Web3 projects often hit the same problem when going global: limited budgets. How do you get the best ROI with the money you have?

This article introduces a three-dimensional strategy model based on country, track, and channel. We’ll look at three things—market choice, project type, and marketing channels—to see how to get local growth without spending more.

Using the latest data, we’ll compare Asia, Turkey, and Eastern Europe, break down how GameFi, DeFi, and Infrastructure perform in each region, and check out the impact of crypto media, KOLs, ad platforms, and community events on both B2B and B2C goals.

So, how do we actually run local marketing? Let’s get started!

Market Differences: Asia, Turkey, Eastern Europe

First up, picking your market.

In Web3, user “heat” and “value” differ a lot from country to country. Emerging Asian markets like Vietnam, the Philippines, and India have been booming lately.

• Vietnam’s crypto ownership rate is 21.2%, the second highest in the world.
• The Philippines ranks #1 globally in active MetaMask users, Vietnam is #3, India is #6.

These countries have young people, high digital adoption, and super active communities.

Surveys show 76% of Vietnamese crypto holders invest based on friends or community opinions, so word of mouth is huge. I’ve seen firsthand how passionate Vietnamese and Filipino users are when chasing airdrops or joining community events—they go all in. That energy makes Southeast Asia the top choice for many Web3 projects to grow fast.

Turkey has also become a hotspot in the past couple of years. Because of crazy inflation, people in Turkey see crypto as a real need for protecting their money. Stats show that crypto ownership in Turkey jumped from 16% to nearly 40% of the population in just three years—that’s two out of every five people holding crypto! Some even say Turkey is now in the global top 4 for crypto usage.

Last November, we went to Istanbul for a blockchain event. In just two weeks, there were almost 300 blockchain events happening all over the city. People from all around the world flew in. The scene was so intense that even industry veterans were blown away.

Turkey’s market is on fire, and users there are super open to crypto because they need it. But here’s the thing: Turkish users mostly care about financial value—things like stablecoins and wealth protection, not just fun or hype.

Eastern Europe, like Ukraine and Poland, has a different vibe. Ukraine has always been full of tech talent, and the war actually sped up crypto adoption. Over 6 million Ukrainians, about 15% of the population, use crypto now—one of the highest rates in Europe.

During the war, people used crypto to receive donations and keep their savings safe. It literally became a financial lifeline.

Eastern European users are usually tech-savvy—many are programmers or entrepreneurs. They’re not afraid of new tech. But in countries like Poland, everyday crypto adoption isn’t as crazy. It’s more about investors and tech circles playing with it.

So overall, Eastern Europe has high-quality, professional users, but the market size is smaller compared to Asia. Growth there mostly comes from real-world use cases—like Ukrainians actually using stablecoins to survive.

So at this point, you might be wondering: which markets give you the best ROI?

Here’s the general pattern:

• Developed markets (like Western Europe, North America): user acquisition costs are high, but user value is also high.
• Emerging markets (like Asian countries, Turkey): user acquisition costs are low, you get big volume, but you need more work on retention and monetization.

In other words, for the same $1 of ad spend:

• In Vietnam, you might get 5 users.
• In the US, maybe only 0.5 users.

But those US users might be high-value whales willing to stay long-term.

It’s a trade-off.

The smart way is to leverage each market’s strengths:

• Game projects should spend most of their budget in places like Vietnam and the Philippines where people love gaming, to build a strong user base.
• At the same time, run some brand PR in the US and Europe for credibility.
• DeFi projects should focus on credibility in the West while attracting mass users in emerging markets where people actually need financial products.

No matter where you go, localization is key—language, content, compliance. You need to speak the local language, make content feel local, and follow the rules so people trust you and join in.

So yeah, when choosing markets, analyze each country’s data and user traits, keep adjusting your budget mix, and you’ll squeeze the best ROI out of every dollar.

Which markets fit your project type?

Now let’s talk about project types (tracks). Is your project in GameFi, DeFi, or Infrastructure? Different countries have very different appetites.

GameFi (play-to-earn games, metaverse, NFT gaming) is booming in Southeast Asia.

I first learned about the play-to-earn model from some Filipino friends. I was shocked—people were literally making a living playing games! When Axie Infinity blew up, millions of players in the Philippines and Vietnam jumped into crypto gaming, turning Southeast Asia into the world’s GameFi capital.

