Company will pay you for email sent to domain names you own.
[Update: please see response from ThreatWave.] MailboxPark, a new offering from 250ok, will pay domain name owners for their parked domains’ email traffic.
The new service requires domain owners to point their MX records to MailboxPark, at which point the company will start paying domainers for email messages sent to the domain names.
MailboxPark sounds similar to Bounce.io, a service that used to monetize parked domain email traffic with bounce messages that contained ads. But 250ok/MailboxPark CEO Greg Kraios explained some key differences.
We do not view ThreatWave (formerly Bounce.io) as our competitor; in fact, they are an important 250ok vendor, and I believe they would tell you that we are a valued customer. I know the Bounce.io founder Scott Brown very well and previously served as an advisor to them. Current ThreatWave CEO Tom Bartel and I are also friends. The sole reason we created MailboxPark was to de-risk our business by obtaining as many unique sources of email data as we can.
As you know, Bounce.io pioneered the opportunity of paying domain owners for data found within their mail traffic. Their customers were paid based on a percentage of revenue generated from ads placed in bounced mail traffic. Needless to say, there were complications with that model that led their leadership to pivot to what is now the ThreatWave offering (i.e., a focus on malware and other malicious content).
At 250ok, we collect and analyze email data sent to parked domains to look for phishing attacks on legitimate domains and brands. We also use the data to help determine the quality of a company’s mailing practices. There is a growing need for this type of data considering the severity of phishing attacks on businesses today. Also, according to a 2015 survey, 73 percent of companies report having issues with email deliverability. These are the types of problems we address for our customers using the email data generated by MailboxPark.
Based on the monies generated by the 250ok customers paying to access this data, we offer a monthly payout total that we split among the MailboxPark partners. Partners receive a payment that reflects the percentage of email traffic* that was generated by their domains for that month. For example, if your MailboxPark account was responsible for three percent of our email for July and the monthly payout total was $100,000, your earnings would be $3,000 for July. We are also developing a new product that will payout based on domain count. So, to be clear, our business model does not involve bounce messages or ad revenue.
*There are some program thresholds every domain must meet to be included in our feed
After speaking with some high profile domainers, we get the impression that most domain owners are not doing anything with their MX records. Our goal is twofold: 1) MailboxPark will help domainers and domain parking companies generate additional revenue for no additional expense, and 2) we will bring greater insight to domain owners about the type and volume of email sent to their domains.
According to MailboxPark’s FAQ, it is seeking email sent from businesses, brands and other official organizations–not personal email.
MailboxPark certainly seems like a good way to monetize parked domains beyond just pay-per-click ads. For many domainers, I think it will be more effective and easier if their parking companies integrate directly with the service like they did with Bounce.io.
Update: I received this response/clarification from Tom Bartel, CEO of ThreatWave.
We’ve been asked what our take is on the newly announced email parking service, so wanted to share our thoughts.
Surprisingly, this is the first we are hearing of a directly competitive offering from our longstanding partner. As it sounds similar to what we provide, this is a good opportunity to clarify our domain monetization offering.
We are ThreatWave (formerly bounce.io) and as our domain partners know, we have been providing an MX monetization service since 2013.
We are proud pioneers in establishing the first production MX monetization service for the domain industry. Yesterday’s post mentioned our early advertising focus, but minimized the scope of our current business, so we’d like to expand on that.
Our focus is broad data monetization, not just malware and malicious traffic use cases. Having become experts in data intake and processing, we have now established a data marketplace for data consumers. Our refined output feeds help data consumers across Threat, Reputation, and Market intelligence use cases. Our Threat intelligence feeds help protect users, networks, and devices from common scourges like spam, phishing and malware. As for Reputation intelligence (through partners like 250ok, Return Path, and others), digital marketers are empowered to understand and improve their mailing practices.
And it is the broad power of our network that accomplishes all that. Overall, we intake billions of messages monthly, collect and analyze, reduce noise and streamline that data for all these use cases, and in the process support some of the world’s most influential security and email-focused companies who use this data to make the world a better place.
We have created a strong and passive monetization opportunity for Domain Investors and Domain Services companies. For our current Domain partners, we have a number of exciting platform enhancements to announce through the end of the year and into 2017, including improved insights and payouts.
We are proud to work with many in the Domain Industry, but we do not take that for granted. If you would like to hear more from me about this or sign up for our service, I can be reached at tom (at) threatwave.com.
Luc Biggs says
Does anyone have any feedback/experience regarding this company?
Jamie Zoch says
I spoke with them in detail yesterday and will have some more info soon.
Wk says
Hey Luc, I’ve had my domains parked with them for over a month now (roughly 25 domains resulting in ~700 emails) and still have no information on the amount of money I will receive per email, the amount of money already earned, payment, etc. I’m starting to think that it (MailboxPark.com) is fake, just getting people to forward them emails for as long as they can before they figure it out, but I did email them again today, maybe I’ll get a response, if I do, or if anything changes I’ll come back here and update you guys.
