RunCPA, the largest affiliate marketing network in the cryptocurrency market, has announced a competition to find the best decentralized app on the Ethereum platform, which will be integrated with the RunCPA network. The prize is a $250,000/year job offer and shares in the company.

Competition

Cointelegraph spoke to Adam Guerbuez, chief marketing officer at RunCPA, who said of the competition:

“We are holding a competition to carefully select a developer of the most creative and useful D-app [decentralized app] based on the Ethereum platform that would integrate with the RunCPA platform… [The winner] will receive a very exclusive job offer that carries a salary of $250.000/year plus shares in RunCPA. This offer is open until June, 1, 2016.”

The competition isn’t open just yet, but Matt Williams, COO at RunCPA, says, “we are preparing to start this competition soon (May-June 2016). We want to get more feedback from developers and if they are ready to take part in this competition we ask them to inform us about this at [email protected]”

David Mondrus, CEO of BlockChainFactory.com, says:

"The RunCPA Competition offers a unique opportunity for a savvy Ethereum developer to show their stuff. Figuring out a CPA business model to run on their network also sounds like an interesting challenge. I like win/win's."

RunCPA

Alongside this, the company says it is working with the Ethereum community and other smart contract providers. They are hoping to develop a decentralized CPA network based on the Emercoin algorithm, emcLNX, a peer-to-peer text-advertisement network based on a per-click payment model.

RunCPA sets itself apart from its competitors through its use of a smart AI system humorously named ‘Skynet’ that closely monitors all traffic and conversions sent from their affiliate marketers. The company claims that this allows them to block 95% of fraudulent, low quality, or abusive traffic. They hope to improve its machine learning skills in the future.

In addition, “the incentives to an affiliate marketer to promote the offers in our network outweigh the rewards they would normally be accustomed to if they promoted the same products and services through any other network or even direct with the provider.”

RunCPA is one of very few cryptocurrency-related marketing networks in the industry, and one of even fewer in the affiliate marketing sector. The cost-per-action (CPA) model employed by the company, although not innovative in the marketing industry, is brand new to the cryptocurrency industry. The hope is that it will prove cost-effective for marketing-illiterate developers, and that as more marketing agencies spring up, competition will lead to better quality products and greater innovation for developers.

Cryptocurrency CPA market

Although integration between the cryptocurrency industry and the marketing industry is lagging slightly in that marketing for and marketing using cryptocurrencies is somewhat few and far between, there are still some venturing into the new sector.

CoinAd, Mellow Ads, AdBit, and CoinURL are some of those available to developers, all with varying degrees of customizability, cost-effectiveness, and traffic. CoinAd specializes in banner ads, while Mellow Ads is similar to RunCPA in its pay-per-click payment model. AdBit offers an interesting bidding system to publishers whereby they bid against one another for ad space on websites. CoinURL has a focus on anonymity, and allows both traffic owners and publishers to receive payment anonymously, while payments for the service can be made in Bitcoin and Peercoin. Various factors in your advertising campaign can also be changed to filter out unwanted visitors.

The lack of of companies in the industry is probably down to the current semi-niche nature of cryptocurrencies and the backgrounds of those in the industry, in addition to cryptocurrencies being decentralized. There is no direct body to increase adoption and make cryptocurrencies more understandable and accessible to the masses, so many people haven’t even heard of them. Furthermore, since a good deal of startups in the industry are founded by people who are fundamentally developers, many have little to no marketing experience, and as such do not understand its importance.