Value-based marketing in the bounty system

[casparlusink]

EDIT: I trimmed the proposal and left the technical details in a separate doc.

As discussed in #695 and #775, by @philipandri002, @pmoorman, @kcdc, @David405, @deannald and others (please add), RChain marketing is trying to be value-based, but struggling to get there. I created a new issue to propose a solution to this.

Benefit to RChain

1. By setting up analytics and value assignment of leads, RChain marketing efforts can become measurable, and the bounty system becomes more fair, transparent and less prone to abuse.

2. Incentivizing community members to bring in new valuable people, increases the growth of RChain as a whole.

Proposal

To turn RChain marketing into a value-based measurable process, there is a need to:

1. Setup analytics tool to enable measuring marketing efforts
   A tool like Mixpanel or Kissmetrics can anonymously log new visitors anonymously and remember their origin. This way we can measure the activity of visitors and improve the website/other channels for better performance.

To measure the value of these visitors/new members, the analytics needs a privacy-sensitive integration with the onboarding/KYC process:

2. A validation process during KYC, integrated with the analytics tool
   During KYC, the payment etc. can be validated and the role of the new member can be evaluated. The KYC validators can then provide (a summary of) this information and couple it with the anonymized origin in the tool.

3. Marketing should define the value of these anonymized members and aggregate that data to improve their efforts
   The data will be anonymous, but aggregately be able to show useful insights in the problems/opportunities with/for RChain marketing. This will be improved by attributing an estimate of value to new members. To attain a measurable value to every member summary, we could make use of predefined values: as proposed by @pmoorman in issue 775

4. Possible future improvements on this system could be to assign members affiliate links to incentivize valuable member acquisition.
   With the predetermined value of new members, this can easily be turned into a well-functioning marketing channel. For more info on how this would look, check the Technical Plan.

Here a schematic illustration of the entire process:

Action plan

• Setup analytics tool account for RChain

• Integrate analytics tool with website

  • Tool snippet in website code

  • Tool set up UTM integration

  • Set up anonimized profile saving

  • Add hidden alibi field to member sign up (for KYC)

• Give KYC validators access and instructions on how to couple data with tool

  • Add 'value summary' to KYC process

• Marketing data analysis organization

  • Value table evaluation and finalization

• Assign UTM codes to different channels

[owans]

Very elaborate and beneficial for the co-op in the long term.

[philipandri002]

@casparlusink, I agree this is a more detailed expressions. @dckc maybe you should take a look now and see were you can be of help.

[pmoorman]

@casparlusink @philipandri002 I have put this on the agenda for the TAC (= label guides committee, #925) which will meet later today.

[pmoorman]

Update regarding the TAC call: this topic wasn't addressed on the call, but I discussed it briefly with @dckc afterwards.

Contrary to my understanding, there isn't any policy in the coop that would impair on the suggested approach (I have updated my #219 comment to reflect the new insight). Given that situation, this topic is just a marketing-only problem, and something we should be able to solve within marketing.

@casparlusink @philipandri002
My suggestion would be that you go ahead and contact the relevant people that can help us implement tracking as needed.

Those people are:

• Kevin & Craig from the marketing org. Kevin is responsible for the website work, and Craig is doing development on it. There is a public repository here, where the website code lives. I can also put you in touch with Kevin (send me a DM).

• We would need to figure out who's responsible for the KYC process (Ian, I think), and how we could best tap into that. For that to be successful, provide an precise description of what's exactly needed from them, keeping privacy concerns in mind.

• Finally, it's probably a good idea to include Ankur & Patrick on this topic, so they're aware of what's going on. I think @kitblake would be the best liaison, since he's a bounty system marketing guide, too.

• There might be other areas to consider, but that's your call. This is just the first stuff that comes to mind.