Slide 1: Domaining and Address Bar-Driven Traffic
Monte Cahn Founder / CEO Monte@moniker.com Toll Free: 1-800-688-6311
Slide 2: Monte Cahn
Founder and CEO Moniker.com
TrafficClub.com, Marketplace, Live Domain Auctions, Silent Auctions Host of Domain Masters, every Wednesday at 7 pm EST –WebmasterRadio.fm
* Domain Experience Since 1995 * Moniker.com - more than 1.9M Domains under management – 9th largest Registrar * 12 ICANN Accredited Registrars, Domain Sales, escrow, appraisal, Traffic Monetization * First to sell a domain for more than $1M and $2M (Wallstreet.com, Autos.com) * Stealth Acquisition specialist * Invented the Domain Appraisal - 460K appraisals to date, IRS Accepted, used for lending and donation * One of the first to monetize domain traffic in 2000 * Focus is on Domain Asset Management – Average Client owns 100+ domains * Clients include – Major League Baseball, NHL, Lions Gate Films, Incisivemedia/Jupitermedia, Marchex, and Yahoo!
Slide 3: Professional Domain Portfolios
ICANN regulates the domain industry Empowered by the US Department of Commerce Following regulations –innovative entrepreneurs invested Many risked $100,000+ per year with unknown future
Slide 4: Domain Marketing Became Extremely Profitable
Domain revenue sources were not originally known Revenue = Search revenue, PPC, CPA programs, affiliate sites, and Selling Domains $850 million in annual advertising revenue and domain sales Potential to reach $2 billion by 2010 Domains contribute 15% of Google/Yahoo Search revenue Market includes approximately 6 - 8 million domains out of 112M registered and growing
Slide 5: Revenue drove Domain Portfolio Creation
Domains Owned >100,000 10,000—100,000 1,000—10,000 2004 8 15 76 2006 15 60 200
BuyDomains.com has 660,000 investment domains
Slide 6: The industry is healthy
A record 112 million domain names are now registered, a 30% increase in the past year 9.4 million new domains were registered during Q3 of 2006, the third highest number of registrations ever in a single quarter 86% are live, 77% are renewed, 40M are ccTLD’s In the past year, aftermarket sales have increased by an estimated 58%, with total private and public transactions reaching more than $300 million. At least 57 domains sold twice between 2004 and 2005. The value of these domains increased an average of 288% over just 230 days.
Slide 7: What makes a good domain?
Natural Generic Brand (search volume = mindshare) Easy to Remember (radio test) Clear, Concise and Descriptive (what does it say to the user) Commercially Oriented (existing search bids) Industry Segment (is the industry hot/cold, new/old) Visually Pleasing (what will it look like on a business card?) Existing Type-In Traffic (marketing benefit) Back links, Page rank, Alexa Rank, etc. Mistypes? (generics vs. trademark)
Slide 8: How Do Domains Generate Revenue?
Domain Traffic (direct navigation) – ad revenue from CPC, CPA, CPM, Selling Traffic directly to companies or advertisers Domain Sales – sale of domain names directly or portals Domain Development – individually or in partnership domain owners add content, diversify advertising and build web networks Vertical Dominance – to monopolize groups of domain names in category verticals. Dominance means more power and revenue. Other Sources of $$$ - leveraged value for financing/loans, charitable donations/tax deductions
Slide 9: Domain Traffic – Recent Articles, Studies, Facts
GROWING MARKET - 70 percent of Internet surfers use direct navigation, up 53% from four years ago (WebSideStory). Rest use search engines. Direct Navigation a $1 billion business by 2007, on track to surpass $1.2B (Susquehanna Financial) Direct Navigation comprises 8-10% of the U.S. and U.K. search advertising markets - roughly $600-$800 million this year. VeriSign indicates approximately 10% (30,000 per week) of its new domain registrations are likely related to pay-per-click advertising. 24% parked Domain values have increased 20% on average over the last 3 years due to direct navigation revenue generation. Public companies such as Marchex, Livedoor, and ValueClick own portfolios of Direct Navigation websites, as do numerous private equity backed companies such as iREIT, Demand Media, and NameMedia – all planning IPO this in 2007. PPC advertising is only the beginning/foundation for the Direct Navigation industry as new ways to monetize visitors to Direct Navigation websites evolve.
