By For years, FX brokers and crypto platforms have relied on sign-ups, acquisition costs, first deposits and initial trading activity to measure the success of their marketing funnels. These figures are easy to track, present and compare, but they offer only a limited view of whether a newly acquired user will become a valuable, suitable and engaged long-term client. A campaign may produce an impressive surge in registrations while delivering little more than bonus hunters, inactive accounts or one-off transactions.
Across the trading and digital-asset industries, attention is therefore shifting from acquisition volume to client quality. Firms are examining what happens after registration: whether users complete compliance checks, fund their accounts through appropriate channels, return to the platform, explore multiple products, engage with educational resources and develop consistent trading habits. Retention, lifetime value, complaint rates and behavioural patterns are becoming more meaningful indicators than a single deposit or trade.
This change is also reshaping how acquisition channels are assessed. Influencer campaigns, affiliates, paid advertising, referrals and organic traffic can produce very different types of clients, even when their headline conversion costs appear similar. At the same time, behavioural analytics and artificial intelligence are giving firms more sophisticated ways to identify genuine intent, personalise onboarding and detect users whose activity is driven primarily by incentives, fraud or short-term speculation.
Industry executives from GlobalBlock, Versus Trade, Just2Trade, One Touch Finance and Solitics explain why the traditional acquisition playbook is no longer enough.
GlobalBlock on Why Sign-Ups and First Deposits Are Vanity Metrics in Crypto
David Thomas, Director at GlobalBlock, a GCEX brand, argues that crypto firms need to look well beyond account creation and first funding when judging user quality.
“Sign-ups and first deposits are vanity metrics in crypto,” Thomas says.
He argues that their focus is on the full onboarding and post-funding journey. That includes “KYC and AML depth,” whether the user adopts more than one product, and whether wallet activity shows “genuine use rather than a single incentive-driven transaction.”
Thomas sees a clear problem in the industry’s usual growth model.
“The industry’s growth playbook, airdrops, referral bonuses, incentive campaigns, has been brilliant at inflating sign-up numbers and poor at producing users who are still active a quarter later,” he says. “That gap is the real story.”
The warning signs, in his view, are easy to miss if firms only look at headline acquisition numbers.
“A high sign-up-to-inactive ratio, a disproportionate share of users tied to a specific incentive campaign, and minimal engagement with compliance onboarding are the clearest tells,” Thomas notes.
His test for a weak channel is direct.
“If the traffic spikes when a bonus launches and dies when it ends, it was never a quality channel.”
Influencer Traffic Needs the Toughest Quality Adjustment
Thomas draws a sharp distinction between traffic sources.
“Influencer and community-driven traffic needs the heaviest downstream quality adjustment because it’s usually incentive-skewed,” he says.
By contrast, referrals tied to existing professional relationships tend to perform far better.
“Referrals from existing institutional relationships are the highest quality traffic we see, by some distance.”
That is why Thomas puts more value on post-sign-up behaviour than on CPL, CPA, first deposits, or first trades.
“Compliance onboarding completion rate, the ratio of funded wallets to active wallets, repeat transaction rate and product adoption beyond a single trade matter far more than how many people signed up,” he says.
For institutional and professional-facing crypto firms, that way of thinking is becoming more common. Retail platforms, Thomas argues, have been slower to change.
“Institutional and professional-facing crypto firms are shifting this way,” he says. “Retail-facing platforms are slower, largely because incentive-driven growth models are still baked into how they acquire users.”
For Thomas, serious crypto users often reveal themselves before any long trading history exists.
“Compliance onboarding depth is the earliest signal,” he says.
A user who completes full checks without repeated prompting is behaving differently from someone chasing a reward.
“A user who completes full KYC without prompting and funds through verified rails is behaving like someone who wants to build a relationship, not simply claim a reward.”
The strongest early behaviours are practical: complete the checks, fund properly, use more than one product, and avoid instantly withdrawing the full balance.
“Completing KYC unprompted, funding through proper channels, engaging with more than one product, and not immediately withdrawing the full balance are the strongest early predictors we see,” Thomas adds.
Data can then help separate serious users from bots, airdrop hunters, bonus-driven accounts, or one-off speculators.
