Dear Community Members,
The Grant Support Squad was created to support the grantees in achieving their goals and take care of the DAO treasury.
Three formal requests were presented about this project. One was dismissed (card 13), and two moved forward (cards 21, 27) and after thoroughly reviewing this project, the Squad wants to showcase valuable information and our observations.
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The concerns were:
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Allocation of Funds.
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Metrics and Target Audience.
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Engagement metrics.
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Some recap of the project:
- Grant Size: $186,500 USD in DAI
- Project Duration: 10 months
Objective:
MetaTrekkers (MT) requested a Grant from the Decentraland DAO to develop and expand their initiatives in the metaverse. Their proposal aims to create an artist-supporting and arts-expression platform within Decentraland to foster a thriving virtual community.
The objective is to bring artists and metaverse users together. They focus on developing and promoting entertainment events, sessions, and talks that engage users and reward their participation.
Plan:
How do they plan to do it?
- The grant will cover event development, marketing, and advertising to enhance the Decentraland user experience.
- The project seeks to expand Decentraland’s brand awareness as a user engagement-focused metaverse.
- MetaTrekkers plans to turn art and entertainment series into Decentraland resident events, attracting newcomers from artists’ fanbases.
- How? Through BeatTrekkers. A DJ battle series in the metaverse, engaging competing artists and their fans, venues as well as the broader Decentraland and MetaTrekkers community.
- The series aims to attract new audiences interested in NFT music and participation in the developing metaverse community.
They showed a roadmap to achieve the main objective (developing and promoting entertainment events, sessions, and talks that engage users and reward their participation).
- After gathering information from the community, the grantee, DCL Metrics, and Metrics from the Foundation, these are the results from the data taken from May 1 to August 31:
Data analysis 2 (Venue - unique user - cost)
Graphic 1
Graphic 2.
The colors are to identify the payments made, detailed on graphic 1
- Let’s dive deeper into the results and budget allocation:
Results from the data taken from May 1 to August 31 (period analyzed)
- The project made 3 concerts, 36 BassTrekkers and 22 Pre Show, 23 Post Show, and 55 Main Show. Also, it housed 24 guest hosts and 17 streamers.
Overall 180 activities were produced. - 180 activities in terms of payments (venue, artists, host) cost: $23,668.39
- 43 DJs performed.
- 22 guest artists were hosted.
- 17 streamers were paid.
- 38 venues participated in the project.
- 804 Twitter accounts joined Twitter Space
- During that period of time, 866.46 total active users (a user that visited the world and moved at least to one scene) were attracted.
- Note: please see the spreadsheet called DATABASE for more details. At venues such as “Decentral Games” due to the large total active users that the venue has, we calculated the difference between total Active users on a BeatTrekkers event day and subtracted the total average of Active users of that location during the month analyzed.
- The cost to produce these 180 activities was $83,470.49, which is compounded by:
| Execution Team | $ 15,994.15 |
|---|---|
| Marketing Ads | $ 11,800.00 |
| Venue and Event Support Team | $ 11,750.00 |
| Graphic Designer & Video Editors | $ 11,977.14 |
| Community Management | $ 6,400.00 |
| Artists | $ 6,800.00 |
| Competition Prizes | $ 2,550.00 |
| Publications (Forbes & Bloomberg) | $ 2,000.00 |
| Host - Twitter Space + Host Fee - Main Battle | $4,268.39 |
| Miscellaneous | $ 1,460.81 |
| Hardware Server | $ 2,620.00 |
| Streamer | $ 850.00 |
| SDK Development | $ 5,000.00 |
| TOTAL | $ 83,470.49 |
The item Marketing ads ($11,800.00) is compounded by;
| Advertising | $ 1,800.00 |
|---|---|
| Email Marketing | $ 900.00 |
| SEO | $ 2,200.00 |
| Social Media Ads | $ 3,200.00 |
| Social Media Management | $ 1,900.00 |
| Content | $ 1,800.00 |
We asked to the grantee if he can detail about what have they done by month in terms of Social media ads and the answer was:
“We delivered these ads with the goal of brand awareness.
