Company brings multiple revenue streams to domain names.
In December I wrote about Octane360, a startup that promises to bring new monetization options to domain names. I’m happy to report that the company is delivering on its promise.
The company’s bread-and-butter is monetizing long tail geo domain names, such as CityDermatologist.com or CityPlumbers.com.
The company creates a small directory web site on each domain name. But unlike many other domain development solutions, Octane360 doesn’t just try to get traffic that will monetize with pay-per-click ads. Octane 360 uses multiple monetization methods for each domain: pay-per-lead, ppc, directory listings, and sometimes pay-per-call.
The real power behind Octane360’s system is its salesforce. The company has contracted with an outside call center to sell listings on the domains over the phone. Within a couple weeks, this salesforce will grow to 100 people solely selling listings on Octane360 sites.
And it works. A few months ago I set up about 200 long tail geo domain names on the system. It took about 6-8 weeks for the domain names to start getting good search engine traction; now about 90% of them are ranked on the first page of Google for their primary keyword. Once the domains get good search rankings, they are added to the call center’s database to sell listings to local businesses.
Although it’s still early, a handful of my domains already have paid listings on them. (Here’s an example for Anaheim Custom Homes.) Because of the commission Octane360 pays the call center, most listings will bring in about $5 a month to the domain owner. But that’s $60 a year per listing. The sites Octane360 has been successful selling listings on used to make less than $10 a year from pay-per-click. Between a couple listings, some pay-per-lead revenue, and PPC, decent domain names could make between $120-$200 a year on Octane360’s system.
It gets even better if someone uses the self-service feature on the domains to add their own listing. On one of my domains, a dermatologist added a listing for $60 a month. There’s no call center commission, so I’m earning $30 a month as long as that dermatologist keeps its listing. (Octane360 gets a revenue share on directory listings and leads; domainers keep 100% of pay-per-click revenue.)
Octane360 also gives you the tools to sign up advertisers yourself, which of course means you keep more money than a a listing sold by the call center.
The company is still innovating and working out its business process. But in a sea of new solutions for domain name owners, Octane360 shows some of the most promise. Not only does it get your domain names ranked in search engines, but it doesn’t rely solely on PPC.
The company isn’t making empty promises — it is delivering real revenue to domain names that previously made little money.
Frank Michlick (Domain Name News) says
Who owns the advertiser as a customer should you ever want to develop the name on your end?
/FM
Andrew Allemann says
Frank, not sure I understand what you mean? Like if you do full scale development and want that company to be an advertiser on the site?
Domain Investor says
Who is running or financially backing this company?
There is no mention of a person on the site.
Bad sign.
Hopefully, they will correct that flaw.
We all remember a couple ppc companies that
disappeared. I would like to connect a
name to the service before I loan them my
domains.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Domain Investor – Ron Sheridan is an advisor to them. They were also at DomainFest.
Josh says
So does this mean good names will earn millions?
Andrew Allemann says
@ Josh – that’s called full scale development.
Frank Michlick (Domain Name News) says
@Andrew: Thanks btw for sharing your experiences with them here.
Yes, let’s say you decide to develop one of the sites on your own at one point and separate ways with Octane360. Do you get to keep (do you have access to it now?) the advertiser information and relationship?
bernard says
Ranking on geo long tail is generally very easy, thus theses websites may rank with nearly no backlinks.
But this is a key point that is never mention in domainer blogs : develop any website with no unique content OR (not and) no serious backlinks is unpossible.
Thus the traffic will be near to zero, and I am dubious (1) that they will find enough customers to pay for such a listing and (2) if any how long he will stay before canceling.
You could see such an approach as adsense arbitrage: a zero interest website to rank on the long tail, and grab some visitor from Google to eventually clic on the link.
As SMB owner will get more educated, they probably be more unlikely to pay for such crappy advertisement.
bernard says
More about Octane360 and the sample website:
* bad hosting (long response time if any)
* the “buy this domain” tab will certainly help to convince the advertisers that the website owner has a great commitment to his customer 😉
* why should I continue here to find an home builder or any furniture? Will I start on such a website to find a company for a 200k$ project?
And last point: why should I pay more than $50 for anaheimcustomhomes.com (see valuate.com) as I can grab anaheimcustomhomes.US for free (and same value at valuate.com)?
Andrew Allemann says
“And last point: why should I pay more than $50 for anaheimcustomhomes.com (see valuate.com) as I can grab anaheimcustomhomes.US for free (and same value at valuate.com)?”
Surely you’re joking.
Jay says
I sent them an email months ago when you first talked about them as I was gonna give them a few hundred geo domains to try. I never heard back from anyone. I just tried to click your anaheim example and I get a mysql error, sure it’s temporary but just so ya know. Unfortunately with zero response from them I give their customer support an F and they missed out on what I consider some decent domains that do receive end user offers occasionally so they do have some traffic.
rob sequin says
What happens if you get an advertiser for a year and then you sell the web site?