“Transaction pattern analysis, funding source verification, and engagement depth scoring let you separate an incentive-triggered account from a genuine one.”
AI Is Useful, but Many Crypto Firms Still Rely on Basic Funnels
Thomas believes AI is already doing useful work in crypto acquisition and compliance, but adoption remains uneven.
“AI is increasingly doing real work in fraud detection, compliance screening and behavioural segmentation,” he says.
Still, many firms have not moved far beyond old-style funnel dashboards.
“A lot of the industry is still leaning on basic funnel analytics rather than predictive quality scoring.”
That matters because traditional growth KPIs often reward the wrong behaviour.
“Sign-up and volume-based KPIs reward exactly the tactics and bonuses that produce short-term activity and little else,” Thomas says.
The better test, he argues, is whether users keep coming back after the incentive has gone.
“Growth targets need to measure durable engagement, not transaction count in the first week.”
Thomas does not see user quality as something that naturally belongs to one region over another.
“Regulatory maturity and product fit drive quality more than geography itself,” he says.
GCEX’s own structure allows it to serve clients under different regulated frameworks.
“GCEX holds a MiCA CASP licence in Denmark and a VARA licence in Dubai,” Thomas notes, “so we’re not choosing between serving a European institution and a UAE one, we can serve each under the relevant regulated framework without either side compromising on jurisdiction.”
That flexibility, in his view, attracts a different kind of user.
“That flexibility tends to attract users thinking about compliant, long-term participation rather than chasing whichever venue has the least friction that week.”
What Crypto Firms Should Stop Doing
Thomas advises crypto firms to reduce reliance on weak affiliate, influencer, and incentive-led traffic by building slower but stronger channels.
“They should shift acquisition toward regulated, education-led channels and institutional or professional partnerships rather than influencer-led incentive campaigns,” he says.
That route may take longer, but Thomas sees it as the only one that builds value over time.
“It’s a slower build, but it’s the only one that compounds.”
His list of what firms should stop doing is blunt.
“Stop measuring success by sign-ups and deposits alone, stop running campaigns that reward transaction volume over durable engagement, and stop treating every funded wallet as a client.”
Thomas’ final advice is to build the funnel around the user who stays, not the user who only appears for a reward.
“Design the funnel for the user who stays, not the one who only wants to do a single transaction,” he says. “If you can’t tell the difference at sign-up, that’s the segmentation work you need to do first.”
Versus Trade on Why Brokers Should Optimise for the First Year, Not the First Deposit
Vitalii Bulynin, CEO and Co-Founder of Versus Trade, says the brokerage industry is rethinking what a quality client actually means.
“In my opinion, one of the biggest shifts happening across the brokerage industry is how we define a quality client,” Bulynin says.
For too long, brokers judged acquisition by short-term funnel metrics.
“For too long, success was measured by lead volume, acquisition cost, or first-time deposits,” he notes. “Those metrics still matter, but they don’t tell you whether you’re building a sustainable business.”
“We’ve learned that a quality client is someone who understands the product, engages with the platform over time, and approaches trading with realistic expectations long term,” Bulynin says.
Those clients, in his view, create value because their behaviour is steadier.
“Those clients tend to stay longer, trade more consistently, and ultimately create value for both themselves and the broker.”
Bulynin argues that the first few days after onboarding are critical, but not only because of the first deposit.
“That’s why the first days after onboarding are so crucial,” he explains. “We pay close attention to whether a client makes a deposit, but also to how they interact with the platform.”
Versus Trade also looks at whether clients explore the wider ecosystem, complete their profiles, and begin forming sustainable trading habits.
“Nowadays, these early behaviors often reveal far more about long-term potential than the size of an initial deposit,” Bulynin says.
AI and analytics are helping brokers read these patterns earlier, but Bulynin warns against treating technology as the whole solution.
“AI and data analytics are definitely making it easier to identify patterns and personalize the client journey,” he says, “but technology isn’t the whole answer.”
For him, strong acquisition funnels still depend on human factors: clear communication, trust, and realistic expectations.
“The strongest acquisition funnels are built through people, transparency, and setting realistic, trader-first expectations from the very beginning.”
His advice to brokers is simple: stop building the funnel around a single early conversion.
