People submit offers for domain names when they don’t mean to.
A couple months ago I switched some of my domain names on Domain Name Sales from PPC landers to “for sale” landing pages. I was curious if this would increase the number of inquiries on my domain names.
The short answer is yes, but most of these inquiries have been from confused people.
If you park your domain names, you already know that a lot of confused people contact you about them. They fill out forms asking for support, refunds, and other information as if you’re running an actual business. Domain Name Sales even has a canned response for inquiries from confused people.
Setting up domain names to go straight to a contact form on DNS makes it even easier for people to get confused. Instead of clicking on a link that says “Click here to buy CarGrants.com for your website name!”, they just see this:
To be fair to the confused, this page doesn’t actually say the form is for a quote on a domain name. This might be why, after entering a $1,500 offer to buy CarGrants.com, a person sent me a message “I’m looking for a good running car for transportation for me and my too (sic) kids”.
I’m more confused about how someone could see the same page at SpreadsheetModel.com and submit this inquiry:
“I attended the excel training on 29th and 30th October 2015. However I forgot get a copy of the excel training spreadsheet, could you please advise me how could I get a copy of this?”
Sure, I’ll get that right over to you.
I chuckle at these types of submissions, and I’m thankful I don’t have a database of whois records that would draw even more confused visitors to my website.
David Gruttadaurio says
I also use the DNS For Sale landers. However I use BIN pricing and the lander for this option is very different and very straightforward. I don’t believe I’ve had any confused visitors asking questions. If anything, they call DNS asking if the price is negotiable lol.
Matt says
I’d say 80% of my inquiries these days are ‘misguided inquiries’. A quick change of wording would make a massive difference.
Andrew Allemann says
I’ve started to ask people if they really meant to submit the inquiry before quoting a price.
Thanks
Koosah says
I’ve moved to flippa because of this. But flippas page does not show BIN prices. Don’t know why these sales platforms make mistakes like this. No sense really
Jay says
Not a fan of a form that doesn’t request an offer in the initial contact. I’ve used a few marketplaces sales forms and although I got a lot of inquiries not many amount to much. Been using my own hosted forms now and more serious inquiries as it includes the make offer field.
Oren says
I have this problem constantly. So many bad inquiries. The worst are people looking for jobs on my job related names.
When I’ve asked DNS about it, their immediate response has been “this is the landing page we’ve found to do perform best”
I started auto-assigning the most problematic ones to the DNS brokers, so hopefully if they have to start dealing with the all the bad inquiries i was getting, they will do help get something done about it.
Logan says
I get lots of confused inquiries from Nigeria, Indonesia, Brazil, and India on my DNS For Sale landers. I just dismiss them outright and don’t even bother engaging with them. I figure if I am wrong and they are serious buyers, they’ll contact me again anyway.
Paul K says
Thanks for sharing results.
Mike says
Good that you started this thread.
I do NOT like the fact that GoDaddy refer to anything but BuyNow as an “auction” that seemingly lasts 80 days (or more). Why the F do they not simply call it what it is “MAKE OFFER” ??. I am sure some people visit and see it is an 80 day auction and this “what the F I dont want to wait 80 days” and find another domain. Why do GoDaddy insist on doing this ?.
As for misguided email enquiries. What I have done on some domains is set up catch all emails and then also an “auto responder” that responds to every email to that domain “If you wish to Buy This Domain then please visit xyz….” Then all the misdirected emails at least might generate some useful lead/buyer.
I dont think there is any perfect sales agents. I guess the best is afternic or sedo bot sure which.
Andrew Allemann says
Mike, GoDaddy fixed that problem
https://domainnamewire.com/2015/11/11/godaddy-make-offer/
Mike says
I must add that the ONLY, I repeat ONLY ,reason I use/would use Afternic is because of the coverage that they get at Registrars. Other than that I am far far from impressed as I find one minute a domain is verified and so my pointed domain resolves, and then next minute for some UNknown reason After deverify it and I am left with a domain (S) pointed to pages that do not show a for sale link but just an error page. Cannot/Do not rely on Afternic can only rely on oneself.
Thanks Andrew noted.
Andrew Allemann says
I like how DNS’ for sale lander captures contact info for the buyer before asking for an offer. This way you at least have something to work with.
Perhaps the click-to-verify email sent to the customer should include a bit more information and give them the chance to cancel the inquiry.
DNS is in the process of converting to a new system integrated with Uniregistry, and I expect a lot of changes.
Daniel Ballard says
Doesn’t mean it will effect the DNS Sales lander. I have the same issue for the past 6 months.. quantity inquiries, but no quality with lots of confused and timewasting junk thrown in..
it definitely used to be better when at least they didn’t have that silly “Get a free quote” wording.. seriously considering switching to own landers if this doesn’t change in the next 1-2 months.. patience running thin nowadays
Acro says
At least, with DNS you have the ability to point your inquiry landers to a form/destination/email of your preference; with Sedo, you don’t.
Andrew Allemann says
That’s true, it’s not Sedo’s business model. But keep in mind as long as you’re getting the service free from DNS, then “you are the product”.
Adam says
I agree with Daniel. DNS has created a lot more work then there used to be by changing the wording.
I do the same as Andrew now, I ask if they meant to send an inquiry or not.
Venkatakrishna Nalamothu says
Why DNS people are so rigid with this landing page when so many people are complaining?
at least they should provide another type of landing page option without that free price quote thing.
Jeffrey Gabriel says
Andrew,
Another great article. Thank you for pointing this out to us.
About six months ago we conducted rigorous testing with our inquiry traffic, and compared it to the landers we used before. What we realized was the new lander increased the number of leads we were receiving significantly, but the number of leads we ignored percentage wise stayed the same. We also had our best summer numbers wise to date, and it has carried into the fall.
We deem that a success.
What we have also found in regards to our house portfolio as well as our customer’s portfolios is that a small number of domains make up the majority of the confused buyers. I suggest instead of changing your entire sales strategy on a few rotten eggs make some adjustments. This could be changing to a PPC page with the for sale link instead of for sale only, or more drastically marking the domain not for sale. That would eliminate the sales link.
The great news is our new release in early 2016 will have bulk tools that will allow you to eliminate misguided leads as quickly as you erase spam mail.
From all of us at Uniregistry/DomainNameSales we wish you a happy holiday and look forward to seeing you at NamesCon in January.
Best,
Jeffrey M. Gabriel
Vice President of Sales
949-416-2555
Andrew Allemann says
That’s a great point that a few domains result in the majority of misguided inquiries. I’ll change those over to PPC.
As you work on your new release, perhaps it makes sense to change the email sent to people after they submit their own information? If there are more details in that email, it might cut down on confirmations of the invalid submissions.
Support @QUE.COM says
It only signifies that most people still not educated on how to use the Internet.
Still plenty of room to do business.