Does Octane refund the customer?
What if the advertiser doesn’t want to give up the ad space? Does the user agreement force the domain owner to honor the advertiser relationship and therefore restrict the domain owner from selling?
Andrew Allemann says
@ Rob – that’s a question I had, too. The customer is actually on month-to-month, and usually they can find a suitable replacement site for the advertiser. But I did take down all of my “buy now” prices for the domains so they wouldn’t automatically sell. You’ll need to talk to them about your specific situation.
Jim Holleran says
I e-mailed them 3 times and never got a response back. There customer services sucks and I won’t deal with them.
Thanks, JIm
Adam says
@Frank – think of our model like a media rep or ad network business. We find advertisers that fit with your site specifically or a vertical group of sites.
@Domain Investor – this is Adam Rioux, I am the CEO of OCTANE360 – we are well funded private equity-backed company with a management team that has extensive backgrounds in Internet advertising and marketing. There is a team page up on the site, as well as a contact us page that lists phone numbers and a contact form. There isn’t a sign-up form right now because we are a closed network, meaning we like to speak with potential partners about our strategy, their strategy, goals, portfolio size, etc… before we enter into a partnership. To date the majority of our domain partners have come to us through referrals and we have been very cognizant of not expanding our network size beyond levels that our sales teams and partnerships could handle. At this point, we are now adding more partners that have the right types of domains for our strategy. We are not a parking company nor are we a fit for everyone. We currently look for partners that have large portfolios of geo-category domains that fit our proactive sales efforts.
@Jim and Jay – I apologize for how we handled your inquiries. We pride ourselves on providing great customer service to our domain partners, which I think if you spoke to any of them they would attest to our response times. Unlike many affiliate or ad networks we are a closed network. Because we are selling advertising to local, regional and national advertisers we need to make sure our partners have sites that fit what we are selling. Right now, we are solely focused on geo-category type domains, but that does not preclude our partners from building out other types of domains on our platform. We just focus on selling the geo-category based sites. However, that doesn’t excuse not responding to your inquiries. I apologize for that mistake. My email is adam@octane360.com so please feel free to contact me.
Jay says
@Adam
you should thank this blog as Andrew described your service perfectly months ago which is the reason I sent an initial email. Unfortunately you only get once to make a first impression and not responding to an inquiry doesn’t tell you if it’s a schmuck sending 5 domains your way or someone like me with hundreds of killer geo/service domains ready to hand them your way for development. No hard feelings, good luck to you. I have just learned that being ignored is not usually a good start to a business partnership.
netmeg says
FWIW, I contacted them yesterday afternoon and got a response the same day.
randomo says
I also got a same-day reply from them. (Unfortunately, my portfolio is far too small to interest them. Oh well.)
Domain Investor says
Quote –
“There is a team page up on the site”
Did you just put up that page/tab?
I don’t recall seeing it when I visited your site the other day.
I do trust Ron. (Sheridan)
I’m sure he would not mislead me.
Tim Davids says
so how many domains is enough? a FAQ on the site would save a lot of wasted time on both sides.
Scott Roberts says
I’ve had good response from them, and they have been easy to work with. I made the initial contact based on Andrew’s story, and we are deploying a few hundred names.
There are some good questions raised here, but I’m looking forward to working through those and seeing the platform grow.
Tim Davids says
found out theres a 500 domain min…how many people on the planet have 500 geo-keyword names to submit?
Jason Hiroshima says
This is Jason from OCTANE360. Sorry for the confusion with the 500 domain name requirement. That number is not set in stone and we have added publishers with fewer names. Please send us names to review if you feel your names are good. http://www.octane360.com/contact-us We plan to eliminate the minimum domain requirement soon, but we are trying to limit the number of publisher while we grow to guarantee appropriate service and sales coverage.
Belmassio says
To me it just sounds like growing pains.
Thanks for sharing Andrew….I’m going to give them a shot.
500 geo domains? Surely, there are plenty of us here that have that many, right? They are very easy to find and still relatively inexpensive.
netmeg says
I put a few hundred domains with them a week ago, and they’ve sold two paid listings already. I’m optimistic about this.
Andrew Allemann says
@ netmeg – that was fast. Were they already ranked in search engines?
Steve says
Hi Andrew …
If you’re able to give an update on Octane360.com, I would definitley be interested; as I assume many others would given the lively discussion above!
Thanks,
Steve
Andrew Allemann says
@ Steve – so far I’m happy. They continue to sell listings, although the churn on the listings is somewhat high. They just started selling leads in some categories, which is boosting my earnings.