B2B vs B2C Marketing Funnels in Crypto: What Actually Changes?
If you’ve done user growth in the crypto space, you already know the same funnel won’t work for every audience.
Retail users and builders don’t behave the same way.
Neither should your funnel.
Let’s look at how B2B and B2C funnels differ when applied to crypto, and how your go-to-market strategy needs to shift depending on who you’re targeting.
What B2B Looks Like
B2B in this space means you’re selling to projects, protocols, dev teams, foundations, or DAOs.
You’re not driving a mint or a token buy. You’re offering tooling, infra, security, analytics, or BD services.
The funnel usually looks like this:
- Start with education: explain the value, not just the product
- Collect leads through forms or gated content (whitepapers, demo requests)
- Follow up with calls, onboarding docs, and 1:1 support
- Longer decision cycles, often 3 to 6 weeks
- Buyers need technical clarity and business justification
I have studied the strategy of various staking dapps on Metis. For example, when they reached out to LST protocols, the first message didn’t sell staking. It offered a solution to a reward distribution problem they were already facing. That opened the door.
What B2C Looks Like
B2C means you’re targeting users, traders, stakers, or collectors.
You want them to mint, stake, bridge, swap, or explore your dApp.
This funnel is fast and attention-driven:
- Drive traffic through social posts, memes, short videos
- Use simple CTAs and clean landing pages
- Incentivise actions with points, rewards, or onchain benefits
- Use retargeting and referrals to keep them in the loop
- Optimise for conversions, not conversations
Retail won’t book a call. They’ll leave if your page takes more than 4 seconds to load.
Key Differences That Matter
- Timeline: B2B is long. B2C is instant.
- Content: B2B wants depth. B2C wants clarity.
- Channels: B2B lives on X DMs, Telegram, and calls. B2C lives on social and referral loops.
- Success metric: B2B = conversion to partner. B2C = conversion to user.
Crypto-Specific Twist
Unlike Web2, most crypto projects blur the line between user and contributor. A retail staker today might be a governance voter tomorrow. So your funnel needs to adapt as user roles shift.
Have you ever had a campaign flop because you applied a B2C funnel to a B2B target?
Or tried to sell to retail using enterprise-style copy?
Would love to hear how you’re structuring your funnels depending on the audience. What’s worked for you? What hasn’t?
Drop examples, feedback, or questions. Let’s break this down together.