How Web3 APIs Bridge the Gap with Web2 Infrastructures
It's an exciting time for brands and consumers as web3 changes the digital experience. During this transition, brands need a game plan so that every piece falls in place.
But you can't just flip a switch to web3.
Web3 APIs are the key to bridging the gap between web2 and web3. They equip brands to leverage new web3 technologies and connect them to existing web2 infrastructure. Over time, brands can scale their transition based on innovation, customer needs, and adoption.
Together, we'll define what web3 APIs are and what makes them different, the types of data to expect, and some challenges you should consider.
What is a web3 API?
An API, or application programming interface, is a set of protocols that allow two or more software platforms to "talk" to each other. A web3 API is the same thing but with the added power to also “talk” to the blockchain simultaneously.
APIs in web2 vs. web3
APIs in web2 involved independent apps working together for the user's benefit.
For example, one of the most popular APIs you use today is when you log in to a store or website using your Google, Facebook, or similar credentials. That website uses your email or social account's API to verify your account and log you in.
Users enjoy these APIs because of their convenience. Instead of someone dealing with a dozen different accounts, they can just log in with their Gmail or Apple ID.
Web2 APIs are all over the internet, like how a CRM might connect with a third-party online shop or email marketing platform. And while these benefits have helped create a smooth universal web experience, they have yet to carry users over to web3.
The difference is the blockchain
Web3 APIs allow brands to build physical and digital touchpoints that “talk” to each other using the blockchain as the data reference point instead of a centralized integration service.
This makes any two services “interoperable” without any work on an integration: They're simply reading and writing data according to the same protocol.
For example, if you drop an NFT (a digital, ownable asset) collection, your customers can purchase the digital artwork. If they want to feature their ownership on another app, that app can connect to the blockchain for verification (which was initially established with your marketplace).
In 2022, Twitter (now X) launched the NFT profile picture feature. Users could connect their wallets through Twitter (a web3 API feature), which proved blockchain ownership.
Web3 APIs help eliminate go-betweens by directly connecting the user's app to blockchain communications. This creates a smoother experience that supports web3's passionate base, valuing ownership, privacy, and direct access to resources.
Blockchain's accuracy and real-time public data prevent many security and fraud risks in traditional web2 settings. Though not immune to scams and fraud, it provides a better alternative to web2. Partnering with Mojito gives you a secure, fast, and user-friendly web3 experience.
Data you can query with a web3 API
Why should web3 APIs matter for a large brand? And what would that look like?
If brands want to evolve with their customers, they must embrace web3. A modern web3 API system equips brands to leverage the complex actions required in the web3 ecosystem. There's much to account for between blockchain activities, smart contracts, and other moving pieces.
Fortunately, brands can use their existing web2 infrastructure combined with platforms like Mojito to meet web3 needs—particularly the ability to collect missing data.
For example, companies should consider the following realities:
1. Brands are running out of data
It's getting harder for brands to access the data they need from their customers. Consider legacy methods like email open rates, social media engagement, and more. Big Tech is limiting the data brands have access to, like how Apple has made it more difficult for tools like Google Analytics to get data from Safari.
As data restrictions continue to trend, brands will only have a fragmented version of the analytics they now use.
As a result, companies need to find a way to control their process to gather necessary data without depending on the few in charge.
2. Customers are interacting elsewhere
Thanks to the rise of virtual experiences, hybrid events, digital ownership, and other online innovations, customers continually demand web3 solutions. And they will hang out in the web3 ecosystem whether their preferred brands have jumped in or not. As they interact and engage on the web, they share valuable data for brands.
Companies can utilize web3 to understand their customer behavior online and track how those customers interact with the brand.
Brands can use web3 API technologies to connect onchain experiences like assessing interest in community memberships or tracking attendance and purchasing behavior at events.
3. Brands can get back to the big picture
Both of these points bring us to the whole picture. Web3 APIs unite offchain and onchain experiences to create a complete (and more accurate) picture of customers.
"Web3 wallets are the new cookies…" — Salesforce SVP Marc Mathieu
Brands can track movement in the web3 ecosystem and what's happening in traditional online settings. Mojito creates a seamless experience with the CRM and tools you already use. Data doesn't have to be fragmented and can instead become a pillar to grow sales, increase customer engagement, and build a thriving, loyal community.
When brands integrate web3 APIs with their existing stack, they can expect many types of onchain and offchain data. We've seen that the most impactful method to utilize different types of data is through Mojito's Dynamic NFTs.
