Domain Name Wire » Search Results » smartname

Surveying the Domain Parking CPA Landscape

Andrew Allemann — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 14:36:36 +0000

There are a number of options for CPA on parked pages, but we’re still trying to figure out what works best.

Last week TheParkingPlace.com, which had been in beta for a while, opened its doors. The sample sites I’ve seen on its parking platform primarily use CPA offers to monetize traffic.

But my headline for the launch — “New Service Brings CPA To Domain Parking” — may have suggested that this was the first attempt to bring CPA to domain parking.

This isn’t the case, although they’re certainly doing it in a different way.

A number of parking companies do CPA in the background, but some of them do it prominently. For example, TrafficZ has been running CPA ads directly on certain parked pages for a couple months. Octane360′s landing pages include multiple monetization options including cost-per-lead, a form of CPA. SmartName has a number of shopping template options, although they pay out on PPC. But they also have modules that let you insert your own ads. Ditto for WhyPark and Epik.

The challenge of CPA on parked pages is scaling. It’s easy to find PPC ads to match a domain name but finding CPA offers is more difficult to automate. TheParkingPlace.com is running offers with a goal — such as getting an email address — and finding a way to make them seem targeted. This is one way to solve the scaling problem, and it will be interesting to see what happens.

We’ve seen quite a bit of innovation in the parking space over the past year or two. As with all innovation, some of it works and some doesn’t. It takes trial and error to figure out what really works. And what works today might not work tomorrow.

Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

Sedo and Parked Still Top Domain Parking Companies, But Revenue Down

Andrew Allemann — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 16:45:14 +0000

Survey reveals favorite parking companies but continued downward trend in parking revenue.

A non-scientific survey of over 1,500 domain name industry participants shows that Sedo and Parked.com are still the top domain name parking companies.

Sedo received 30% of the votes as top parking company in Domain Name Wire’s sixth annual domain survey.

Parked came in a distant second place with 14% of the vote.

Last year Sedo took 23% of the vote and Parked brought home 18%.

The top five vote-getters in this year’s survey were:

1. Sedo 30%
2. Parked 14%
3. NameDrive 12%
4. Google Adsense for Domains 11%
5. SmartName 9%

Yet revenue from parked domains continues to decline, report the survey-takers.

46% reported earning less than $10 RPM (revenue per thousand) from their parked domains, up from 40% last year. 68% reported earning less than $20 RPM, compared to 60% last year.

Domain parkers are split on what will happen to parking revenue in 2011. 42% think it will be flat compared to 2010, while an even 29% think it will go up and 29% think it will go down.

You can see more survey results at DomainNameWire.com/survey.

Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

Did Nokia Just Sell Dashboard.com?

Andrew Allemann — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 15:31:15 +0000

Interesting changes to Dashboard.com domain name.

It looks like Nokia may have just sold the domain name Dashboard.com, but some of the changes to the domain name don’t quite add up.

Nokia got the domain name when it acquired Intellisync Corporation in 2005. It then forwarded the domain name to a landing page saying that Intellisync was now part of Nokia.

On November 17 the whois record for Dashboard.com changed to DNStination Inc. DNStination is part of Mark Monitor, and is typically used by large companies when they stealth acquire domain names. For example, Facebook recently used them to acquire FB.com.

Perhaps Nokia just started using Mark Monitor and transferred it to their whois? Maybe, but here’s the strange part: the nameservers for DashBoard.com just changed to parking company SmartName. And it’s now a parked page.

I’ve never heard of a domain investor using Mark Monitor to acquire a domain. But why would it suddenly be parked? I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

Parked Changes Dashboard Graph, Improves Usability

Scoop: Afternic Will Change Game This Week with eNom and Moniker Partnerships

Andrew Allemann — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 20:15:55 +0000

Big announcements coming this week that will change the domain aftermarket.

The business of selling domain names to end users will forever be changed before the end of this year.

Domain Name Wire has learned that this week Afternic will announce it has inked agreements with both eNom and Moniker to be Premium distribution partners. They will join Network Solutions and Register, giving Afternic deals with 4 of the top 10 registrars for premium distribution. Afternic also has a deal with GoDaddy Auctions. These deals will be fully implemented before the end of the year.

What does this mean? Domain owners who have their domains registered at eNom (owned by Demand Media) or Moniker (owned by Oversee.net) will be able to list their domains at Afternic’s Premium level. Premium listings are syndicated across all premium partners’ sites. If someone is searching at Network Solutions to register a domain you own and have listed through the system, they’ll be able to purchase the domain name through the registrar. The domain will also be instantly transferred to the buyer regardless of which of the four registrars currently has the domain.

