The Numbers Behind Cost Per Wallet

A month ago, I tweeted an article about Cost Per Wallet (CPW), introducing it as a Web3-native metric for growth—measuring the cost of website visitor that has a wallet installed on their browser, indicating quality traffic.

The response was overwhelming. Marketers, agencies, and founders jumped into the conversation, sharing their thoughts, challenges, and data points. One thing became clear: CPW hits a nerve. Among the DMs and replies, one question stood out:
"Talk to me about costs—at a given time, in a given region, on a given platform? And does success change the equation?"

This article answers that question with hard numbers. I analyzed 200+ programmatic ad campaigns launched in 2024 on @addressableid by 70+ advertisers, targeting over 1.5M users worldwide, to measure how CPW fluctuates across market cycles, regions, campaign execution, and audience segments.

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CPW Trends in 2024: How Market Cycles Impact Costs?

Bear and bull cycles: 2024 followed two distinct market cycles. The year started strong with a bull market in Q1, where the total crypto market cap grew 21% QoQ, reaching $1.7T. This momentum reversed in Q2, (-12%), worsening further in Q3 as the market (-27%). By Q4, the market rebounded (+109%), marking another bullish phase. These shifts naturally influenced CPW, but the impact wasn’t uniform. 

CPW fluctuations across market cycles reveal more than just the expected pattern of low costs in bull markets and high costs in bear markets. They highlight regional sensitivity to volatility, the importance of timing, and the strategic advantage of targeting resilient markets.

Premium markets: such as US and Western Europe, tend to offer more predictable CPW during bullish phases but are highly elastic. In Q1, US maintained an efficient $5.87 CPW, yet as the market sentiment turned in Q3, costs surged nearly 4x to $22.81. Western Europe followed a similar pattern but with an even more dramatic swing, rising 27x from $1.18 to $32.79. While these markets provide scale and quality during bull runs, they become significantly more expensive when sentiment turns bearish, making them less sustainable during downturns.

Emerging markets: present a different risk-reward dynamic. They offer exceptionally low CPW in favorable conditions but can experience extreme cost volatility. LATAM, for example, had nearly free CPW in Q1 at $0.56, yet by Q3, costs skyrocketed 60x(!) to $34.38, reflecting sudden liquidity constraints and shifting demand. Eastern Europe experienced an even sharper jump, with CPW spiking 99x from $0.21 to $20.79, signaling how fragile costs can be when market conditions deteriorate.

‍South-eastern Asia stood out as the most resilient region across market cycles, with CPW fluctuating within a 5x range, from $3.73 in Q1 to $16.61 in Q3. This stability suggests that local market factors, adoption curves, or advertiser demand may create a more predictable cost environment, making it an attractive region for consistent costs regardless of macro conditions.

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The key takeaway is that market cycles don’t just affect CPW; they determine where and when attracting wallet owners is viable. While premium regions offer efficiency in bull markets, their elasticity makes them expensive in downturns. Emerging markets provide ultra-low costs but come with extreme volatility. South-eastern Asia, with its relative stability, may offer the best long-term potential for brands looking to mitigate risk across market cycles, especially for projects looking to test our usage without being affected by market cycles.

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CPW for Top vs. Bottom Performing Campaigns

Market cycles aren’t the only factor. The best-performing campaigns consistently maintain low CPW—even in downturns. In fact, the top 25% of campaigns paid just $6-8 per wallet, even in bearish cycles, which is incredibly low. Meanwhile, weaker campaigns saw CPW swing from $4.68 to $44.79—over 9x higher.

This performance gap comes down to PMF, community strength, hype, incentives, and creative execution. Campaigns with strong audience alignment and optimized messaging sustain affordable CPW regardless of market conditions.

For campaigns struggling with high CPW, shifting to lower-cost regions isn’t the only solution. Refining targeting, messaging, incentives, and creative strategy can drive efficiency, keeping CPW stable in any market.

CPW Insights by Audience Segment

DeFi/CeFi campaigns are the most cost-efficient, with a median CPW of $2.79 and a lower quartile of just $0.10. L1/L2 projects follow closely, with a median CPW of $3.23, reflecting strong adoption.

Gaming and gambling campaigns are the most expensive, with a median CPW of $8.74 and a lower quartile of $3.40, maybe due to higher churn, speculative behavior, and intense competition? If web3 gaming is truly “inevitable”, we need to find a more powerful UA engine to make it as sustainable as in web2..

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Conclusion: CPW as a Web3 Growth Framework

CPW isn’t just dictated by market cycles—it’s fundamentally shaped by how well a campaign is executed. The best 25% of campaigns maintain $6-8 CPW year-round, even during downturns, while weaker campaigns experience extreme swings, from $4.68 to $44.79. This proves that market conditions are not an excuse—marketing teams that track data, refine targeting, and iterate on messaging and incentives can outperform the cycle and maintain efficient costs regardless of macro trends.

This also calls for a shift in strategy when launching a product. Going after whales in the US during a bear market is an extremely expensive bet, with CPW reaching unsustainable levels. Instead, starting with more stable, cost-efficient regions like South-east Asia allows brands to refine their PMF before scaling into premium markets. Teams that resist this approach risk burning budgets too early, before proving demand and optimizing conversion rates.

Finally, these numbers, derived from ad-driven campaigns, challenge the assumption that Web3 ads “don’t work.” If performance marketing consistently delivers CPW benchmarks, where are the equivalent numbers from KOLs, marketing automation tools, or monetized communities? Without comparative data, dismissing ads as ineffective seems premature—if anything, these results suggest that ad-driven Web3 growth is measurable, scalable, and far from being a dead channel.

Future Work: Adoption Metrics and Quality of Wallets

Hard being a former academic without naming future works. One of the key feedbacks I got from marketing leaders was: how do we move forward from measuring engagement to measuring adoption, and specifically its quality? Can we, for instance, score connected wallets by their quality, and share for each channel, what’s the overall quality of users driven, prior to conversions that might take time? Or, what’s the quality of Discord/TG users when they’re signing up for a community. More on that for next time.

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