Domain monetization contributes to strong first half at CentralNic.
Are ad markets suppressed due to Covid-19?
Not at CentralNic (London AIM: CNIC), owner of domain name monetization companies ParkingCrew and Tonic.
The company reported revenue of $111.3 million for the first half of 2020, up 124% year-over-year. This was, in large part, due to the acquisition of Team Internet’s monetization services. The monetization segment contributed $48.5 million in revenue.
CentralNic says that revenue per thousand (RPM, the opposite of CPM) increased by 33%. This is a surprising result given that many ad platforms saw decreased bidding because of the pandemic.
The company also credits SSL monetization with part of the boost. By SSL monetization, the company is referring to how ParkingCrew enables SSL on domains that receive a lot of traffic.
The report also states that the monetization segment has one customer that represented more than 92% of the segment’s revenue during the period, amounting to USD 45.0m. This is most likely Google, which provides the main advertising feed for ParkingCrew. The number is higher than I assumed and shows that traditional PPC parking — not Tonic’s zero-click network — drives almost all of the revenue.
This story has been updated after receiving a response from CentralNic.
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