Mastering Your Domains
What’s a domain worth to you, and what should it be worth? A few panelists at Ad:Tech offered some answers in “Domain Power - The Value, Tools, and Trade of Domain Marketing,” moderated by Chris Bowler, VP at Agency.com.
Ari Lee Bayme, VP, Milbank Roy & Co, focused on the US healthcare industry, a $1.7 trillion business. As an example of domain names in action, GlaxoSmithKline bought asthma.com. One of the biggest benefits from the site, far beyond type-in traffic and even search engine optimization, is that GSK can track where the site’s users are coming from so it knows where to target its marketing efforts. GSK also knows what issues matter most to the target audience, which is invaluable competitive intelligence.
What about doctors? Dr. Ott bought Texasheartsurgeon.com and Houstonheartsurgeon.com. He now has a memorable calling card, and no one has to remember how to spell his name. Another doctor bought gastricbypass.com, a high ranking site that’s easy to remember. He now sends lead on to others through his site.
As for insurance companies, a group of six insurance brokers in Nebraska turned healthinsurance.com into a valuable lead referral source.
Lastly, there’s dietas.com, a Spanish-language site for dieters. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of visitors to the site clicked a link for more info.
Dan Warner, COO of Fabulous.com, gave a thorough overview of the domain market.
The domain market could reach $2 billion by 2010, up from $750 million this year. Domains contribute 10% to 15% of Google and Yahoo!‘s search revenue.
15 companies/people own 100,000 ore more domains. 60 own 10,000-100,000, and 200 own between 1,000 and 10,000. BuyDomains.com has 660,000.
What makes a good domain?
• Natural generic brand
• Easy to remember
• Clean, concise, descriptive
• Commercially oriented
• Visually pleasing
• There’s existing type-in traffic (least important, but a nice bonus)
Where does domain traffic come from?
• Type-in
• Development
• Search engine referrals
• Search engine organic listings
There’s a direct relationship between domain phrase volume and domain traffic volume.
Are all of the dot-com domains gone? “Pretty much.” Most of those domains are available for resale.
He encouraged a marketing “thicket of protection” around you by buying all domains related to your category. If you own the market, you own the advertisers. Instead of volume discounts, you get volume premiums. As an example, Golf.com’s owners acquired several golf related domains, built an online handicapping system, developed a direct sales force, and sold it to Time Warner for $25 million.
He said one can get away without owning the generic domains for their space. This is one point where I’ll disagree. Does Apple need to own music.com? Does Bloomingdale’s need to own departmentstore.com? Does Amazon need to own shopping.com? (eBay felt the need.) The case can be overstated.