Getting your domains into the “registration path”, which this allows you to do, is key to selling to end users. I’ve talked to a couple people who have used Premium listings on Afternic who say the results have been remarkable.

The big win for Afternic with these two registrars is inventory. Yes, it helps that domains will be listed for sale on both web sites, but the real win is getting access to inventory at two registrars that are popular with domain investors. Network Solutions and Register are key to end user sales.

I’m not sure how the deals are structured for eNom and Moniker. I suspect they get a cut of the action. But more importantly this is another customer retention tool. I’ve moved a number of my domains from Moniker to GoDaddy over the past year to take advantage of GoDaddy’s premium listing service.

Yesterday Afternic changed its promotion levels and commissions. The commission for these Premium level listings is 20%, or 15% if the domain name is parked with Afternic/SmartName.

This is going to be a really big deal for domain owners.

Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

Afternic Drops Basic Listings, Offers Commission Discount for Parked Domains

Andrew Allemann — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 16:43:44 +0000

Listing level and commission changes at domain marketplace.

Afternic has revamped its web site and made changes to listing options and commissions.

Afternic previously had three listing options, one of which merely listed domains on Afternic. Now there will be two options: Afternic DLS Network and Afternic DSL Premium.

DLS Network gets your domains listed on 20 domain reseller sites, reaching 25 million prospective buyers monthly. DLS Premium gets you two more resellers, but they’re big ones: Network Solutions and Register.com. Premium also enables “instant transfer” for sales, and domains must be priced and registered at one of the Premium registrars. Afternic says the average selling price on Premium is 33% higher than DLS Network.

The basic listing level at Afternic will be grandfathered for existing domains until the end of the year.

Commissions for DLS Network are 15%, with 5% back if your domain is parked with Afternic/SmartName (so net 10%). DLS Premium commissions are 20% with the same 5% back option for parking, making it only 15% for parked domains. Minimum sales commissions are $120. The median sales price at Afternic historically has been about $1,200, so the minimum commission will rarely apply.

Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

You Can’t Buy Beer with CTR

Andrew Allemann — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 19:16:00 +0000

by Craig Rowe

There are a variety of opinions in the domain industry about the effectiveness of non-traditional domain monetization platforms, such as WhyPark, Epik, and SmartName content portals. There are just as many terms for it, whether it’s mass development, mini site development, enhanced parking, etc. We typically call WhyPark a domain monetization or domain development platform. We make tools to help you make money from your domain names, regardless of how we’re labeled.

A common complaint about any developed site, whether it’s fully custom or through a platform like ours, is that your Click-Through Rate (CTR) will decrease compared to Parking. I see the concern on forums, at conferences, and in blogs. In some cases it’s true that it will decrease since there are other options for a visitor than clicking only on sponsored listings. In other cases, it’s not. We have numerous domains on WhyPark with CTR’s consistently at or above 100%. It doesn’t mean that every single person is clicking on a link, but rather that the ratio of clicks to visitors is basically 1 to 1. Like anything, the CTR depends on the domain, the level of customization, the market being served, and other factors.

What surprises me is how little attention is paid to more important metrics like revenue and opportunity cost. Plain and simple, are you making more money with your content site than you were with parking? Are you getting a return on your time investment or would you have made more money by putting those efforts into something else? We lower the barrier by making our platform free and easy to use. If you want to dump 10,000 domains into our bulk add form, hit submit and walk away, then your cost is pretty low. At that point, you can watch your revenue reports and see if you’re making more money on your domain portfolio than you were before. We still optimize on your behalf with technology and people as well.

Coming back to the title of this post, “You Can’t Buy Beer with CTR”… clicks, CTR, searches, RPC (revenue per click), page views, and visitors are all fairly traditional domain monetization metrics. They’re nice for figuring out where you could potentially improve and how domains perform relative to others. If your CTR is low, it could be that you or we have not targeted the theme of your site to what your visitors are expecting. It could also be that they’re engaged with your site and finding what they came for without clicking on ads. Ultimately though, the only metric that you can use to pay bills, send your kids to college, or buy a much needed twelve pack of beer is REVENUE. It’s the metric that will actually make a difference in your life. So, when we hear that CTR has decreased compared to where their domains were previously, my question is always how their revenue looks today compared to the previous platform. It’s all that really matters.