Ad types - Native, Banner, Interstitial
Age range:
25-34 39.2%
35-44 30.4%
Audiences include people likely to be interested in DCL and potential events. We also targeted people who work in Blockchain technology or are affiliated with new trends. - Blockchain Strategist, Chief Blockchain Officer, Blockchain Developer, Blockchain Consultant, Cryptocurrency Trader, Real Estate Business Owners, Information Technology Manager, Information Technology.
Other audiences include people looking to learn more about the metaverse.
Each month’s budget spent:
$275 Linkedin
$275 Instagram
$250 Twitter”
The Grantee, in their proposal, mentioned that as a return of impact, the target audience for this grant was 272,000. Later we asked about how they would get to that number, and the Grantee responded: “Target Audience of 272,000 were derived from the consolidated number of followers of the participating DJs, Artists and Venues, assuming that we will be able to reach them through our cross posting materials.”
Later, we asked the grantee if they could show the metrics mentioned on social media, and the answer was:
MetaTrekkers Twitter Activity
MAY JUNE JUL AUG
Impressions 1600 (50 per day) 4330 2100 1600
Engagement 5,7% x x 5,7%
BeatTrekkers Twitter Activity
MAY JUNE JUL AUG
Impressions 72400 42300 31500
Engagement 9.3% 8,5%
Tweets
The information that the grantee gives regarding BeaTtrekkers said:
(Quote)“Since Beattrekkers started:
Mentions: 84 (+100%)
Social Media Reach: 236K (+100%)
Interactions: 457 (+100%)
So, It’s not clear the timeframe analyzed (if this is since this last grant started or since Beattrekkers exists.)
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- Grant Support Squad observations:
We need a benchmark to compare the user number of BeaTTrekkers.
So, we analyzed information from the Foundation, DCL Metrics and Governance Page (transparency section), and we prepared the following database.
Glossary:
Place: it is a scene composed of one or more than one location.
Active user: a user that visited the world and moved at least once on the scene
Unique User: indicates that an entity (e.g. user) has only been counted once, regardless of how many occurrences it features in the dataset. For example, Count of ‘Unique attendees’ in a festival means every attendee has been counted only once, regardless of how many different days the user was present at the festival. In contrast, the keywords ‘daily unique attendees’ means every attendee is counted once for every day the user has been active. Note this is the standard way of counting users, so common metrics such as DAU, WAU and MAU (Daily, Weekly and Monthly Active Users) are computed in this precise way too, despite not featuring the keyword ‘Unique’ or ‘Distinct’. For example, a ‘Monthly Active User’ for the month of April will count as one regardless of whether the user was active in one, ten or twenty days of April.
Regarding the concerns raised:
- Budget Allocation
The principal concern raised (21, 27) by the community was understanding how the project was using the funds and where they were being allocated. After requesting this information to the grantee, we received a detailed allocation of funds (above as Budget Allocation shown by BeatTrekkers).
What we know now, is that the cost per user gained is $96.95, which, compared with other active grants that also have done events in-world (community-engaging events) during May, June, July, and August, is higher than the median. For reference, we attach the following chart, in which the Grant Support Squad has calculated the cost per unique user on the grantees analyzed.
Another relevant piece of information is that we noticed that the payments allocated towards the production of the events (artists, venues, hosts, streamers) is $23,668.39, and the DAO is funding the MetaTrekkers team with a payment of $59,802.10.