“If I could give brokers one piece of advice, it would be this: stop optimizing for the first deposit and start optimizing for the first year,” Bulynin says.
The real measure, he argues, is the durability of the relationship.
“Long-term relationships, not short-term acquisition metrics, are what define sustainable growth better.”
Just2Trade on Why Bearish Crypto Markets Put Client Quality Under the Microscope
Iván Marchena, Senior Economist at Just2Trade, argues that quieter crypto markets are giving brokers a chance to rethink how they judge user quality.
“As the cryptocurrency landscape moves deeper into bearish territory,” Marchena says, more brokers are using the slower trading period “as an opportunity to reassess how they identify and onboard high-quality clients.”
That reassessment, in his view, is directly tied to long-term value.
High-quality crypto clients, Marchena notes, tend to have “a stronger understanding of how the cryptocurrency landscape works,” including knowledge of leveraged products and the regulatory environment.
But he also cautions that quality is not universal. A strong client for one broker may not be the same for another.
“They will also match the broker’s target geographic market,” Marchena says, “meaning that quality is subjective from broker to broker.”
Client acquisition costs are another reason brokers are changing how they measure user quality. Marchena points out that acquisition remains expensive in a highly competitive crypto market, which is pushing firms to rely more on intelligent tools after onboarding.
Because acquisition costs “continue to be prohibitive,” brokers are monitoring “the in-app behavior of high-value users” more closely.
That data can help firms act before a client disappears.
“Drops in activity can be flagged,” Marchena says, allowing an intervention to take place “before the customer churns.”
For Marchena, the strongest use of data is not only measurement, but timing. Behaviour-triggered support can reach users before they leave the platform or look elsewhere to trade crypto.
“Data can also support behavior-triggered support,” he says, before the user decides “to look elsewhere to buy and sell their crypto.”
One Touch Finance on Why Quality Clients Must Fit the Product, Not Just Fund the Account
Sunil Manjunath, Co-Founder of One Touch Finance, says a quality FX or CFD client cannot be judged by deposits alone.
“For me, it’s broader than any single number,” Manjunath says. “A quality client isn’t just someone who deposits money.”
The real test, in his view, is whether the client’s behaviour matches what they disclosed during onboarding.
“It’s someone whose trading actually matches what they told you about themselves at signup,” he explains. “It’s someone who understands what they’re getting into and sticks around without you having to chase them with offers.”
Manjunath is clear that funding is only a small part of the picture.
“Deposits alone don’t tell you much,” he notes. “What matters more is whether this person belongs in leveraged products at all, and whether the relationship still holds up once the excitement fades.”
Manjunath believes the industry has become too focused on lead volume and first deposits because they are simple numbers to report.
“Yeah, honestly, it has,” he says. “Lead volume and first deposits are easy numbers to show a boss, and they’re easy to chase with ad spend.”
The problem is that long-term value is harder to measure quickly.
“Long-term value takes longer to show up and is harder to trace back to one campaign,” Manjunath argues.
That can lead marketing teams to optimise for short-term wins while the real problems appear later.
“Marketing ends up chasing whatever looks good this week,” he says, “while the real cost of bringing in the wrong people shows up somewhere else entirely, often months later, in complaints or churn.”
The bigger issue is attribution.
“Nobody connects back to the source,” Manjunath adds.
How Weak Traffic Reveals Itself
Manjunath does not see one single red flag for poor-quality acquisition. Instead, he looks for repeated patterns.
“You start noticing patterns instead of one obvious red flag,” he says.
Those patterns include clients who deposit once and never return, heavy bonus use without real funding depth, or users who withdraw right after depositing.
“People pull their money out right after putting it in,” he notes. “KYC takes forever to finish. Or someone trades exactly once and disappears completely.”
Complaints by source can also expose weak channels.
“If complaints keep piling up around one affiliate or one ad, that’s usually your answer,” Manjunath says, “even if the channel looks cheap on paper.”
Manjunath argues that brokers should not judge all acquisition channels the same way.
“Not the same way at all,” he says.
Affiliates and IBs need individual review because quality varies sharply from partner to partner.
