In today’s blog post, we will review Dot.
Is it the best Web3 advertising and publishing platform? Like every company, they say they are. We’ll see about that.
It’s basically an ad-network that’s primarily focused about Web3 technologies and products.If you’re a brand or have a website that can offer someone exposure in the space, this piece is for you.
Throughout this review, I’ll discuss everything that I like and don’t like about them. Yes, full honesty. Once you’ve been through the pros and cons, you be the better judge, I hope that works with you.
Let’s get started?
Table of Contents
What is DOT?
DOT is an advertising platform that allows brands to promote their brands/products. Similarly, publishers too can join the platform and monetize their websites.
What’s special is its site database and content-type. Web3 technologies are what it specializes in.
In simpler words, everything that most other networks “restrict” is exactly what DOT is best for, these include, but not limited to:
- Crypto
- Casinos
- NFTs
- Finance services
- Blockchain etc.
It offers extremely detailed statistics to help advertisers understand their performances and then there are settings that let them fine-tune their ads for better performances.
User-Interface
This is important. The UI decides if you need any previous experience or skills to use any tool out there. Let’s see what DOT demands, eh?
This is what you see when you first login to DOT:
(You’ll actually see blank graphs and charts because your account will be new. But the basic structure of the UI remains the same).
So, the left-sidebar is navigational. It lets you reach the primary features being offered by DOT.
The center-screen is for analytics. All the details about all your ads are shown here. At a single glance, you can easily see your account balance, total campaigns, clicks, CPC and everything else. You can also see your pending/paused campaigns right here.
You can even filter these according to geo, date etc. I love how every aspect of the campaign is displayed transparently and in detail.
That’s pretty much it. I’d say it’s simple to understand and doesn’t seem to demand any special “skills” as such, wouldn’t you agree?
Very Advanced Targeting for Advertisers
I personally love DOT’s targeting options. For starters, you get to choose if you want to:
- Target geo by region
- Or target geo by country.
Once that’s done, you can select a campaign objective. A dozen options are available, including but not limited to app promotion, sales, website traffic, band awareness, social following and so on.
Finally, it lets you select your “interests”, which actually means an “industry”. So, DOT is most optimized for ads in the following industies:
- Crypto
- NFT
- Financial services
- Casino
- Investment products
- Mining etc.
Of course, this doesn’t mean you can not use it for other industries. Hey, it’s ads. They’re more or less the same. However, its network of websites and audience generally relate more to the Web3 side of things.
Okay once you’re done with targeting, it’s budgeting that taeks the front seat, doesn’t it?
Advanced budgeting options
So, how much you pay and when you pay are important factors you should pay attention to, huh?
You get some very important and yet very easy options to start with:
Simply set:
- Your total budget: You never spend more than this, even though you’ve got funds in your wallet.
- Daily budget: Same thing as total budget, but for the day.
- CPM bid: That’s just how much you pay for each 1000 impressions of your ad.
Pretty simple, isn’t it?
Custom UTMs
I’ve always said this, you can’t change what you can’t monitor. You must be able to monitor performance of specific ads, source of specific leads/visitors and everything else.
The custom UTM builder with DOT lets you do exactly that.
For each campaign, you can set medium, campaign name, source and even custom terms for additional filtering.
Dot for Publishers (site owners)
As I said initially in this DOT review, it’s not only for Advertisers. If you own a website, you can probably monetize it with Dot.
The entry is “not for everyone’. Which actually makes it worthwhile. It only accepts high quality websites. Yes, there are fixed metrics you must meet before you can be accepted.
For starters, only websites with upwards of 250,000 monthly traffic are expected. That’s a very decent number from a advertisers’s point of view.
Of course, the number isn’t written in stone. The final outcome depends on the source, regional data and the website’s overall value. As such, websites <250,000 hits are accepted as well given they supplement the loss in traffic in some other way.
As for the payouts/withdrawals, multiple options are available, these include:
- PayPal
- Payonner
- Bank transfers etc.
It doesn’t even force sites for an exclusive contract. You can use other ad networks along with DOT.
DOT Marketplace
Another unique feature DOT has is its marketplace. It’s a marketplace that lets you buy a number of services directly without having to run/publish ads.
Some of the things you can purchase via the marketpalce include:
- Press Releases: These are professionally-crafted PRs on industry-leading niche-specific blogs such as Cryptopolitian, Coindoo, BSC News etc.
- Banner ads
- Sponsored articles on top sites in the industry.
- Youtube reviews
- Even listings on Apps such as Mycelium
You can even buy “packs” that include more than one type of service.
It also has an “animated banner designing service”. As the name suggests, they’ll design an animated banner for you.
These include unlimited edits, 2 banners for A/B testing, 3 sizes and a few other benefits. The price is fixed at $199.00. Considering industry prices, I’d say while it’s not cheap it definitely isn’t irrationally priced. Wouldn’t you agree?
Rewards & Cashbacks
This is a feature I haven’t really seen very often. Depending on the amount you spend on the platform, Dot offers you benefits.
The primary benefit mostly is a cashback. E.g. if you spend $5000, Dot gives you $100 worth of free ad credits.
However, many other benefits are offered on top of the cashback, these include:
- Free sponsored articles
- Dot Marketplace coupons
- Free design services etc.
Credit-based wallets and Crypto payments
DOT functions on wallet-based credit system, alike most of its contemporaries. You’re asked to deposit funds to your account before you can run ads.
In other words, you can not setup an ad and then pay for it. Rather, you can run ads for whatever amount of funds you’ve got in your wallet. This is the industry-standard and what I was expecting anyway.
On the surface, it may seem like it only accepts credit cards. That’s true if you’re directly depositing funds in your wallet.
However, if you purchase “Ad credit packs” beforehand from the marketplace, you can also pay using Cryptocurrencies.
Telegram & E-mail Support
So, this is one of the confusing aspects of the platform. Some of you will like this while others do not.
The company only offers support via Telegram and E-mail (hello@dotaudiences.com).
I personally would have liked a live chat via the website. Unfortunately, that’s not possible. However, there sure are a few benefits to Telegram support but the lack of website chat still may irks me.
But then again, you can always reach them over e-mail and those replies do not take very long either.
Final verdict- DOT review
So, what do I personally think of the platform? Well, I’m definitely impressed, yes, you don’t have to be but that’s just how I personally feel.
That’s primarily because a lot of the things I do revolve around Web3. Crypto and Finance to be specific. The problem is the current world is too harsh towards these industries. It’s a pain trying to even get minor exposure off legitimate platforms. That’s one problem DOT solves.
Similarly, making money off my own websites in the space too becomes easy with these ads.
Then, the kind of sites that it accepts are pretty impressive as well. I know each of my campaigns are going to sites that have an average of 250K hits/month. That’s good, very good, isn’t it?
Finally, the fact that it supports Crypto payments makes things even easier. Most similar platforms don’t, do they?
Yes, I won’t cover up what I didn’t like, their support channel. Do note that this doesn’t mean I didn’t like the “support team or response”. Those were very fast and actually helpful (instead of just random links and guides). What I didn’t like was that I had to setup Telegram for support, simple.
All in all, if I’ve to weigh its pros against its cons, I’d say the pros outweigh the cons by a pretty good margin.
All in all, I’d sign off this DOT review saying if you’re into Web 3 in any way, give it a try. That’s the best way to form your own opinion and their team actually was more helpful than I’ve found others in recent times.
