting is very relevant and delivers high-quality leads.

Referral traffic – another great traffic source that the majority of the Forex companies is already using. Go heavy on content (guest posts, yay!), try cross-promos, sponsor events, and obviously, do your best to get published on review websites. Participating in online communities, posting on forums, and commenting other users also helps.

Paid traffic – because advertisers don’t have time to wait for leads. While previous two traffic sources can be classified as long-term solutions, paid traffic can deliver almost momentary and guaranteed results.

Let’s start with search engines. Here are the biggest ones that still allow crypto ads:

• Yahoo Gemini. Quite expensive and picky in what they approve, yet the audience is older, meaning higher purchasing power.
• Bing Ads. Comparatively cheap and comparatively effective. You don’t have many options to scale up your campaigns, and the GEOs are really limited. The biggest market share Bing Ads have is in the US, but most of the European brokers do not accept US clients.

Another viable source of paid traffic for your website is using advertising networks, and if you still didn’t consider it, you are missing out on a big opportunity.

What Can Ad Networks Offer?

1. Crypto Ads are allowed

First of all, the majority of ad networks allow Crypto ads (and PropellerAds has multiple successful cases of promoting crypto offers).

2. More ad formats

Secondly, ad networks can offer some ad formats that conventional paid traffic channels don’t have access to. For example, neither Google nor Facebook have Native Ad Messaging in their arsenal. Native ad messaging, which looks like push notifications, is a new generation of ads that are delivered directly to users’ devices, and have exceptional performance benchmarks.

What can you send as a Native Ads Message to your traders?

• Daily technical analysis
• Notifications about sudden market moves
• Important announcements (for example, changes in trading conditions)
• New campaigns and competitions
• New product launches

Moreover, think about Page skins, and Popunders, which come out times cheaper comparing to a regular Forex website takeover.

3. Enormous, Facebook-size audience

And, thirdly, the audience ad networks can offer is comparable to that of Facebook. For example, PropellerAds’s monthly audience reach is more than 1 Billion users.

More importantly, with major search engines and social media leaving the crypto market, ad networks are becoming the exclusive suppliers of crypto traffic.

As well,  ad networks can offer a very diverse audience not limited only to traders, who have already chosen a specific broker and stick to it for years. With ad networks, Forex brokers can find the following categories of potential traders:

• Newbies interested in financial products
• People looking for a side income
• Folks that are into the blockchain
• The audience of loans websites

All in all, ad networks are a great alternative to conventional traffic sources and can offer almost all the opportunities Google and Facebook provide, and, as well, some additional ad formats that are unique to ad networks.

Figuring out what works best for you can take some time and testing, but eventually you will discover an ideal mixture of organic and paid traffic that helps bring potential customers down the funnel.

We wish you happy crypto promos!

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P.S. Have questions about promoting crypto or other financial products with PropellerAds?
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