Bitcoin IRA

Overview

Bitcoin IRA let investors hold cryptocurrency inside retirement accounts, at a time when most of them were still learning what Bitcoin was. I built and led its demand generation, first as a consultant and then as Director of Demand Generation from January 2017 to April 2018. From May to December 2017, 2,067 investors placed $117.9M in orders, peaking at $26.7M in December.

Bitcoin IRA was not a Reg CF, Reg A+, or Reg D offering, so this page reports investment volume rather than capital raised. The marketing problem is one a raise shares: an unfamiliar financial product, investors who need education before they act, and a sales team that depends on the quality of its leads.

The challenge

A new category with no playbook

Bitcoin IRA had a first-mover product, but the market was early. Mainstream retirement investors needed education, reassurance, and repeated exposure before they would consider moving retirement funds into digital assets. Clicks alone would not do it: investors had to understand the product, trust the company, and believe crypto could belong in a retirement strategy.

The company also needed enough qualified leads to feed a growing sales team, without spend outrunning what that team could call, qualify, and close.

Goals and scope

The playbook

The demand engine I built

1. 01

   Repositioned the brand and website for a mainstream audience

   I started as a consultant on brand, the website, and paid media. The redesign made the product easier to understand for a mainstream retirement audience and supported the initial market launch. As channel performance accelerated, the work grew into full-time ownership of lead generation in January 2017.

2. 02

   Captured high-intent search demand

   I targeted searches around Bitcoin IRAs, crypto retirement, and 401(k) rollovers, refined negative keyword lists, and connected Search, Display, YouTube, and Gmail campaigns. Custom tracking tied paid media to Salesforce, so campaigns were judged on funded retirement accounts rather than clicks. Google Search ($17.1M) and Google Display ($16.3M) were the two largest tagged sources of investment volume from May to December 2017.

   Forbes's coverage of Bitcoin IRA credited its Google advertising. See Press.

   

3. 03

   Tested channels widely and moved budget to what funded

   Beyond Google, I ran Bing, Yahoo Gemini, Facebook, Twitter, Quora, native placements, retargeting, ad networks, direct publisher deals, and a radio test, reaching both mainstream finance and crypto-native audiences. Performance by channel, platform, and source showed where funded accounts came from, and budget moved there.

   Monthly ad spend grew from $200K in September 2017 to a peak of $839K in January 2018, 4.2 times in four months. Actual ad spend from July 2017 to May 2018 was $5.26M.

4. 04

   Launched the affiliate and partner program

   I launched the affiliate marketing department and built relationships across 100+ media, influencer, crypto, and financial-services sources, including direct publisher deals with CoinDesk and Investing.com. Partners gave an unfamiliar product reach and credibility. The channel brought in $4.07M in verified investment volume from May to December 2017, then $2.63M in February 2018 alone, 23% of that month's purchases.

5. 05

   Built and tested the landing pages

   I created landing pages for crypto retirement investors and refined them with heatmaps, click tracking, page testing, and funnel analysis. The messaging mattered as much as the layout: the product had to make sense to a mainstream audience, and each page change was tied back to lead volume and sales capacity.

6. 06

   Worked the sales floor and set lead allocation

   I sat with the sales team to see whether new leads were contactable, qualified, and ready for an advisor conversation, then used that feedback to change campaigns and follow-up. I also built a lead-scoring and allocation engine and set the allocation myself, matching leads to each person's capacity and conversion performance instead of routing every inquiry equally. That lead flow supported 23 to 29 closing agents.

Press

Forbes on Bitcoin IRA

Key moves

What changed

1. A brand and website rebuilt for a mainstream retirement audience
2. Search, display, and retargeting tracked through Salesforce to funded accounts
3. Budget moved by channel, platform, and source as funded accounts came in
4. An affiliate program across 100+ media, influencer, crypto, and financial-services sources
5. Landing pages refined with heatmaps, click tracking, and testing
6. Lead allocation matched to each closer's capacity and performance

Results

The numbers

Each figure comes from my reconciliation of Bitcoin IRA's order data, CRM lead export, and marketing budget.

• $34 to $43

  Investment volume per $1 of ad spend

  August to December 2017, blended across all sources

• 26%

  Investors who reinvested

  May to December 2017, bringing in 48% of volume

• $11.35M

  New and reload purchases in one month

  February 2018, a falling market, 15.3× ad spend

• $4.07M

  Partner channel investment volume

  May to December 2017

• 1.9%

  Unique leads who became investors

  80,165 leads, 1,511 investors, July 2016 to November 2017

• 23 to 29

  Closing agents supported

  2017 through February 2018

Results in detail

What the numbers mean

The $117.9M is gross order volume from May to December 2017: what investors paid, including Bitcoin IRA's fees. It is not revenue. Of those orders, 268 worth $11.95M carried a fee of 5% or less, the same flat fee charged on buybacks in February 2018, so the conservative purchase figure is $105.9M+.

Bitcoin's price rose from about $4K to about $19K over the same period, and September to December made up 72% of the eight-month total. The market helped, and this page does not separate its effect from the marketing's.

The $34 to $43 per $1 of ad spend is blended: all sales divided by all ad spend. Spend is recorded when it was paid, not when the ads ran, so the figure is a range. 37% of the volume has no source tag, so each channel's figure understates its real contribution.

February 2018 was a falling market. Investors made $11.35M in new and reload purchases against $744K in ad spend. A further $9.54M in buybacks that month is counted separately.

Across my full tenure (January 2017 to April 2018), Bitcoin IRA took in at least $117M in investor purchases from 2,300+ investors, counting only the months with order data (May to December 2017 and February 2018, buybacks excluded). No order data exists for January to April 2017 or January, March and April 2018, so this is a floor, not a total. The paid media and partner channels I ran were directly tagged to $43.5M from 770 investors from May to December 2017; 37% of volume had no source tag.

Timeline

From consultant to Director of Demand Generation

1. About October 2016

   I began consulting on the brand, website, and paid media.

2. January 2017

   I joined full-time and took over lead generation.

3. May to December 2017

   2,067 investors placed $117.9M in orders.

4. December 2017

   The peak month: $26.7M in investment volume.

5. January 2018

   Monthly ad spend peaked at $839K, up from $200K in September.

6. February 2018

   $11.35M in new and reload purchases in a falling market.

7. April 2018

   My role as Director of Demand Generation ended.

Key learnings

Learning Experiences

1. Education is part of acquisition. Investors have to understand an unfamiliar product and trust the company before an ad can do its job.
2. Measure to funded accounts, not leads. Budget should follow what funds.
3. Partners lend credibility where trust is the hurdle. Publishers and influencers reached investors that paid search could not.
4. Marketing and sales run on the same lead flow. Time on the sales floor changed what I bought and who received which leads.