Company sees earnings boost after acquisition.
If you used WhyPark in the past and weren’t happy with your ad revenue, or haven’t given it a shot, it may be worth another look. I caught up with WhyPark founder Craig Rowe today to ask him how the transition to new ownership under Parked.com is going.
Now that WhyPark gets to use the Parked feed, what has happened to existing customers’ earnings?
We’ve seen earnings increase by 10x for many customers and about 7-10x has been the average increase. It’s not that it’s all based on just the better CPC’s, but also a combination of better ad coverage in different countries, higher quality ads that yield a better response, and a better inventory of related search terms to show on each page based on Parked.com’s historical data. So, the result is that there are more searches, better click-through rates and better paying clicks as well.
Other than a better ad feed, what does Parked bring to the table?
Expertise, historical data and a team that’s tough to beat. I’ve always felt that WhyPark has done a good job in bringing new traffic to domains, but previous to the acquisition, we lacked in monetizing that traffic directly. We’ve heard from a lot of our customers that they’d start building a site’s traffic on WhyPark and then switch it over to Parked.com since they monetize the traffic better than anyone else. So, this has been a nice marriage to bring the traffic and monetization pieces together in one package.
There has been some technology of theirs that we’ve already implemented, like the related terms to display for each domain that have historically performed well. Also, we’re using their template and categorization technology behind the scenes right now, so customers will be able to bulk manage and setup sites with even greater relevancy. So, rather than showing images that are targeted at a category level, we’ll soon have incredibly focused images on each site, all handled dynamically without a customer needing to manually choose the best template. We’ve also adopted the twice monthly payments and are finalizing the integration to add wire, checks and direct deposit options for payment. Over the next 6-12 months, we have a lot in the works to ensure that we leverage each others’ technologies and people to the fullest.
Since WhyPark was your inspiration, why did you decide Parked was the right group to sell to?
We were at a point where we felt like we needed to get WhyPark aligned with a leader in monetizing domains. It was the one piece that was holding us back from being a bigger contender in the industry. Parked.com was the only company we approached and they also saw the fit, so we moved quickly. It came down to really two things: the people that run and work for Parked.com and the fact that I constantly hear how well they perform. The technology and monetization piece is obviously huge for our customers and was important in the decision, but I wanted to be able to still be a part of the growth too. So, it was ultimately essential to work with people that I like and trust and would be open to my ideas as we continue to develop WhyPark together. It was also great to be able to bring some people with me from the WhyPark team that helped us grow the company and will continue to do so.
Our customers have been very happy since the acquisition, so hopefully it means we’re doing something right together.
Domain parking alternative WhyPark is hosting a charity domain name auction with a twist — the single highest bidder gets to pick which charity receives the proceeds.