Last year alone, 30 new crypto gaming platforms launched in Southeast Asia, bringing in 5 million new users. Many of them had never touched crypto before but started using wallets and tokens because of gaming. Some Filipino students even made more money playing games than their parents’ salaries. GameFi literally changed lives.

So, if your project is a game, launching in the Philippines and Vietnam will get you super enthusiastic players. They’ll study the game, learn how to earn tokens, and spread the word themselves.

But in more mature markets, GameFi doesn’t hit as hard. In Turkey, people are busy fighting inflation and protecting their assets, so they don’t have the same motivation to “play-to-earn.” In Eastern Europe, there are gamers, but crypto is seen more as tech or investment, not as a way to make a living.

So GameFi is hot in some places, cold in others. Pick your markets wisely.

DeFi and financial projects are basically the opposite. The more economic chaos or weaker the banking system, the more people need DeFi.

Take Turkey: the lira lost value like crazy, inflation hit 50-100% a year, and people rushed into USDT to protect their money. At one point, Turkey led the world in stablecoin purchases, spending over 4% of its GDP on it in 2023–2024.

People in Turkey love talking about lending, DEXs, yield farming—anything that grows or protects their money.

India, Vietnam, and the Philippines are similar because huge parts of the population don’t even have bank accounts. DeFi gives them cross-border transfers, loans, stablecoin savings—stuff they never had before.Stats show only about 30% of adults in the Philippines have bank accounts. Yet the Philippines and Vietnam rank among the top countries for MetaMask users—they skipped banks and jumped straight into Web3 wallets.

Eastern Europe uses crypto more for investment or tech, but the war in Ukraine pushed people to stablecoins and BTC as financial lifelines. Ukraine also has a big DeFi startup scene.So DeFi in emerging markets = tons of new users fast, but you need to educate them about risks. In mature markets = smaller user base but higher-value users.

Infrastructure and tools (like blockchains, protocols, dev platforms) are a different story. Regular users don’t really care about underlying tech, but developers do.

Places like India and Ukraine have tons of engineers and startup energy. India even produced Polygon. Most of India’s Web3 VC funding goes into infrastructure projects.Let's talk more about local marketing,

So in India, hackathons and tech workshops work well. In the Philippines or Indonesia, people care more about “what can I do with it?” than “what’s your TPS?” So infrastructure projects there need to highlight benefits for end users or partner with apps that show real-world value.

Bottom line:

• GameFi → Southeast Asia
• DeFi → High inflation + unbanked markets
• Infrastructure → Developer-heavy regions

Media, KOLs, Ads, and Offline Events

The last piece is about choosing the right promotion channels—online media, KOLs, digital ads, and offline community events.

Different countries have very different ways people get information and who they trust. If you pick the wrong channel, you’ll waste money.

Local Crypto Media:

• In some markets, local-language crypto news sites or forums are super important.
• Thailand, for example, has lots of Thai-language crypto news platforms. Thai users spend tons of time on Facebook—one of the highest daily usage rates in the world. Many investors hang out in Facebook crypto groups for news. So if you want to hit Thailand, you need Thai-language articles on local media and Facebook ads in Thai.
• Vietnam is the same—Facebook is basically the national platform. Many users get crypto news from Facebook groups, so having an official Vietnamese page helps a lot.
• In Turkey, mainstream financial media sometimes covers crypto, but Turkish-language articles on crypto news sites really build trust. I’ve seen projects post on Cointelegraph Turkey and instantly get local attention.
• In Eastern Europe, countries like Ukraine and Poland have their own crypto news websites and Telegram channels in local languages. Getting your news on these sites = instant credibility.

But to pull this off, you often need PR pros or local partners. If you just cold-email these media outlets with English content, it often doesn’t work.

KOLs (Influencers):

Almost every market relies on KOLs, but the types of KOLs people trust differ a lot:

• Vietnam → People like educational KOLs who teach them things, not just shill projects. Many famous Vietnamese KOLs run YouTube or Twitter channels explaining crypto concepts in detail.
• Thailand → Top KOLs act like entrepreneurs or thought leaders. They speak at conferences, have a professional image, and earn trust that way. Some others do entertainment-style crypto TikToks to attract young audiences.
• Philippines & Indonesia → A mix of YouTubers, Telegram admins, TikTok creators. Projects do AMAs, livestream demos, giveaways in local languages.
• Turkey → Best to find early Bitcoin adopters or well-known traders—they have big influence and credibility.