Slide 10: Domain Traffic – CPC page (2 Click Revenue) TrafficClub.com – PPC Monetization
Slide 12: Domain Traffic – CPC page (2 Click Revenue)
Slide 13: Domain Traffic – “2 Click” Second Page
The domain owner gets paid The company does NOTwhen a visitor get paid for this click clicks one of these links
Domain owner gets paid when users click on the second page. First page clicks are strictly navigational links.
Slide 14: Generic Domains
Search Volume vs. Type-In Unique Visitors
$500 $450 $400 $350 $300 $250 $200 $150 $100 $50 $0
Annual Uniques
Search Volume
There is a direct relationship between domain phrase search volume and domain traffic volume
Slide 15: Domain Sales – Live Auctions catching on
Sales at Moniker’s Live Domain Auction at TRAFFIC East topped $5.4 million in gross sales More than $10 million sold at auction by Moniker since Jan. 2006 Market interest warrants expansion into vertical niche auctions: First-ever live “adult” auction in January at Internext - $1.9M Premium domains generate industry buzz AND revenue: Cameras.com ($1.5 million), Sex.net ($454,000), Flowers.mobi ($200,000), Shemales.com ($520,000) Fosters expansion into satellite services, such as monetization, domain financing, appraisals and escrow, and more
Slide 16: Creating Your Own Portfolio
Who?
Where? When? Why? How?
– – – – – – –
– Anyone with moderate capital, intelligence, patience and time – Aftermarket domain web sites, WhoIs, search databases, trademark exclusion tools, search bidding tools, creative thinking, expired/drop names – Today, you are a little late but not dead! – Growth is incredible, high return on capital employed, advertising revenues are escalating, capture your market Find the search phrases that define your market segment Identify domains that are commercial, rare and valuable Register domains that are still available Use Expired name and Drop Services Contact those who own the rest or Stealth Acquire them Define your strategy, budget, and time frame Execute Immediately!
Slide 17: Domains – Brand Identity of the Internet
Total Online Ad Spending $25
$20 US$ Billions $15 $10 $5 $0 1999
% of Overall Ad Market 25%
$19.5 $16.5 $14.3 $11.9 $9.5 $5.3 3.0% $7.3 3.9% 4.9% 5.9% 6.7% 7.5% 9.80% 10% 5% 0% 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 *2006 20% 15%
$3.5 2.0%
Choosing the proper domain names is crucial to success. The winners will see an increased market share among a generation that spends their lives online. Losers will cling to decreasing audiences, especially among the youth demographic.
Slide 18: Case Study – The US Healthcare Industry (Corporate market is catching on)
The US Healthcare Industry – $1.7 Trillion dollars per year The Players: Pharmaceutical Companies, Physicians, Hospitals & What changes has the Internet brought:
1. GenX and younger distrust doctors and traditional media turn to Internet for information 2. Internet enables easier comparison shopping 3. “Direct Navigation” provides targeted traffic to generic .com’s creating potential for new brand names
Specialty Clinics, Insurance Companies, medical related advertisers such as health supplements
Slide 19: Pharmaceutical Companies – “Buy” the disease
Asthma is an $11Billion dollar industry – 60% going to prescription drugs. GlaxoSmithKline (“GSK”) created a ‘soft branded’ portal. Able to control what visitors learn about asthma. Information about where visitors are coming from (IP tracking), and going to (cookies). Appeals to GenX patients who are more likely to research an ailment online. GSK’s competitors will be forced to constantly spend money on search engines and portals to reach potential customers online – expensive for a disease that grew by 35% since 1997.
