The Challenge

YAT needed to build US market awareness from near zero. They were launching a novel product — digital collectibles and unique emoji identifiers — in a category (crypto/NFT) that most performance advertisers had never run before. There was no existing playbook. They needed mass reach quickly, in a market where the product concept itself required explanation.

What We Did

We treated YAT like a DTC product launch, not a crypto project. The instinct in the crypto/Web3 space is often to advertise to crypto natives — the existing community who already understand the product. That audience is small and expensive to reach. We took the opposite approach: apply proven DTC acquisition tactics to reach mainstream Americans who had never heard of YAT and wouldn’t describe themselves as crypto users.

Creative led with the product’s most accessible and appealing element — the idea of owning a unique emoji-based identity — rather than the underlying blockchain mechanics. Campaigns were structured around awareness and acquisition, with Meta providing broad social reach and Google capturing the search demand that awareness campaigns generated.

We managed $700K in media over the course of the campaign, scaling as performance data validated our audience and creative assumptions. The result was 10 million Americans reached and 4,000+ purchases in an untested product category.

The Results

• 10M Americans reached — mass market awareness in a category starting from zero
• 4,000+ purchases — real conversion volume in an entirely new product category
• $700K in media managed — executed at scale with full performance accountability

The Takeaway

The biggest growth opportunity for most emerging tech products isn’t the existing community — it’s the mainstream audience that doesn’t know the product exists yet. DTC performance tactics, applied to mass reach, are often more effective than community-first strategies.