| Execution Team | $ 15,994.15 |
|---|---|
| Marketing Ads | $ 11,800.00 |
| Graphic Designer & Video Editors | $ 11,977.14 |
| Community Management | $ 6,400.00 |
| Competition Prizes | $ 2,550.00 |
| Publications (Forbes & Bloomberg) | $ 2,000.00 |
| Miscellaneous | $ 1,460.81 |
| Hardware Server | $ 2,620.00 |
| SDK Development | $ 5,000.00 |
| TOTAL | $ 59,802.10 |
| Role | Total Amount allocated |
|---|---|
| 0 | |
| DJ | $4,600.00 |
| Guest Artists | $2,200.00 |
| Host | $4,268.39 |
| Streamer | $850.00 |
| Venue | $11,750.00 |
| Grand Total | $23,668.39 |
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Engagement Metrics
Based also on concerns raised, we have analyzed the Unique Users among active grants who make events which generate community engagement (Dcl Brasil, Dollhouse, Serena Ellis -In World-, Stoney Eye, SugarClub,) to understand the performance of the grantee in terms of engagement metrics. We have found that the average Unique Users between active grants that have also done events in-world is of 937,24 between May and August, which reveals that this grantee is low-performing, compared to its peers. -
Target Audience
When in-world grantees apply to the grants program, the person submitting the proposal is asked in a form about the performance metrics of their grant. Under the In-world content category, in the section 5 named Category Specific Assessments, there are 3 questions:
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How many pieces of content are you planning to produce, 2) how many users do you expect to engage with this content, and 3) How are you going to measure the engagement (newly populated land, active users, returning users, and time on scene).
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We know that the pieces of content are the events, which are being reported monthly and are being accomplished.
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The grantee hasn’t specified how many users they expect to engage with the content. They answered this field in the form of their proposal that their target audience is 272,000.
When we asked them what this 272,000 is counted for, the grantee responded that “Target Audience of 272,000 were derived from the consolidated number of followers of the participating DJs, Artists and Venues, assuming that we will be able to reach them through our cross posting materials.”
Later we asked more detailed about this and the Grantee answered:
(Quote) “We derived our Target Audience from the number of followers of all our partners for BeatTrekkers 2. Here’s the list of people who are part of BeatTrekkers 2 and their consolidated followers in each sheet: BT2 Partners - SocMed Following - Google Sheets
This metric, even illustrating the target audience, is not fulfilling the metric of the category. The grantee is not responding to the number of users of Decentraland but instead of it, the grantee explains the number of followers “of the participating DJs, Artists and Venues, assuming that we will be able to reach them through our cross-posting materials.”.
KPIs should have been referred to in-world users.
- The grantee explained that: “The metric of engagement will be measured through the visitors of the land during BeatTrekkers Series 2 and 3 battle. This includes the artists themselves and the community supporting them. Since we are expecting various artists all over the world from different communities, we are also expecting higher traffic”.
We have gathered this information, and the Unique Users they have brought between May 1 through August 31 is 866,46.
Conclusion:
- The project made 3 concerts, 36 BassTrekkers and 22 Pre Show, 23 Post Show, and 55 Main Show. Also, it housed 24 guest hosts and 17 streamers.
Overall 180 activities were produced. - The total number of active users for BeatTrekkers so far is 866,46.
- 1 active user cost: $96.95 ($83,470.49 / 866,46)
- has failed to be clear on their proposal about the metrics for their category. (proposed target audience = 272,000. KPI is not aligned with the In World Content Category Specific Assessments, which should have been referred to in-world users).
Based on the concerns that the community raised, we have analyzed this grant and validated that the concerns were legitimate.
So far, the Grant Support Squad hasn´t elevated to the Revocations Committee cases because a grant project is expensive. This doesn’t mean that we are in a position to disregard community concerns if the Revocations Committee decides that the reasons exposed are valid to be revoked.
Even though the grantee has failed to be clear on their proposal about the metrics for their category, we have been able to gather the category data through DCL Metrics, and Decentraland Foundation, and the Grantee is performing lower stats than its peers, but they are accomplishing their grant in terms of production (events).
In conclusion, we elevate this case (@MetaTrekkers) to the Revocations Committee (@dax @bay @MetaDoge @maryana ), recommending to the DAO Committee (@HPrivakos @Tobik @rizk ) to pause the vesting contract until they define if all the evidence presented in this case is enough reason to revoke the vesting contract of this project.
Grant Support Squad.