Slide 20: Physicians – What Domains work?
Heart Disease cost $68 Billion per year in the US. Medicine is an increasingly competitive industry – yet traditional advertising methods are expensive and ineffective Texasheartsurgeon.com is easy to remember and tells a potential patient everything they need to know. Dr. Ott does not need to worry if referrals will forget or misspell his name, lost his card, or use an old phone number – an $8 investment per year prevents this. Dr. Ott also owns Houstonheartsurgeon.com Miamiheartsurgeon.com was only registered in July 2006
Slide 21: Hospitals & Specialty Clinics – Attracting Lucrative Procedures
Gastric Bypass is a $50,000 procedure largely uncovered by insurance This clinic gains new patients from this domain, and generates revenue by referring out of state queries to other clinics Gastricbypass.com is easy to remember and tells a potential patient everything they need to know. Gastricbypass.com ranks high in Google and Yahoo search rankings. Competitors have bought domains like thinnertimes.com and stopobesityforlife.com Dr. Oliak, a gastric bypass innovator is now buying traffic on Google for doliak.com – a bad domain choice
Slide 22: Insurance Companies – The Lead Generation Portal
With a domain name and a web developer this company partnered with an offline insurance broker to become one of the largest independent health insurance brokers in the US. Insurance companies spend money on advertising to create an image that distinguishes themselves from the competition Insurance companies now face having their offerings compared against competitors on functionality alone.
Slide 23: Health Industry Advertisers – How to Lose Your Brand
Hispanic Americans are the largest, youngest and fastest growing minority group in the country – they also have the largest purchasing power of any minority group in the country. A younger generation raised on the Internet as well recent immigrants will not have brand allegiance to established US diet companies WeightWatchers or Jenny Craig spend $5 – $10 for each new customer sign-up they get from affiliate networks – can they afford to pass on a domain receiving 200,000 unique Hispanic Americans per month?
Slide 24: Domain Purchase Potholes
Trademark Search Consider having a valuation done for high value domains Use a domain escrow service Financing is NOW available Domain Statistics – Are they artificially inflated? You may have to Stealth Acquire to avoid artificial inflation What other information can you get?
Slide 25: Useful Links
Phrase Data – WordTracker.com, KeywordDiscovery.com Bid Price Data – Yahoo Search Marketing Bid Tool searchmarketing.yahoo.com/rc/srch/ Ownership WhoIS Lookup – DomainTools.com, WebHosting.info Aftermarket Domain Sales and services: Moniker.com, BuyDomains.com, Sedo.com, Expired Name/Drop Services – Snapnames.com, Pool.com, ClubDrop.com Trademark Tools
– United States Patent & Trademark Office www.uspto.gov – Microsoft Research research.microsoft.com/URLTracer/ – WIPO arbiter.wipo.int/domains/
Domain Masters, Wednesday’s at 4 PM PST – www.WebmasterRadio.fm Forums and news – dnforum.com, domainstate.com, namepros.com, dnjournal.com Conferences – TRAFFIC (targetedtraffic.com – live domain auction), DomainRoundTable.com, WebmasterWorld.com, SES
Slide 26: Founder and CEO Moniker.com TrafficClub.com Host – Domain Masters, Wednesday’s at 4 PM PST – WebmastersRadio.fm Monte@Moniker.com
Monte Cahn
Experience Since 1995 Moniker.com - more than 1.9M Domains under management – 10th largest Registrar 12 ICANN Accredited Registrars, Domain Sales, escrow, appraisal, Traffic Monetization First to sell a domain for more than $1M and $2M (Wallstreet.com, Autos.com) Stealth Acquisition specialist Invented the Domain Appraisal - 460K appraisals to date, IRS Accepted, used for lending One of the first to monetize domain traffic in 2000 Focus is on Domain Asset Management – Average Client owns 100+ domains Clients include – Major League Baseball, NHL, Lions Gate Films, Incisivemedia/Jupitermedia, Marchex, and Yahoo!