Take for instance a domain that was added to our platform in July. This is not what I’d call a typical trend when someone adds a domain to WhyPark, and it’s pretty exceptional really. The domain was added, a few pages of custom content were added by the customer and then he also added the following domain apps: web directory, Twitter, shopping and videos. The video app has really been the key app driving the growth of the site. About 95% of the traffic is from organic search (Google, Yahoo and Bing). This is a domain that was previously parked with a large competitor making $5 – $8 per day. Each day since being added to WhyPark, the traffic and revenue has grown from that initial $5 to $130 yesterday. Yes, the CTR on this site sucks; it’s about 3%. But which would you rather have; a domain making $5 per day with a 75% CTR or a domain making $130 per day with a 3% CTR? Yes, we’re always looking at ways to push more people to click on ads and boost the CTR and revenue even further. However, this revenue growth wouldn’t be possible without the user engagement and Domain Apps being added to the site. The time spent to launch this domain was less than 30 minutes and the cost was free. WhyPark is clearly a better option for this particular domain.

WhyPark operates on a revenue share with no upfront fees. (Some other services charge upfront fees; others don’t.) Since we don’t make money unless you do, it’s in the best interest of WhyPark to continue to innovate and perform on behalf of our customers. In some cases parking may be a better fit for your domains. In some cases, it might be a mixture of custom development, WhyPark, and parking. Regardless of the platform you use, the only comparison and metric that matters is revenue.

Craig Rowe is founder of WhyPark, which is now owned by Parked.com.

Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

No related posts.

TRAFFIC Voting Ends Wednesday Night

Andrew Allemann — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 00:57:46 +0000

Cast your ballots now for TRAFFIC awards.

Every year the organizers of the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. domain name conference ask for nominations (and then a vote) to pick the best companies and people in the domain name industry. This year’s voting is due by Wednesday at 8 pm EDT. To participate, just make your selections from below and email to nominations@targetedtraffic.com.

Winners will be announced at next month’s TRAFFIC conference in South Beach.

Here are the nominees. You may vote for one per category, except for Hall of Fame where you can vote for two.

SPONSOR OF THE YEAR (Vote for 1)

.CO
DOMAINADVERTISING.COM
NAME DRIVE
PARKED
SKENZO

DOMAINER OF THE YEAR (VOTE FOR 1)

JAN BARTA
MIKE BERKENS
JUAN CALLE
STEVE CHEATHAM
LARRY FISCHER
ROB GRANT
MERLIN KAUFMAN
MORGAN LINTON
MIKE MANN
GREG MCNAIR
JERRY NOLTE
ILZE KAULINS-PLASKACS
ELLIOT SILVER
DIVYANK TURAKHIA
JOEL WILLIAMS

BEST OVERALL DOMAIN SOLUTION (VOTE FOR 1)

ABOVE
DOMAIN SPONSOR
EPIK
MONIKE R
SE DO
SKENZO
SMARTNAME

BEST NEW MONETIZING SOLUTION (VOTE FOR 1)

ABOVE
DEVHUB
ELEPHANT TRAFFIC
EPIK
LOCAL.COM
SKENZO
SMARTNAME
WHY PARK

DEVELOPER OF THE YEAR (VOTE FOR 1)

FRED MERCALDO
ROB GRANT
KEITH LEVENSON
ROB MONSTER
SHAUN PILFOLD
ELLIOT SILVER
TIA WOOD

THE “WE GET IT” AWARD (VOTE FOR 1)

BODOG & SLOTS.COM
LEXIS-NEXIS
MIKE MANN
NATIONAL A-1
OVERSTOCK
QUINSTREET
SWIFT RANK

BEST DOMAIN NEWS BLOG (VOTE FOR 1)

ANDREW ALLEMANN (DomainNameWire)
MIKE BERKENS (TheDomains)
DOMAINERSMAGAZINE.COM
RON JACKSON (DNJournal)
LARRY FISCHER
MORGAN LINTON
HOWARDNEU.COM (Declined)
RICK SCHWARTZ (Rick’s Blog) (Declined)
ELLIOT SILVER (Elliot’s Blog)

DOMAIN HALL OF FAME (VOTE FOR 2)

MONTE CAHN
GARY CHERNOFF
ROB GRANT
JEREMIAH JOHNSTON
AMMAR KUBBA
RICKLATONA
MICHAEL MANN
HOWARD NEU
JERRY NOLTE
MARC OSTROFSKY
ADAM STRONG
DIVYANK TURAKHIA

Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.