Pro tip: In some countries, fake followers are a problem. Don’t just look at follower count. Ask locals which KOLs actually have real influence.

Ad Platforms:

Global platforms like Facebook, Google, Twitter (X), TikTok work differently in each market:

• Facebook → Huge in Southeast Asia. Thailand especially—everyone’s on FB. But crypto ads have strict rules, so projects often use “soft ads” (e.g., articles about crypto trends) to attract people first, then convert them later.
• Twitter → Massive in Turkey and India. Crypto topics often trend there. But Twitter ads cost more and work better for people who already know crypto.
• TikTok → Perfect for short, fun content. Indonesia is TikTok’s #1 country. I once ran TikTok ads for a GameFi project there—got 10k+ signups in 2 weeks at super low cost.
• Local platforms → Thailand’s Line, India’s ShareChat, etc. Smaller reach but niche audiences.

Basically, go where people already spend their time online.

Offline Community Events:

Don’t think Web3 marketing is all online. Offline events can be huge for building trust and deep connections:

• Turkey → Istanbul Blockchain Month = hundreds of events, thousands of people. If you sponsor or speak, you instantly gain fans.
• Vietnam → Big blockchain summits draw massive young crowds. People are super curious, even first-timers buying hardware wallets on the spot.
• India → Hackathons are the best way to find talented developers. Polygon grew through this.
• Poland, Ukraine → Smaller, technical meetups. Not big in size, but very high-quality. Some devs even became long-term community contributors after meeting project teams at events.

But offline events cost money. Pick places where people already love hosting events (Vietnam, Turkey) so you can ride the wave.

How to Actually Do Localization Marketing

We’ve shared a lot of marketing tips before, but let’s put it all together with a real example to show how Country + Track + Channel works in action.

Imagine we have a GameFi project with a limited budget. At first, we thought: let’s spread it out across multiple countries and see what sticks.

So we ran the same Twitter ads in the Philippines and Turkey, using the same ad creatives, thinking both places have strong crypto communities.

The results? Big lesson learned:

• Philippines → Total explosion. Local gaming KOLs pushed our campaign, people rushed to sign up for beta access, Discord grew by thousands in a week.
• Turkey → Almost nothing. Same ads, almost zero engagement after weeks.

What went wrong? Track + Channel mismatch!

• Philippines = people love play-to-earn games, KOLs hyped it in the local language, community jumped in.
• Turkey = people care about asset value, not games, plus we didn’t use Turkish language or local channels → people ignored it.

So we fixed it fast:

• Shifted budget to the Philippines + Vietnam where GameFi converts better.
• For Turkey, we changed our message: instead of “play this fun game,” we said “let’s talk about this game token’s investment value.”
• We hired a Turkish KOL to do a YouTube livestream in Turkish, analyzing the token economy, long-term returns, and showing how to buy/sell on local exchanges.

This hit the right pain points. Livestream got tons of questions, website traffic from Turkey spiked the next day.

We also:

• Started a Turkish Telegram group with bilingual admins.
• Published Turkish-language reviews on local crypto media.

Slowly, the Turkish market warmed up. Fewer users than Southeast Asia, but higher engagement and even some new community moderators showed up.

Once both markets were doing well, we replicated the winning playbook:

• Found similar markets to the Philippines in Latin America (Colombia, Venezuela).
• Used the same GameFi + KOL + local language strategy → again, tons of new users.
• The Turkey “financial angle” strategy → applied it to other high-inflation countries.

The formula was simple: Test → Fix → Scale.

With the same budget, user growth and retention both shot up:

• Southeast Asia gave us huge user bases.
• Turkey and similar markets gave us high-value users.
• Overall ROI skyrocketed.

Final Thoughts

As a Web3 marketing agency, we’ve learned this the hard way: limited budgets force you to spend smarter.

Instead of throwing money everywhere:

• Adjust market spending by user demand.
• Match project track to the right countries.
• Use the channels locals actually trust.

Do this, and even with the same budget, you can get way better ROI.

The market keeps changing, but users are always there:

• Asia = massive user growth.
• Turkey = passionate investors.
• Eastern Europe = strong tech communities.

Each region has its own opportunities waiting to be unlocked.

More Resources: 

Web：https://chainpeak.pro/

X: https://twitter.com/chainpeak

Global KOL Group: https://t.me/globalcryptokol

Global Mod Group: https://t.me/web3modglobal

Google Meet:https://calendly.com/chainpeak/30min