Name Administration to offer direct ad placement on its domain names.
Perhaps in a bid to counter falling pay-per-click revenue, Frank Schilling’s company Name Administration is soliciting direct advertisers via a banner on some of its parked pages:
The service will be called LinkBox. The description at Linkbox.com reads:
Welcome to Linkbox.com.
Direct advertising opportunities will be available soon with prices from less than $30 a month.
If you would like to be contacted with further information please leave your email address below and you will receive a message when the service is ready for use.
Your email will only be used to provide information on the availability of LinkBox.com ads and won’t be shared with third parties.
Alternately you are welcome to check back at the website you wish to advertise on for further instructions as we get closer to launching the service.
Thanks,
LinkBox.com
You can see an example of the banner at 2703.com.
It makes sense to strike direct relationships with advertisers to bypass third party advertising aggregators such as Yahoo and Google. However, you need a self serve and scalable platform to do it across long tail domain names.
jp says
Its a great idea in theory, but going into business direct with customers is going to have its drawbacks. It looks like Frank, and the rest of us are going to have to actually start doing some work. I will say though, if there is one thing I’ve learned this far in my life its that nobody ever got rich from working.
robb says
Well, $30 per month over just 100,000 domains is 3 million per month, or 36 million per year. Not bad. Will the PPC links still be on the page? Will more than one advertiser per domain be allowed? Will be interesting to see.
Frank will have to hire some staff to run this, it will become more like a job than what he was doing before.
michael berkens says
This type of advertising would violate most contracts with Yahoo, certainly against parking company rules, so Frank’s definitely got a good and unique deal with Yahoo
Andrew Allemann says
Michael – Yahoo and Google are very restrictive. I wonder if he will make the domain entirely dedicated to the ad rather than adding a textual link ad. This would probably comply with Yahoo’s rules.
Johnny says
I suspect this will become available to us in some incarnation eventually…….simply because the natives are restless and the status quo is crumbling.
It’s only evolution. Nobody can stop this.
.
D says
I think Y/G is allowing 3rd party ads as long as it does not resemble their ads. I think it is great idea, I would buy banners on few domains by myself.
Bringston says
Direct advertising is the BEST solution. Take a look at the Castello brothers and Palm springs example. Over 1 MILLION in revenue from direct advertising.
Development + Direct advertising = REAL MONEY
Jim Holleran says
Sendori.com already does this which I have some names at. It’s a good concept and things will evolve that way.
Thanks, Jim Holleran
Andrew Allemann says
Jim, Sendori just forwards your traffic to a different URL. We don’t know what Schilling plans to do here. He could make the domain a billboard for one person, or just add a link/banner.
Johnny says
Sendori told me they only work with ISPs and registrars now……no domain owners.
They did not even ask how much traffic I had.
.
Steve M says
Prescient move on Frank’s part.
As others have pointed out, the implementation should prove interesting…
…and I’m sure Frank is going to make the system as automated as possible.
No one who knows better wants to spend their days (or pay others to do so), blabbing to 100’s to many 1,000’s of people (at “only” $30/ad) with all the questions they’re going to have about advertising on his sites…both before and once they’re actually doing so.
Patricia Kaehler says
It’s Now January 2010
Has there been an update on Franks Project ??
~Patricia Kaehler
DomainBELL