The rise of online performance marketing has been a revelation for the advertisement industry, but it's far from perfect. Campaigns frequently suffer from ROI-impacting problems like click fraud and severely delayed payments. CROMhub is a blockchain-based solution that eliminates those issues by enabling instant, transparent, and secure transactions via the Ethereum blockchain.

How Does CROMHub Work?

CROMhub uses tokens (CROM) to allow for seamless tracking of a wide range of digital advertising events and the accompanying payments for those events via a smart contract. In the current ecosystem, negotiating payments is a lengthy process that involves a long series of communication steps between advertisers, intermediaries, and publishers, and it often culminates with bank transfers that can take weeks to reach their destinations, reducing liquidity for all of the involved parties.

CROMhub's system essentially cuts out a lot of the steps of this process and vastly speeds the transfer of funds by arranging projects via a transparent, secure smart contract and optionally moving money in the form of the CROM token, which transfers faster and has lower fees than a traditional bank wire. Instead of spending weeks or months waiting on a back-and-forth process that will end in 3%-6% losses in transfer fees, CROM's system allows for the resolution of marketing transactions in minutes with fees of 1%-3%.

The CROMhub system is designed with businesses in mind, so it will use APIs to integrate seamlessly with existing advertising and management systems. And from an advertiser's perspective, there are obvious advantages. Advertisers will pre-pay for campaigns, locking up their funds in a CROMhub smart contract. That eliminates the possibility of extra sales causing budget overages, and in the event of fraud on the part of a publisher, the advertiser can recall their funds. If all goes well, the funds are transferred instantly via the blockchain upon completion of the campaign.

Networks and publishers also benefit from the CROMhub system, mostly in the form of its faster, cheaper transactions increasing liquidity and eliminating the need to offer credit, in addition to offering increased transparency and security. CROM token holders, even if they're not involved at any point in the marketing chain, can still benefit by trading the tokens on exchanges. CROM ownership confers benefits to parties in the marketing chain on CROMhub's system, so demand for the token is likely to be high.

The Current Token Sale

As of this writing, much of CROMhub's vision has yet to be realized – the startup is currently engaged in its ICO, which will conclude on December 15, 2017. There will be a fixed supply of 10 million CROM ERC20 tokens; 2 million have already been distributed to pre-ICO investors, and 4 million are available during the ICO period. The token is priced at 0.1 ETH (about $44 as of this writing), and sales will continue until the 15th or until they hit the 6 million CROM hard cap.

CROMhub says it plans to make the token available for trading on exchanges within a few weeks of the ICO concluding. Then the company will buckle down and focus on building the tech with the funds it raised, aiming to release its first fully-functional product in Q3 2018.

CROMhub's Prospects

With any still-to-be-realized blockchain project, a lot rides on the quality of the team. Thankfully, CROMhub's founding team is well-credentialed, with decades of marketing and entrepreneurial experience between them. The company's tech team is similarly experienced, and the startup is also being advised by industry experts including Silicon Valley investor and former AdMob VP Niren Hiro.

CROMhub isn't without competitors in the blockchain marketing space – AdEx, adToken, Adshares, QChain, Basic Attention Token, etc. – but the CROMhub team believes that while many of these projects have merit, they don't address the same problems as CROMhub and thus aren't likely to be obstacles to CROMhub's success. CROMhub's laser-like focus on becoming a clearinghouse for settlement and tracking in the digital marketing industry make it a front-runner for what it estimates is a $6.8 billion market.