Damus
Mike Rama profile picture
Mike Rama
@mikerama
I spent another 100,000 sats on a zap-vertising experiment…

And I think I proved that advertising on Nostr actually works…

Here’s:
1️⃣ What I did
2️⃣ The results
3️⃣ What I learned


1️⃣ What I did:

I sent 4105 zaps over the course of 3 days for a total of 112,000 sats.

Each zap contained a link for a blog post:
zapvertising-experiment.carrd.co

My goal was to see if I could get a reasonable cost per click (CPC)…


2️⃣ The results:

During the campaign I had a total of 71 unique visitors to the page.

CPC was 1578 sats or $1.50 usd.

I also gained 245 followers from that campaign.

These CPCs are in line with other ad platforms which validates the overall concept for me.

3️⃣ What I learned / brain dump:

- Results were better than expected.

- I thought there might have been a bit of negative push back (however none received).

- There is a chance I am significantly underreporting and google analytics isn't picking everything up (surprised to see 3-4x the number of new followers vs. clicks 🤔)

- THERE IS SOMETHING HERE. I still don’t know exactly what the model looks like, how it scales, but there is something to be uncovered.

- Right now, this can’t be done at scale… in the future it could. I spent ~$100 and it took me multiple days. In the future there will be ways to allocate +$10,000 per day here. For context of where we are at right now, Nostr daily zap totals are around 750,000 sats - about $675 - see stats.nostr.band/ for that data)

- Something feels off with the format… simply paying someone and sending them a link… The p2p model feels right, but the format feels off.

More to come 🫡

Let me know your thoughts 👇

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Jake Woodhouse · 58w
Love this type of learning in the open Thanks for sharing The thing I like most: the tailwind for all business idea iteration on Nostr. We know the future means more traffic, value, users, usability etc. So building & investing is so bloody exciting
Jay · 58w
If proper, personal algo feeds are developed, then users may open up some avenue to accept zaps to boost your advertising up in those feeds. Could be interesting.
crimsonleaf363 · 58w
I'm a fan. Zap me and I'll check out your products or services. nostr:npub1jg552aulj07skd6e7y2hu0vl5g8nl5jvfw8jhn6jpjk0vjd0waksvl6n8n sent me a good zap recently.
nostrich · 58w
Interesting and thanks for sharing. More text in the memo could help, I didn't even realize it was a link before moving on.
Sheilfer · 58w
There's a number of new interactions or markets that open up with zaps, but like most things the first principles of good marketing, sales, education, or service need to be there. I played around with nostr as a feedback platform and it was pretty cool being able to receive developer feedback while...
Matt DeCelles · 58w
This is super interesting. You are definitely onto something!
Justin · 58w
Awesome. Thanks for sharing this. Hmm maybe I should try this to sell the wagyu beef I just had butchered.
Sh33plord · 58w
Im so weirded out by the idea of getting paid-to-watch ads. Now im wondering how many ads im watching for fun.
PlebShred · 58w
You’re right, format seems a little off. A lot of potential tho
Greeny · 58w
I like what you’re doing… Keep experimenting and thanks for sharing…. 💟
Jeroen Ubbink · 58w
Nice experiment. I was one of the few receiving some sats on 2 of my notes. When i saw it looked like spam or advertising i automatically didn't click. I think people here are also caught off-guard as apart from some spam zaps people have probably never received advertising through nostr, so it's i...
whatever · 58w
Sounds great
Danny, the cyber guy · 58w
I don't know how to feel about this to be honest. On one hand I think that this is fascinating, on the other I just don't engage with ads and use adblockers on all my devices, including DNS based ad blocking, so I personally just ignore ads. And I'm not sure if being paid to be subjected to ads is a...
Matheus · 58w
I just finished a book that will be published for free. I will try some similar approach for Nostr people to repost and/or visit the site to download! Thanks for the experiment!
aljaz · 58w
I'd say that given the nostr crowd probably skews much more towards technical on average the amount of adblockers and other privacy extensions that would taint your results is above average so the results might actually better than that
Fascinating · 57w
Your experiment is a pioneering step for monetization on Nostr. It's encouraging to see innovation around zaps—beyond their original intent—and highlights the platform's unique potential. Keep sharing your insights!
Dr. Cassone · 57w
Zapping a web address is intriguing. Lots of use cases I never thought of before.
Adam · 57w
Zaps are a proven way to get my attention, but I wonder if I would eventually tune them out if everyone started doing it (thousands of zap ads per day would be overwhelming, much like current ads). I would probably only pay attention to the ads with a lots of sats, as that tells me the seller has sk...
Justin · 57w
Great info and interesting experiment! You just got another follower and a zap for the quality post! 🧡
Rajesh · 57w
I think as the Nostr network grows, you’ll get even better CPC.
Cameri🐦‍🔥 · 57w
nostr:npub16c0nh3dnadzqpm76uctf5hqhe2lny344zsmpm6feee9p5rdxaa9q586nvr could you please show links on zaps on Primal? 🙏
deleted · 57w
Do you happen to have an idea of legacy costs for clicks?
Horszt · 57w
I love your little Investigation and all those updates 💜
EchDel · 57w
I received two of those zapvertisements and it was lost on me. Only realised what you were doing now after seeing this note boosted by someone I follow. I also only follow my followers because I believe that it would give me a more diversified feed and less curated set of opinions protecting me fro...
Evelin · 57w
You didn't take the nostr:npub1qqqqqqyz0la2jjl752yv8h7wgs3v098mh9nztd4nr6gynaef6uqqt0n47m factor into account in your calculation. If I hadn't read his answers, I wouldn't have clicked on your link.
Ken Berry, MD · 57w
Very interesting! Have you posted a tutorial on exactly how you did this?
DJ Valerie B LOVE🩷 · 57w
So Mike - did you send the Zaps unannounced with the links (cold zapping?) or did the folks already know you and you said (I will zap you x for reposting the link? warm zapping) Thx☮️
TinoLibertario · 55w
Great experiment! I wouldn't have fallen for the idea of inserting a link as an advertisement for a website. Good job! 👏 👏
Tomek ⚡ K · 52w
Thanks for that report! What tools did you use?