Joe Montgomery says
Apologies for the delay in updating our software with payout information, Wk. It took us a little longer than anticipated to get everything properly wired in place but here’s an overview:
Payment Terms
Expected Volume = The average number of total messages a domain(s) receives in a given month based on an analysis of our existing network data.
Relevant Volume = The average number of commercial messages sent to a domain. This is the mail we can monetize and pay for.
Estimated Monthly Revenue (EMR) = The estimated total monthly revenue amount generated by the anticipated Relevant Volume of messages.
Estimated Annual Revenue (EAR) = The estimated total annual revenue amount generated by the anticipated Relevant Volume of messages.
Payout Model
First, to incentivize the small domainer (i.e., an account with 1,000 domains or less), we are offering a $.05 per domain, monthly OR the value of your email traffic, whichever is greater. Hopefully, this makes it worth your while to point your MX records to us and see if any of your domains hit the jackpot.
Based on our current distribution network, we currently see 45 million commercial emails per month. For those 45 million commercial messages, we pay an average of $1.10 CPM.
Payout Reporting
Tomorrow we will launch an update to the software that shows you what your payout amount is for the previous 30-days as well as real-time visibility going forward.
In the meantime, we will contact every existing MailboxPark partner within the next 48 hours via email to report on email volume and payout value for the period. We are lowering our minimum payout amount to $5.00 USD to make sure we pay out as quickly as it makes sense. Any earned amount less than that will roll over to the following calendar month.
If you do not hear from us within the next 48 hours, please free to contact us directly at support [at] mailboxpark [dot] com.
New Feature: Email Discovery
In addition to the payout reporting, we’re excited to announce that as of tomorrow you can use your MailboxPark account to analyze the type of mail your domains are receiving (e.g., personal, commercial, other), who is sending that mail to you, and even see examples of the messages you’re receiving – it’s a master inbox for the domain owner.
How can this email discovery tool be useful? You can now easily view mail from potential domain buyers. Also, if you regularly receive mail meant for another business, you can use that mail as part of your sales pitch. We’re trying to help domainers maximize email in every way possible.
We hope you like where it landed with the new functionality and find the payment model straightforward.
Thanks for being a MailboxPark partner.
Joseph Peterson says
@Joe Montgomery,
$.05 per domain? That’s $0.60 per domain as a guaranteed minimum annual payout, correct?
Surely, I’m missing something. What criteria do you use for accepting domains for this payout rate?
We’ve seen first-year registrations in some TLDs as low as 1 penny. So you’re saying that I can buy 100,000 penny domains for $1000 and receive a guaranteed payout of $60,000 over the course of 1 year?
We’ve also seen registries self-register their own domains in massive quantities. Similarly, they can make an almost unlimited profit based on this $0.05 guaranteed rate.
What am I missing?
Andrew Allemann says
He said it’s for small accounts of 1,000 or fewer domains. That could still be $600 a year, which isn’t bad in some parts of the world. Probably best to put an asterisk on it and say 1,000 domains that have been registered for more than a couple years.
Joseph Peterson says
@Andrew,
We can sign up new accounts in the hundreds, no problem, if we can guarantee that every account generates $600 in the first year from a $10 input. Folks on Fiverr will happily oblige. We can round up whole neighborhoods in India. Every Facebook friend. Just pay each person a token fee. And retire by year’s end.
Andrew Allemann says
Fair enough. I guess they’ll need to approve accounts.
Jamie Zoch says
Hi Joseph,
Only 1 account per person.
Joe Montgomery says
@Joseph
I appreciate your entrepreneurial spirit, sir.
You can review the complete details regarding MailboxPark’s guaranteed minimum payout in our Terms of Service.
Although you may be compensated for providing mail traffic from any domain, the following top-level domains qualify for a guaranteed minimum payout with MailboxPark: .com, .net, .org, .ws, .co.uk, .tk, .de, .it, .ru, .jp, .com.au, .fr, .fm, .es, .ca, .co.za, .com.br, .hu, .com.es, .in, .no, .be, .nl, .ch, .dk, .cz, .pl, and .co.
Also, as you might imagine, we reserve the right to suspend domains from the guaranteed minimum payout that fail to generate commercial mail.
Thanks for the interest.
S. Brady Alliy says
This service may help domain owners monetize their domains although I am uncertain to what extent. On the other hand I believe vanity email address rentals is a viable business ripe for development and monetization.
DNPric.es says
Anyone can run a vanity registry via Namely.PRO. Does not cost a thing to set up.
As to MX monetisation, heard few stories from fellow domainers that some TLD registries have suspended their domain names for junk traffic.
Joseph Peterson says
If emails sent to whatever@domain are being monetized, then that probably involves some reply email, right?
