This is a live blog of Paul Nick’s keynote at NamesCon this morning.
Paul Nicks shared some valuable data about domain investing.
YoY sales of aftermarket domains from third party inventory were up 41% on 29% increase in inquiries.
30% growth in conversion rate the day they changed the presentation of domains in the purchase path. They added valuations, valuation reasons, video and a bigger presentation.
Sales were up 87% in Latin America, 60% in Asia, 56% in EMEA, 47% USA. (These numbers are all higher than the 41% number; keep in mind that they don’t have location data on all sales, but I will check with Paul to check this discrepancy.)
All regions had average sales prices of $1,822 or more. Average sale price is fairly consistent across regions.
Nicks said there are lots of types of investors at GoDaddy:
1. High volume investors doing closeouts, reg fee and selling on average $300-$500
2. High value investors buying $2,000+ and selling $20k+
3. “Sweet spot” investors buying $30-$60 and selling average $2,000-$5,000.
Nicks advises against #1 and #2 for new people entering the market. He thinks the third option is best.
Domains with 5-14 characters have higher demand and value. 80% of GoDaddy’s sales fall within 5-14 characters.
92% of sales are .com, followed by 2.6% for .org, 1.5% .net and 1.4% .co. Avg. selling price of $2,268 for .com. .Com and .Org number of sales were up YoY; .net and .co were down.
Top 6 new gTLDs sold on GoDaddy’s aftermarket (in order): .app, .xyz, .club, .life, .shop, .online. .XYZ average sales price was the lowest of these six at $924, .online highest at $2,452. Keep in mind that none of these are among top 10 sellers.
Regarding GoDaddy’s automated appraisal tool, 59% of sales on Afternic’s network were within $1,000 of appraisal price and 89% within $2,000. Nick says adding valuations is helping sell more aftermarket domains.
Half of all leads of GoDaddy’s own portfolio come from landers, not registrar searches.
GoDaddy recently started testing GoDaddy-branded landers. This change alone increased conversion 10%. They also internationalize their for sale landers with local phone numbers.
Tested with a customer changing from PPC page to for sale page, sales average per month went from $50k to $150k within a month. Has changed month to month but still much higher overall revenue than PPC lander. Clarification: this was from a PPC only with no for sale message to a for sale only.
Nothing about the GoDaddy brokers that relay silly offers to domain owners outside of GoDaddy? Mr. Nicks should address this: https://acro.net/blog/brokerage-persistence-why-are-domain-bin-prices-on-ignore/
Hi Arco, Thanks for the comment! We certainly strive to make sure sellers are aware of offers that come to us, but there’s never an expectation or requirement to accept the lower offer. As I’m sure you’re aware, different circumstances play into each domain. How long you’ve owned the domain name or how much you picked it up for etc. could play into how much flexibility you may or may not have on each domain name. Since we don’t have those details on every domain name listed, it’s better to put the offer in front of the seller (in our humble opinion) and make sure they have the final decision, even when it’s listed by a third party. Let me know if you have any follow up thoughts, always happy to talk about domains!
Does GoDaddy have any plans to bring back plain For Sale templates like the old Instapage? John
“92% of sales are .com, followed by 2.6% for .org, 1.5% .net and 1.4% .co. ”
Is there even any % left for new tlds?
I think these numbers are for Afternic Premium Network only which accepts com, net, org, co, info, biz, de, pw only.
No it’s for all extensions sold
Key domainer points:
“29%” increase in inquiries for “Third Party” inventory and 41% more sales, since the same time last year.(not domains from GoDaddy’s NameFind.com portfolio).
Sweet spot (“Value”) investors buying low ($60 or less) and selling average $2,000-$5,000.(higher “ROI”)
“80%” of “Domain Sales” fall within 5-14 characters.(end-users will buy “Longer Domains”).
“92%” of “Domain Sales” are “.COM”! (.COM is still King!)
GoDaddy’s automated appraisal tool within $1-2k of Afternic domain sales.(doesn’t factor in domain sales outside of GoDaddy)
50% of all leads from GoDaddy’s “domain portfolio” (NameFind.com) come from “Lander Pages”, not registrar searches.(domain direct type-in traffic is still alive and well)
New GoDaddy-branded (logo) landing pages have increased GoDaddy’s own domain portfolio “Sales” by 10% (compared to just Afternic branded/logo pages).
Tested with a “Customer”, they tried domain “For Sale” only pages, instead of PPC (pay per click) only pages and it made them an extra “$100k” within a “Month”.(PPC still has not made a comeback and it might not.)
Paul Nix’s full slide deck is here, if you’re so inclined: https://www.godaddy.com/garage/early-2019-domain-trends-and-insights/
(Disc: I work at GoDaddy.)
*Nicks (Sorry, Paul. I obvi need more coffee this morning.)
92% of sales are .com, followed by 2.6% for .org, 1.5% .net and 1.4% .co. Avg. selling price of $2,268 for .com.
Still the king !
There was some great data and good points to reflect on from my own data and experience. Thanks for opening up that information Paul. Andrew, I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on the portion about “Dom” new domainer in the presentation.
Is 1% sell trough really going to be achievable?
$2000 -> $20k buyer I’d say that margin is too low.
If you’re selling for 10x and 1% per year, it’s going to take a long time to make your cash back.