CoinGecko launches self-serve ad platform and drives 125% revenue growth with Kevel

Opportunity

A massive audience with untapped potential

CoinGecko reaches tens of millions of users every month. Not casual browsers, but high-intent crypto investors actively checking prices, tracking portfolios, and researching tokens. This audience, spread across CoinGecko's web platform, mobile apps, and Gecko Terminal, is among the most engaged in the fintech space.

The opportunity was clear: this audience had real advertising value. But realizing that value would require more than placing banner ads. It would require the right formats, the right targeting, and a platform that could scale with demand.

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Challenge

Inability to scale due to insufficient infrastructure

CoinGecko's ad operation was running into a ceiling. The platform worked, until it didn't. As demand for premium placements grew and advertisers became more sophisticated, the gaps in their stack became impossible to ignore.

The core tension: A world-class crypto audience deserved a world-class ad experience. The tools CoinGecko had built around weren't designed for what they were trying to do.

1. Rigid platform, limited native formats Native advertising, the format most natural to a data-rich product like CoinGecko, remained a persistent struggle. The platform couldn't flex to fit the surface.
2. Fragmented tools that couldn't scale Internal systems were stitched together over time. Every new placement or advertiser requirement meant more engineering work, more maintenance, and more technical debt.
3. No self-serve: every deal was manual Onboarding a new advertiser required hands-on coordination. There was no way for advertisers to launch, manage, or optimize campaigns on their own, creating a bottleneck that limited how fast the business could grow.
4. Blind spots in inventory Without clear visibility into available inventory, yield planning was guesswork. Decisions about pricing, fill rate, and placement mix were reactive instead of strategic.
5. Surfaces without a control layer Placements existed across web, mobile, and Gecko Terminal, but there was no unified layer to manage them. Consistency and coordination suffered.

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Solution

Built for scale, designed to grow

CoinGecko partnered with Kevel to rebuild their ad infrastructure from the ground up. Not with a rigid off-the-shelf solution, but with a flexible API-first platform they could shape to fit their product.

The result was a modern, scalable ad stack that unlocked new revenue streams, reduced operational overhead, and gave CoinGecko's team the tools to optimize and grow.

The approach: Rather than working around limitations, CoinGecko rebuilt with infrastructure that matched their ambition. Flexible formats, unified inventory, and a path to full advertiser self-service.

1. Flexible native formats across every surface Migrating to Kevel Ad Server gave CoinGecko the ability to design and deliver native ad formats that fit naturally into their product, on web, mobile, and Gecko Terminal, without fighting the platform.
2. A new high-value placement: sponsored listings With Kevel Catalog, CoinGecko launched sponsored token listings, a premium, contextually relevant placement that advertisers wanted and users engaged with. This unlocked an entirely new revenue stream.
3. Self-serve built on Kevel APIs CoinGecko's engineering team used Kevel's APIs to build a custom self-serve platform. Advertisers can now launch, manage, and optimize campaigns independently, reducing onboarding friction and removing the manual bottleneck entirely.
4. Inventory visibility that drives better decisions With ongoing analytics and planning support from Kevel, CoinGecko gained clear visibility into their inventory. Fill rate optimization became proactive rather than reactive, improving yield and giving the team confidence to plan ahead.

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Close Collaboration

Partnership Timeline

• ‍Jul 2023 - Partnership begins
• Sep 2023 - Native ads launch
• Nov 2024 - Catalog enablement
• Apr 2025 - Self-serve launch

From day one, the Kevel–CoinGecko partnership was built around more than platform access. Bi-weekly strategic calls, a dedicated Slack channel for real-time support, and multiple on-site sessions (October 2023, May 2024, and January 2026) ensured that platform development stayed in lockstep with CoinGecko's commercial goals. Kevel's team brought not just technical support but strategic guidance on inventory optimization, yield planning, and advertiser growth, helping CoinGecko navigate a fast-moving market with a clear roadmap.

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Results

The numbers tell the story

Within six months of full deployment, the impact was clear across every key metric.