“Affiliates and IBs need to be judged one at a time, not as a group,” Manjunath explains, “because quality swings wildly between partners.”
Paid search depends heavily on intent.
“With paid search, I look at intent,” he says, “since someone searching your brand name behaves differently than someone typing a generic term.”
Social media, in his experience, often brings weaker traffic.
“Social media tends to pull in bonus chasers more than serious traders,” Manjunath warns.
Organic traffic usually performs better because the user arrives with more trust.
“Organic traffic is usually the strongest because people show up already trusting you.”
Second Deposits Matter More Than First Deposits
Manjunath puts more weight on what happens after the first deposit than on the first deposit itself.
“I’d rather know if someone makes a second deposit than a third,” he says.
He also wants to know how long clients remain active and how deposits compare with withdrawals over time.
“I want to see how long people actually stay clients,” Manjunath adds. “I want to compare deposits against withdrawals over time.”
For him, retention cost matters more than sign-up cost alone.
“I want to know what it really costs to keep someone active for a few months,” he says, “not just what it costs to get them signed up.”
Complaint rates and KYC completion by source also matter because they show where acquisition costs are being hidden.
“Complaint rates and KYC completion rates by source matter too,” Manjunath notes, “since they tell you where the real cost is hiding.”
Manjunath believes more regulated brokers are already moving toward lifetime value, retention, and post-onboarding behaviour.
“The more serious, regulated brokers have been shifting this way for a while,” he says.
But he does not see that happening across the whole market.
“Offshore or loosely regulated operators still lean hard into volume and bonus-driven signups,” Manjunath argues, “because the downside of bad clients doesn’t hit them the same way.”
For brokers with a longer-term model, retention is no longer just a CRM metric.
“For brokers playing the long game,” he says, “retention and lifetime value have stopped being a side note in the CRM and started shaping how marketing spend actually gets justified.”
Serious Clients Can Be Spotted Early
Manjunath says brokers can identify serious and suitable clients earlier than many assume.
“Faster than most people think,” he says.
The early signals are practical: how carefully the client fills out KYC, whether the funding method matches their profile, whether they used a demo account, and whether the first trade size makes sense next to the deposit.
“I look at how carefully someone fills out their KYC and risk questions,” he explains. “I check whether their funding method matches what they told you about themselves.”
He also watches for reckless first trades.
“A client who funds, makes one huge bet, and disappears is telling you everything right away.”
Manjunath identifies several behaviours in the first few days that can point to stronger client quality.
“A second deposit that isn’t tied to a bonus is a good sign,” he says.
So is a trader spreading activity across instruments rather than concentrating everything in one volatile product.
“Clients who use tutorials before jumping in tend to stay longer, too,” Manjunath notes, along with clients who set stop-losses or show “any real thought about risk.”
The warning signs are just as clear.
“Someone who goes all in on leverage and then asks about withdrawing right away usually isn’t sticking around.”
Separating Serious Clients From Bonus Chasers
Manjunath believes brokers can use data and segmentation to separate serious prospects from casual or bonus-driven users.
“I look at where someone came from, how they funded their account, whether they used a bonus, and how much time they spent researching before signing up,” he says.
Serious clients often arrive differently.
“They tend to come through direct search or your brand name, not a random ad,” Manjunath explains, “and they fund without needing a reward to do it.”
Once those patterns are visible, brokers can score leads earlier and direct teams toward the right clients.
“Once you have that picture,” he says, “you can score leads right at signup and point your team toward the right people.”
Manjunath sees AI adoption as uneven across the broker market.
“It really depends on who you ask,” he says.
Larger brokers are beginning to use behavioural scoring to identify risky or weak clients earlier.
“Bigger brokers with more resources are starting to use behavioral scoring to catch risky or low-quality clients early,” Manjunath notes.
Smaller and offshore firms, however, are often still working with basic tools.
“A lot of the industry, especially smaller or offshore firms, is still running on manual rules and basic spreadsheets.”
For Manjunath, AI has moved faster in fraud detection than in acquisition quality.
“AI has moved faster in catching fraud than it has in judging lead quality,” he says, “so that side of the business is still playing catch-up, even at firms already using AI elsewhere.”
