Crypto marketing agency: what they do and how to choose one

What does a crypto marketing agency do?

A crypto marketing agency covers the same core skills as any marketing agency, adapted to a field where many ad platforms are restricted and the audience is both technical and sceptical. Most agencies specialise. Some are strongest in community and launches, others in paid growth for exchanges, others in PR and content.

The work usually starts with positioning and a channel plan, then moves to execution and reporting. The agency should know which channels are actually open to you in each market, because that depends on licences and platform approvals as much as on budget. For an overview of those channels, see our crypto advertising guide.

Which services should you expect?

A full-service crypto agency offers the eight services below, though few are strong at all of them.

• Strategy and positioning: audience research, competitor analysis, messaging and market prioritisation.
• Content and SEO: educational articles, landing pages, help content and technical SEO for exchange and wallet sites.
• Paid media: search, social and programmatic buying within the Google and Meta crypto ad policies, including work with crypto advertising networks.
• PR and media relations: announcements, interviews, sponsored content and crisis communications.
• Community management: Discord, Telegram and X moderation, AMAs and community programmes.
• Influencer and KOL campaigns: sourcing, vetting, contracting and reporting, as covered in our crypto influencer marketing guide.
• Affiliate programme management: recruiting partners, approving creative and monitoring placements.
• Analytics and attribution: conversion tracking, dashboards and channel reporting.

So ask which two or three services make up most of their revenue, and judge them on those. Breadth is cheap to claim.

What should you ask before you hire?

Ask about compliance, platform eligibility, measurement, staffing and ownership before you sign anything.

1. Which markets have you run compliant crypto campaigns in? Ask how they handled the UK financial promotions regime or MiCA marketing rules in practice.
2. How do you secure Google and Meta eligibility? They should describe the certification and approval processes, and any talk of workarounds is a warning sign.
3. What do you measure? Look for funded accounts, KYC-passed registrations and retention, because impressions and follower counts say little about whether real users signed up and stayed.
4. Can we see real reporting from past work? Anonymised dashboards are fine. Vague claims prove nothing.
5. Who does the work? Find out whether the senior people in the pitch will stay on the account, and which parts of the work go to other firms.
6. How do you vet influencers and affiliates? Ask for their checklist and what happens when a partner breaks the rules.
7. Who owns accounts, data and creative? Ad accounts, tracking and community channels should belong to you, so you keep them if the agency leaves.

Red flags when choosing a crypto marketing agency

The clearest red flags are promises an agency cannot keep and tactics that break platform or advertising rules. The market has excellent specialists, but it also has a long tail of operators selling shortcuts, so watch for the warning signs below, which come up most often.

• Guaranteed exchange listings. Exchanges decide listings, so anyone guaranteeing one is either paying undisclosed fees or overstating their influence.
• Fake volume or market-making promises. Wash trading and artificial volume can be market manipulation and can get a token delisted.
• Bought followers and engagement. Inflated Telegram, Discord or X numbers damage trust and distort your own data.
• Undisclosed paid promotion. Influencer or media placements without clear ad labels breach advertising rules in many markets, including UK ASA rules and US FTC guidance.
• Workarounds for platform policies. Cloaking, rotating ad accounts or disguising crypto ads risks account bans and regulatory trouble.
• Return or price-based messaging. Any agency suggesting creative that implies price gains or guaranteed returns does not know the rules.
• Payment only in your token. It aligns incentives badly and can create disclosure problems.

Should you use in-house, an agency or a media partner?

Most crypto brands end up using a mix of all three, so the useful question is which work you keep close, which you outsource, and where you buy access to an audience directly.

A common pattern keeps strategy, compliance sign-off and analytics in-house. An agency then handles execution-heavy work such as community or influencer management, and the brand works directly with a few media partners whose audiences match its own target users.

How do you write a brief that gets useful proposals?

Write a one-page brief that answers the six points below, because agencies can only price and plan well if the brief is specific, and a clear brief saves weeks of back and forth.

• Product and stage: what you offer, who it is for and whether this is a launch, a new market or growth in an existing one.
• Markets and permissions: each target country and the licence, registration or approval you hold there.
• Goal and metric: for example funded accounts in two markets at a target cost, with retention tracked at 90 days.
• Budget range and term: media spend and fees separately, and the length of the first engagement.
• Existing assets: tracking set-up, ad accounts, community channels and any partners already in place.
• Compliance process: who signs off creative internally and how long that takes.

Send the same brief to every agency you consider. Then the proposals are comparable, and the way each one handles the markets and compliance sections tells you more than any credentials deck.

How do you judge an agency after hiring it?

Judge the agency against written targets. Use your own data and your own compliance checks, so that the agency is never the only one grading its own work.

• Agree targets in writing: cost per funded account, KYC pass rate and retention by channel.
• Get access to the raw ad account and tracking data as well as the monthly slides.
• Review every creative against your compliance checklist before it runs.
• Run a 60 to 90 day pilot with clear exit terms before committing to a long retainer.

Where Memento fits alongside an agency

Memento Media Network is a media partner. It runs crypto, broker and trading platform comparisons, reviews, financial media and trading competitions in more than ten languages. Partnerships are disclosed, we document how we collect and verify data, and partners see campaign results in a live dashboard. A crypto marketing agency or an in-house team can use it as one placement in a wider plan.

For the rules your agency must work within, read crypto advertising regulations, and to talk about reaching traders at the comparison stage, contact us.