Dynamic NFTs
While NFTs are digital assets recorded on the blockchain, Dynamic NFTs help create a living experience rich in data.
NFTs hold "metadata" and can reference nearly unlimited content, code, and raw data. When consumers connect their wallets to websites or apps, the brand can learn what assets they own and analyze the metadata.
In most cases, NFT creators would freeze this data after minting it. This was partly because creators and brands wanted to ensure that these non-fungible products would never change.
And that was reasonable, considering that when you buy a pair of white shoes, you don't expect them to turn bright pink in the morning. People want to know the long-term value of what they buy.
But finally, the Dynamic experience has changed how we can leverage the metadata.
What if the value was the change? Creators began experimenting with the idea that art can change over time and even get influenced by internet activity. It created an entirely new digital class of assets and a living, intimate art experience. For brands, it’s an entirely new way to understand customers.
One of the most famous examples of this experimentation is Bitcoin Volatility Art by Matt Kane, which changes daily based on the past 24 hours of Bitcoin trading activity.
What does this mean for brands and data?
Brands can write data onchain from one touchpoint service (like checking into an event) that is legible through another (like an eCommerce store). They can utilize trigger events to capture touchpoints onchain. As a result, companies can unite data collection with remarkable customer experiences to identify invaluable insights.
Companies can get ahead right away:
Loyalty program benefits
Brands can create an onchain loyalty point program. Every time a customer interacts with your brand through a purchase, event, or membership community, their NFT metadata gets updated. They can redeem their points for rewards and benefits. Meanwhile, brands get a 4k picture of their customers' behavior.
Membership experiences
Brands can offer incredible membership opportunities while collecting critical data. For example, they can sell an NFT digital pass that gives customers access to events. With the living metadata, they can maintain full access with a paid subscription. They can retain limited access if it expires and keep the asset as a digital owner.
Brands combine this dynamic experience with token-gating, which validates access to events, rewards, or opportunities with verified NFT owners.
Exciting engagement
Mojito's web3 API technologies involving Dynamic NFTs allow customers to interact in physical settings with digital rewards and ecosystems.
Imagine a brand holding an event with a contest to find hidden rewards. NFT owners can scan their findings in NFC-enabled places that connect them to their new win. The metadata can change based on time restraints, locations, winners, and more. The players' NFT metadata gets updated for an immersive community experience.
This is a massive opportunity for brands to identify their most passionate customers. Brands can also assess loyalty and how customers react to different campaigns.
These are only a few use cases, customer benefits, and brand opportunities you can capture with different data types. Mojito can unite and enhance your data so you can make better decisions and enhance the customer experience.
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Bridging web2 and web3: Integrating web3 APIs with traditional infrastructure
Ultimately, brands need to find a solution that provides the necessary web2 and web3 integrations for a top customer experience.
Brands need web3 APIs to avoid fragmented experiences throughout the web and integrate them. Otherwise, juggling a hundred different web3 factors and functions while doing the same for web2—and integrating all of them—leaves room for errors.
Your systems would struggle to talk to each other. And worse, your customers will hit a brick wall full of frustration and bad experiences.
That's why partnering with an enterprise web3 API solution like Mojito can facilitate this—a white-label platform will make all the difference for your brand. You can launch successful NFT drops and jump into web3 with your loyal customers. Mojito integrates web3 onchain activities with web2 offchain experiences thanks to our robust platform stack.
From digital to on-the-field customer experiences
Web3 and web2 need to work together to nurture sustainable scalability. It’s necessary as the internet evolves and serves as a bridge to get customers involved who have never used web3.
Mojito successfully introduced web3 when we built the infrastructure for the Tampa Bay Rowdies’ NFT drop.
The NFT is called the Rowdies Digital Pass. Owners join a unique membership community exclusive to season ticket holders. They use the pass and a QR code to receive gameday stadium discounts and perks.
Each digital pass has a unique owner onchain, identified by their wallet, which is the basis for creating interoperability between existing physical and digital touchpoints.
Not only has this been a successful launch for web3 users, but many Rowdies ticket holders have jumped into web3 for the first time.
As a result, 60% of season ticket holders claimed their digital passes, and 20% used them during the game for benefits. The team has received invaluable data and analytics from activity (like engagement, purchases during a game, and more). The remarkable experience and program has created a more passionate community that empowers its values for technology, experiences, and soccer.
