Web3 Marketing Insider: Is Kaito More Effective Than Traditional KOLs?

Written by: Stacy Muur

Compiled by: Luffy, Foresight News

I recently conducted an in-depth study on KOL marketing and spoke with some of the most renowned Web3 marketing agencies that carry out marketing campaigns for major crypto protocols such as Mantle, Sonic Labs, Aptos, and Solv Protocol.

What is the goal?

My research aims to uncover the operational mechanisms of these institutions and their core KOL list.

What are the criteria for selecting KOLs?

How large is their user base?

How do they assess audience quality?

How are tools like Kaito and Cookie DAO reshaping the KOL game in Web3?

Whether you are a KOL looking to join a top-tier institutional network or a Web3 team preparing for your next event, this is a must-read.

Let's take a look at some data.

KOL network scale

42.9% of institutions have more than 1,000 KOL accounts

35.7% of institutions have 500–1,000 KOL accounts

Nearly 50% of institutions rely on only 50-100 core active KOLs for most activities.

Only 10% of institutions actively collaborate with over 250 KOLs.

What are the core criteria when selecting a KOL?

Number of fans? Importance average → 2.93/5

The exposure of each post and "smart fans"? More valued → 4.1/5

Content quality, research ability, and past experience? Key indicators → 4.7/5

All institutions will check whether the account has fake engagement, and more than half use tools like Kaito and Cookie3 to filter and evaluate KOLs.

What should a Web3 team collaborating with KOLs pay attention to?

In fact, Web3 marketing is severely limited in terms of tools.

X advertising performance is poor. Many users have Premium membership (no ads), and those who are not subscribed are usually not your ideal customers.

Google Ads faces regulatory hurdles, making it difficult for many projects to be legally launched in core regions.

Media reports? They are beneficial for trust/reputation, but have no effect on actual user acquisition.

So, what is left?

KOL, as well as Kaito and Cookie driven advertising campaigns.

Taking the event initiated by Spark on Cookie as an example: 13,400 X accounts participated, most of which are micro KOLs with fewer than 1,000 fans. This is the real innovation — these accounts are too small to be suitable for traditional paid promotion activities.

So... is this model better than traditional KOL marketing? There is controversy here.

There are also some problems with micro KOLs:

They often form echo chambers of attention, mutually following and forwarding → the audience overlap is severe. In smaller verticals, this behavior helps the dissemination of quality content. But in high-frequency farming activities (e.g., yaps/snaps), it leads to overexposure, and users start to lose interest.

Nevertheless, Kaito and Cookie did provide entry opportunities for small accounts, making the ambassador program more decentralized and easier to manage.

Is the decentralization of marketing important, or is efficiency more important? This is also a matter of debate.

Let's not forget the recent case of Loud!: Chattering ≠ Strategy. Mind share ≠ Influence.

Traditional KOL marketing also has its flaws.

The harsh reality is: if your product lacks selling points, you will need to pay more. KOLs are just channels of expression - some are loud, some are humorous, and some are professional, but they are certainly not miracle makers.

Now, if your product is indeed attractive, then a new question will arise:

There is a serious shortage of KOLs that meet the following criteria:

Having a natural traffic audience

Understanding the technical principles

Can create resonant content

Accept sponsorship cooperation

Many top KOLs do not accept paid posts. They either invest privately or charge five figures for a single tweet. This is why nearly 50% of institutions only collaborate deeply with 50-100 KOLs out of over 1000 accounts, and 85% of paid KOLs produce zero effective results.

So, how does KOL marketing actually work?

Long-term repeated posting → more trust, more recognition, better conversion

KOL cross-interaction → Require them to reference each other's viewpoints instead of just forwarding brand announcements.

Natural dissemination > Hard promotion → The community can sniff out hard ads, giving KOLs the freedom to express their thoughts authentically.

Don’t buy ads, buy reviews → Real reviews are better than banner ads.

Jump out of X platform → Telegram, Substack = lower noise, higher retention rate

My views on the future of Web3 marketing

Kaito and Cookie have introduced micro KOLs into the mind share game, providing marketers with a new experimental mechanism. Will this become an effective marketing leverage, or will it turn into more noise? It remains to be seen.

KOL marketing will not disappear, but it requires authentic voices, not accounts that shout for pay 24/7.

Lastly, I want to say: why are people still obsessed with platform X? If you really want to achieve growth, don't ignore Telegram and Substack.