I imagine a certain kind of reply – as a worst-case scenario – could cause the domain to run afoul of spam filters or cause some more human kind of scandal. Far-fetched, perhaps. But this does elevate the risk of damaging the domain’s resale prospects somewhat, even if it’s only from 0 to 0.00001%.
Would like to understand that better.
Joseph Peterson says
P.S. If conversations are initiated with whatever@domain, what happens to those conversations later on when the domain sells? A new owner could be facing a greater influx of irrelevant messages.
Jamie Zoch says
No replies to the incoming email Joseph. It’s about the data. The “why” did this email come.
Joseph Peterson says
Maybe so. That is what they describe – a read-only kind of analysis. But I wonder about the fine print. Will there be something in the TOS that allows them to send reply emails – i.e. to exercise that option some day if they so choose?
Jamie Zoch says
That is a failed method that has been tried before. This is solely data.
Joe Montgomery says
I can confirm we will NOT be sending bounce messages or messages of any type, Joseph.
We’re about monetizing your commercial email traffic and building tools that help you sell your domains.
Paul Midgen says
Hi, I’m one of the engineers who built this system.
Excellent question.
In our business, there’s zero upside to engaging with messages sent to parked domains. The value we care about is derived completely from the received message, no communication with the sender is necessary.
In fact, because the data we derive is used as an indicator of bad behavior on the part of the sender (certain exceptions notwithstanding, e.g. some random human fat-fingering the domain portion of a buddy’s email address), communicating with the sender might alert them that we’re watching. Then they stop sending, and then it’s game over.
So our goal is to be as invisible as technically feasible.
Separately, part of our data analysis efforts are focused on figuring out if it’s possible, in addition to the revenue opportunity, to give domainers data that assists in valuing a given domain for resale.
We’re here to be part of the ecosystem, so any feedback you have about what might help… we’re all ears.
Hopefully that makes sense, happy to give more detail
nexusm2016Mike says
today i got email :
Hello again and thank you for choosing MailboxPark!
Your account has been activated and you can start verifying your domains. Simply click the Upload Domains button the your Manage Domains screen and point your MX records to:
still don,t know how does it work ?
Paul Midgen says
Hi, I’m one of the engineers who built this system.
Once your account is active, you’ve added MX records, and told us the domains you own, we just wait for messages to arrive.
When they do, the system extracts a bunch of information (from/to, date, sending ip, etc.), logs some stats (e.g. messages per domain, etc.) to your account, and then discards the message.
Revenue generated by your domains is directly related to those stats.
Does that help?
Joseph Peterson says
Thanks, Paul, for the clarification.
What you describe involves no reply email. Will that remain true?
Paul Midgen says
Hi Joseph, I have another detailed comment awaiting moderation – hopefully that addresses some of your question.
As for the rest…
Sending replies is something that has never come up in our internal discussions to date – we just don’t see the point.
The email industry is a small one and is built on personal relationships. You don’t last long there if you lack integrity.
We understand the domain parking world to be very similar. So, should our intentions ever change, we’ll reconfirm continued participation with our partners at that time.
Luc says
To which records to we point our names to?
We have created an account – but it says:
“Your account has not been activated yet. Please contact our support team at support@mailboxpark.com to retrieve your MX records.”
“Configure your MX records:
Sign in to your hosting account and go to the DNS management page.
Delete all existing MX entries. By default, MX records may already be present.
Enter the following MX records.
Save your changes. It may take MX record updates up to 48 hours to propogate.
Check your domain list for the verified () marker.”
But there are no MX records visible.
Please explain the process as the instructions are not on the website.
Thanks.
Jamie Zoch says
Hi Luc,
I am advising MailboxPark and helping with getting processes that will be domainer friendly, extremely transparent as well as working with many companies in the space.
Being totally honest, the product was launched a little early, so please give us a little bit of time to get things more clearly layed out.
First things first, not all parking companies systems currently work. This relates to domain name servers and “the zone” and what they allow. For an example, if you are parking with Sedo and using SedoParking.com as name servers, Sedo currently doesn’t allow incoming mail to customers. So if you have MX records set for MailboxPark, it doesn’t work. We are working with companies so it does and will provide a list of current services that do work very shortly.
Most registrar default name servers DO currently work, like GoDaddy’s DomainControl.com for an example, NameBright.com etc.
Now relating to your question, once you add domain names to your MailboxPark account (Manage Domains/ Add Domains (single domains) or Upload Domains for bulk via .txt file), the MX records needed are displayed after submitting your domains. You can also access the MX records needed in the “My Account” tab and scrolling down to the MX Records section.
I am working on creating very clear instructions to load domains into MailboxPark, step by step “how to”, as well as creating some How To videos to do bulk MX record changes via registrar that make it extremely easy, similar to doing bulk name server changes.
Many great things to come and this is going to be exciting, not only from an added revenue source but also in discovery (trust me)!