Experiences like these are growing at a rapid pace. Brands and customers are excited about creating an intimate connection with each other linked to digital ownership and community experiences.
Security compliance with web3 APIs
Since many web3 APIs are connected to transactions, brands must work with platforms and APIs that keep security in mind.
Companies should partner with a marketplace and platform that upholds AML compliance, representing their ability to prevent fraud and security threats. Mojito, while AML compliant and a Merchant of Record, provides the necessary requirements to protect your brand and customers.
The platform should also have resilient protocols to confirm identities, oversee transactions, and minimize risks for customers. Security is pivotal to a web3 operation because web3 users hold trust, safety, and transparency as their ultimate priorities.
Reputable platforms not only handle everything you need for a successful web3 experience, but they also help protect you and your customers.
How Mojito helps brands securely & confidently utilize web3 APIs
If brands want to utilize web3 APIs, drop dynamic NFT collections, and build a platform that offers a user-friendly experience, they should consider Mojito.
Mojito is a high-end SaaS for luxury brands. It's an all-in-one web3 enterprise solution that scales with you and your customers. And it works with the tools you already use.
Mojito can help you lead the way and offer customers incredible opportunities to build community and participate in engagement experiences.
Those loyal customers will fuel brand growth, spread the word, and establish your company as part of web3’s future.
Mojito has it all:
- Diverse payment options for web2 and web3 (credit card and crypto)
- Digital wallets
- Compliance
- Authorized Merchant of Record
- Robust marketing stack built for customer loyalty
- Fast and secure eCommerce stack
- NFT marketplaces
- Immersive virtual experiences
- Powerful SDKs
- And more
Mojito can power your brand in web3, from NFT memberships with dynamic drops to exclusive brand rewards and events.
Cut down on the cost of switching providers—or How Web3 APIs Bridge the Gap With Web2 Infrastructures and managing different tech providers—to bring your vision to life. Mojito offers an all-in-one, white-label solution for any and all functionality you need.
Learn more today and try the demo to see how your brand can take advantage of web3.
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Adopting the Avatar: the Core of Consumer Customization
A brief playbook for brands building for the digitally-native generation.
According to McKinsey, fashion companies are expected to double their investment in technology by 2023. This statistic was one of many released during 2021's digital assets boom, revealing an important truth: consumers — and especially Gen Z — care deeply about owning their digital identities. In the two years since "NFT Summer," we've learned a lot about the evolution of consumer habits in digitally-native spaces. These insights can help guide the future of how brands operate and consumers engage in virtual environments.
As a short follow-up to our last blog post on how web3 is driving a return to the internet's golden age of customization, we're sharing some additional thoughts on how you can build for the next wave of consumer adoption. This evolution is already showing signs of incredible value for forward-thinking brands like Gucci, Valentino, L'Oréal, Adidas, Nike, and many more.
Web3 Returns the Internet to the Golden Age of Customization
This is what it feels like when the future enables what so many users loved most about the past.
MySpace, StumbleUpon, GeoCities, LiveJournal, Tumblr — the early internet thrived on user-driven, customizable experiences that, while rudimentary in design, clunky in function, and altogether useless for major brands (i.e., not monetizable or targettable), offered humans some of the earliest opportunities for representing themselves online.
Two decades later, across multiple transformational eras of the internet (more on this below), what can we learn from these now archaic — and predominantly extinct — platforms? To start, let's set the stage of the golden age of the web and the subsequent erosion of online customization that followed.
These early platforms referenced above were among the first to offer users a customizable digital sandbox that lacked the restrictions — and intrusive, expensive, increasingly ineffective advertising practices — that is now commonplace across tech. These were platforms on which people created, not platforms on which products were sold.
FAANG companies undoubtedly standardized the internet user experience. These companies built easier ways for people to create and disseminate information while creating the ability for the world's biggest brands to reach these new, content-craving audiences through new experiences and digitally-native business models. However, FAANG-style companies have also contributed to the flattening of the once-loved, now-nostalgic digital aesthetic, eliminating (or narrowing) users' ability to find customization online.
Example: go to StumbleUpon right now, and you'll just get dragged between identical Pinterest boards.
Implementing Web3 CRM: Wallets Are the New Email Address
How to Implement Web3 CRM for Consumers
Your customer relationship management system is your business's beating heart. It’s how you nurture customers, track vital information, and make strategic decisions.
