Here's Why Sales & Marketing Spend is Pivotal for Coinbase

Coinbase Global’s COIN sales and marketing (S&M) spend is driving brand credibility, user acquisition and deeper customer engagement. In 2024, Coinbase nearly doubled its S&M spend to $654 million, an increase of 97% year over year, primarily due to higher digital advertising and expanded USDC rewards aimed at retaining assets on the platform. These efforts yielded strong results as monthly transacting users (MTUs) rose 14% to 8.4 million, assets on the platform more than doubled to $404 billion, and trading volume surged 148% to $1.16 trillion.

The close alignment between S&M spending and user activity demonstrates a strong return on investment. Notably, stablecoin-based rewards helped lift subscription and services revenues by boosting average on-platform balances. In the first quarter of 2025, S&M expense reached $247 million, more than double year over year, driving a 17% increase in transaction revenues. Sales and marketing spend accounted for 10% of total revenues in 2024 and rose to 12% in the first quarter of 2025.  Management estimates sales and marketing spend between $215 million and $315 million in the second quarter of 2025.

Coinbase’s strategic use of marketing supports scalable growth, asset locking and monetization opportunities across its ecosystem. While increased S&M outlays may put pressure on margins in the near term, historical data suggests that every incremental marketing dollar has driven meaningful growth in volume and recurring income. As such, disciplined S&M investment remains a value-accretive driver of Coinbase’s long-term shareholder returns.

What About COIN’s Competitors?

Marketing expenses are critical to Robinhood Markets’ HOOD performance, helping the platform attract and retain a broad base of retail investors in a competitive fintech landscape and supporting growth in assets under custody and transaction-based revenues. Robinhood’s marketing expenses increased 57% year over year in the first quarter of 2025 and constituted 26.4% of total revenues.

Sales and marketing spending is also essential to Block Inc.’s XYZ growth, fueling expansion across its broad suite of financial services and strengthening relationships in a competitive fintech landscape. For Block, S&M increased 13.6% year over year in the first quarter of 2025 and constituted 8.7% of total revenues.

COIN’s Price Performance

Shares of COIN have gained 37.3% year to date, outperforming the industry.

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COIN’s Expensive Valuation

COIN trades at a price-to-earnings value ratio of 60.33, above the industry average of 19.74. But it carries a Value Score of F.

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Estimates for COIN Witness Northward Movement

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for COIN’s second-quarter and third-quarter 2025 EPS has moved up 10.3% and 7.1%, respectively, over the past 30 days. The same for full-year 2025 and 2026 has increased 22.8% and 2.7%, respectively.

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The consensus estimate for COIN’s 2025 and 2026 revenues indicates year-over-year increases. While the consensus estimate for COIN’s 2025 EPS indicates a decline, the same for 2026 EPS suggests an increase.
  
COIN stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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Coinbase Global, Inc. (COIN) : Free Stock Analysis Report

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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