Media Tech Brief By HackerNoon
Oct 14, 2026 · 9 min · 10 segments
This story was originally published on HackerNoon at…
Why did influencer marketing fail for our fintech project? When you launch a fintech or web3 project, the default reflex is to buy attention.
We shortlisted 50 candidates, 10 replied, we closed deals with 5, paying between $50 and $400 per publication, $100, $200, $50, $150 and $400, to be exact.
Negotiating and publishing ate another 3-4 days.
The result? 30-40 low intent leads who barely touched the product.
We killed the campaign after 10-11 days.
To be fair, this was one small test, not a verdict on influencer marketing.
But it taught us something we've seen repeated since.
In financial products, trust is the product, and you can't rent trust by the post.
An influencer's audience trusts the influencer, not the unfamiliar app they're being paid to mention.
So we moved the budget and our attention to building a community from zero.
Why did influencer marketing fail for our fintech project? When you launch a fintech or web3 project, the default reflex is to buy attention.
We shortlisted 50 candidates, 10 replied, we closed deals with 5, paying between $50 and $400 per publication, $100, $200, $50, $150 and $400, to be exact.
Negotiating and publishing ate another 3-4 days.
The result? 30-40 low intent leads who barely touched the product.
We killed the campaign after 10-11 days.
To be fair, this was one small test, not a verdict on influencer marketing.
But it taught us something we've seen repeated since.
In financial products, trust is the product, and you can't rent trust by the post.
An influencer's audience trusts the influencer, not the unfamiliar app they're being paid to mention.
So we moved the budget and our attention to building a community from zero.
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