Now that web3 has entered the fold, traditional CRMs can be augmented. So the question is this: Is your brand prepared for it? And what does the future look like?
Brands can expand upon their CRM data with wallets and token interactions to build loyalty in the changing digital economy.
If your CRM is the heart, what happens if it can't support your entire customer base along with their actions and interests? Consumers are adopting web3, and you want to be there from the start.
And with increasingly more limitations on what consumer data brands can collect, store, and use, along with apps and systems that don't talk to each other, brands miss out on data everywhere.
You need web3 CRM capability to connect wallets and token usage to your web2 data to accurately paint a picture of your customers.
Enhancing your CRM with web3, you can track and reward engagement across virtually any physical or digital touchpoint and connect it all in one place to analyze and manage.
Onboarding customers to create web3 wallets is the first step to getting started. The good news is that, with Mojito, the process is seamless for new users. They can set it up and manage it with an email address. In many ways, wallets have become the new email address, offering more benefits for customers and providing brands with the holistic data and CRM capabilities they need.
Mojito's web3 CRM collects and pulls all these moving pieces from different parts of the web together to create one remarkably effortless customer experience.
In this article, we’ll compare the differences between a web2 and web3 CRM, the benefits of using a web3 CRM, and how Mojito might be the right fit.
What’s the difference between web2 and web3 CRM?
The CRMs most brands use do not facilitate the needs that web3 has—the biggest one being connecting offchain and onchain data and creating an integrated portrait of customers across all physical and online interactions.
Web2 CRMs provide essential data and communication tools to manage emails, SMS lists, social media followers, eCommerce buyers, event attendees, and more.
But it's difficult to connect every data source you'd like to trigger into your web2 CRM, let alone add new data sources in web3.
Brands can instead use a web3 solution to augment their CRM by connecting data sources in a different way that brings everything together. Companies can create the most connected, data-rich CRM they've ever had.
Brands require CRM solutions to capture the entire customer data picture across both the internet and real-life experiences. In turn, they create a community-driven customer base, increase sales, and use their CRM for better connections, communication, and data.
Wallets are the new email addresses
It's no secret that brands are losing data through their traditional channels. Big Tech companies are reigning in how much data you have access to, like Apple limiting cookies, and how brands now get an incomplete picture of their customers.
Additionally, as customers interact with web3, your brand is in the dark until you establish web3 CRM capability.
Web3 wallet addresses are unique identifiers for users on the blockchain. Their address is recorded when they purchase an asset or trigger activity on the chain. With Mojito, onchain and real-life interactions join together in one familiar experience.
As your customers interact with your brand and create or log in with their wallets, you can associate that with their customer profile.
When a customer logs in on your profile manager, they can add their web3 address, resulting in a holistic view of your customer.
This is a huge opportunity for first-party data. Your brand can get direct analytics from your activities through a verified, authentic process supported by onchain and offchain interactions.
Wallet addresses offer a more reliable and extensive way to gather data on customer behavior, help drive engagement, and make better growth decisions.
Cookies are the new NFTs
While traditional solutions suffer from increasingly limited access to cookies, web3 offers brands a bright and better future.
NFTs are non-fungible tokens. A non-fungible token is a digital asset recorded on a public decentralized ledger called a blockchain. It can be verifiably owned and impossible to forge.
NFTs make it possible for someone to digitally own an asset, which has changed the future of technology. But it also provides a unique opportunity for web3 CRMs, engagement, and data.
"NFTs: your ticket into a brand's action." — Michael Litman
Dynamic NFTs utilize live metadata to gather customer information and drive engagement.
Before solutions like Mojito's Dynamic NFT, non-fungible tokens didn't change. And why should they? People wanted a unique digital asset that would last forever and retain or grow in long-term value.
But as web3 matured, so did the perspective on NFTs.
What if the value of an NFT was change?
For example, artists began to experiment as they created NFTs. They would explain that the NFT would change and evolve. This in itself made it valuable and rose in popularity.
Brands would learn how to use it for data and supercharge engagement only a short time later. Traditionally, metadata remained static, but now Dynamic NFTs update metadata based on consumer behavior.
Brands can leverage metadata in many use cases:
Loyalty programs: Customers can join membership communities when they purchase a digital pass with Mojito's traditional, familiar checkout experience. Every time they interact with your brand across any first-party or third-party platform, like redeeming rewards or visiting an event, their token metadata is updated and fed back into your CRM.