Solitics on Why Client Quality Starts After the First Deposit
Deena Komisar, VP Marketing at Solitics, says brokers should stop treating the first deposit as proof of client quality.
“A quality client isn’t simply someone who makes a first deposit and first trade,” Komisar says. “It’s someone whose behaviour suggests they’re likely to become a long-term, engaged trader.”
Deposits still matter, but only as part of a wider behavioural picture.
“Deposits are only one signal,” she notes. “First open position that follows right after, is another positive signal.”
For Komisar, the stronger indicators come from how a client behaves across the platform.
“The stronger indicators are how someone interacts with the platform, whether they return consistently, complete KYC, engage with educational content, explore different features, respond to personalised communications and gradually build trading habits.”
Komisar argues that brokers can often identify serious clients very early in the relationship.
“Probably much earlier than many brokers realise,” she says.
Within the first few sessions, clients already leave a large amount of useful data.
“Within the first few sessions, clients leave hundreds of behavioural signals,” Komisar says.
Those early behaviours include how quickly they complete onboarding, whether they verify their account, how much time they spend inside the platform, which assets they research, whether they read educational content, and how they respond to communications.
Looking at those actions together, Komisar argues, gives brokers a better read on client quality than a first deposit alone.
“Looking at these behaviours together often gives a better indication of long-term potential than relying on the first deposit alone.”
Consistent Engagement Beats One-Off Transactions
Komisar cautions brokers against relying on a single event to judge a client.
“Rather than focusing on a single event, brokers should look for behavioural patterns,” she says.
Clients who return regularly, explore products, use market insights, complete onboarding smoothly, and interact with personalised content usually show stronger intent than those responding only to bonuses.
“Clients who consistently return to the platform, actively explore products, engage with market insights or educational resources, complete onboarding without friction and interact with personalised content tend to demonstrate higher intent,” Komisar explains.
By contrast, promotion-led activity is weaker evidence of long-term value.
Her conclusion is direct: “Quality reveals itself through consistent engagement, not isolated transactions.”
That said, Komisar sees first-party behavioural data as the key to separating high-intent prospects from casual or bonus-driven users.
“This is where first-party behavioural data becomes incredibly valuable,” she says.
Rather than placing clients into broad, static groups, brokers can keep reading behaviour as it changes.
“Instead of placing clients into broad static segments, brokers can continuously evaluate trading behaviour as it evolves,” Komisar notes.
Each interaction adds context and helps brokers tailor the next step.
“Every interaction helps refine the understanding of intent,” she says, allowing “communications, onboarding journeys and educational experiences to adapt in real time.”
For Komisar, segmentation should not be a one-time label.
“The goal isn’t to label clients once,” she says. “It’s to continuously learn from their behaviour and respond with relevant experiences that encourage long-term engagement.”
AI Should Adapt the Client Journey, Not Just Improve Campaigns
Komisar says many firms are already using AI in acquisition, but much of that use remains narrow.
“Many firms have introduced AI into acquisition,” she says, “but much of it still focuses on creating content or improving campaign efficiency.”
The larger opportunity, in her view, is behavioural.
“The greater opportunity is using AI to understand behaviour as it unfolds,” Komisar says.
AI can detect patterns that are hard to catch manually, predict which clients are likely to become long-term traders, and recommend the next best action for each user.
“The more advanced AI tools will execute and automate behaviour-centric and dynamic journeys,” she says.
Her view of where the market is heading is clear: “The future is in continuously adapting every client journey based on evolving intent.”
Meanwhile, Komisar’s main advice to brokers is to rethink where acquisition ends.
“Stop treating acquisition as something that ends with the first deposit,” she says.
For her, the first deposit should be treated as the start of the relationship.
“The first deposit is the beginning of the relationship, not the end of the acquisition funnel,” Komisar says.
That means success should be measured by how quickly brokers understand client intent and how well they personalise what happens next.
“Brokers should measure success by how quickly they understand each client’s intent and how effectively they personalise the experience that follows.”
Komisar argues that better onboarding, education, and engagement journeys are what create better client quality over time.
“The firms that create the most relevant onboarding, education and engagement journeys won’t just acquire more clients,” she says. “They’ll build stronger, longer-lasting customer relationships and better client quality follows naturally.”