Exclusive access: Brands can implement token gating, limiting access to your brand's NFT or memberships. Gate websites, apps, events, games, and more. When customers check in, their activity becomes trackable.
Enhanced membership and subscriptions: Dynamic NFTs allow brands to sell time-access passes with expiration dates. While owners can always retain the NFT, their subscription must be maintained for full access to benefits. Brands use the metadata to identify subscription holders and analyze their activity (while adding a new revenue stream).
Customer interactions: Brands use NFC-enabled spaces to connect customers with their Dynamic NFTs and events, physical checkout experiences, and more, intertwining digital and physical customer engagement. When someone redeems a reward by scanning a code or object, your brand can track that activity.
Web3 solutions like Mojito use webhooks to send data from third parties back into your CRM. Every time a user takes an action, Mojito sends that data to your CRM and vital tools. Your data is collected, verified, and authenticated in one place, on or offchain.
Mojito offers a cohesive relationship management infrastructure. You can leverage a complete picture of your customers through thousands of interactions involving physical triggers, third-party apps, web2 tools, and web3 activity. Customer actions across the web or in real life can be configured to work with your CRM.
You’ll be able to understand your customers better than ever and reward them for their engagement at a level that was impossible before.
Benefits of using a web3 CRM
You don’t have to worry about a bumpy or complex ride when you adopt a true web3 CRM.
You’ll have all the tools, resources, and tech stack integrations needed to make an enterprise solution for your customers that meets the standards of your brand.
Below are several benefits you can expect when you connect your web2 CRM to a web3 solution.
1. Bring web2 and web3 data together
Mojito facilitates web2.5, meaning instead of "switching" web experiences, brands and customers can use web2 and web3 with no learning curve or friction at all. All is encompassed in one familiar internet experience.
Users can pay with a credit card or crypto and interact with the online apps they've used all these years (as well as easily using web3 apps).
Mojito enables brands to collect and pull necessary data to understand their customers through all web iterations and experiences—all in one CRM solution.
They can use the full power of this web2 and web3 data for events, NFT collections, token gating (exclusive access based on ownership), and other digital ownership experiences.
2. Actionable data for better customer relationships
Every brand wants to improve its customer relationships. Still, as the internet becomes more fragmented, especially with the introduction of web3, improving service and keeping up with expectations will be much more difficult.
Web2 CRMs are not capable of putting all these actions and platforms together.
However, web3 CRM platforms improve customer relationships by incorporating off and onchain activities through a centralized database.
If brands adopt an enterprise web3 CRM, they can meet changing consumer needs and stand out in the market with better and improved relationships thanks to the tools and possibilities web3 offers.
3. Improved sales and marketing strategies
Now, more than ever, your sales, marketing, and customer service teams will have access to the most accurate and transparent data within multiple channels and communities, all in one place. Your CRM can include customer history, preferences, community management details, and more data points within web3.
You can use accurate and more abundant data to analyze customer behavior for improved decision-making. A suitable CRM can also help sales and marketing teams provide personalized messages based on their data, increasing conversions and other KPIs.
4. Next-level customer service
Not only does better, more current information help improve customer relationships but so does the level of service you can provide.
Your team can proactively resolve issues with real-time data collection (for example, tracking customer engagement and pinpointing areas of opportunity), which increases customer satisfaction.
Brands can go beyond positive experiences and create the best problem-solving processes and community-building opportunities for your customers.
5. Greater ROI potential
Web3 CRMs connect your stack, improving overall sales, marketing, and customer service and building long-term loyalty.
These critical benefits offer bigger ROI potential and future growth. By analyzing blockchain activity, brands can track the popularity of certain products, use blockchain-verified data to track inventory and invest in the areas customers are most interested in.
Web3 CRMs also open new revenue streams, like selling digital assets with NFTs. Brands can even test the reception of new physical products by selling limited sample releases with “NFT digital twins” (when a physical good comes with an NFT representation at purchase).
6. Strategic positioning
You can better position your company for the economic shift to the decentralized web with a web3 CRM.
For example, Mojito's web3 CRM also includes "web2.5" features for the transition.
Some customers won’t know how to navigate web3—they’ll want simplicity. Others will want every tool available to them. Web2.5 serves everyone. New users can pay with a credit card and have a user-friendly experience. At the same time, web3 adopters can take full advantage of innovation and opportunities with cryptocurrency payments and more.
Brands will serve web2 and web3 users for the internet's evolution, and they'll have a robust CRM foundation for the new economy.
