How to get rid of confused “buyers” in one simple step.
Every once in a while, one of my domain names on Afternic will get a lot of inquiries.
Consider the domain in the image above, HackSpin.com. It received a few inquiries in September, but starting in December, it became a flood: the domain received over 85 inquiries from December until January 6.
Most of these inquiries were relegated to “Afternic Automation”, meaning Afternic thinks they have very low potential.
It’s quite clear that people are confused. This domain was set to the Request Price lander, and people were filling out the form because they were looking for something other than to buy the domain.
I have no idea what they’re looking for. If I had to guess, it has something to do with this same domain in the .online extension.
Getting all of these misguided inquiries is a waste of time and clutters up your Afternic Lead Center.
But there’s a simple way to get rid of these misguided inquiries — and you can make a bit of money at the same time.
You have two options. One is to change the lander to Buy Now. This will instantly turn off your bad inquiries and turn people away.
But unless you have concerns about the ads your domain will show, I’d recommend switching your domain to the Cash Parking lander instead. This lander still gets rid of confused people making an inquiry but can also earn you some pay-per-click revenue. And there will still be a banner at the top that people can click on if they are actually interested in buying the domain name.
Sure enough, within a few days of switching this lander to PPC, it has started generating revenue.
More importantly, the bad inquiries stopped.
Mark Thorpe says
My domain landers are BIN but I still receive confused buyers in my lead center.
steve says
Andrew,
I have 484 leads just this month on Afternic
only 4 resulted in a negotiation and zero sales
I realize we’re just 11 days in but 484 leads — admittedly, 5 domains get multiple inquiries each day, so I don’t get excited about
Well, you had RichG on one — he’s super. If he can’t bring it home to a transaction, nobody there can.
One of the brokers there sent me a message a few days ago saying it’s not easy figuring out the serious buyers from the time wasters, if their info isn’t already in the database
If you’ve ever seen the film or play Glengarry Glenn Ross, sometimes I think these “buyers” are just really “lonely” and they turn to domain brokers to moan and kibbitz about the names, but act like they could be buyers
“I’m calling about Ballgame.com”
“Yes, sir, how can I help you?”
“What’s so great about this ballgame name?”
“Well, it’s_____”
“In my day, ballgames were cheaper. None of these 15 dollar hotdogs and —”
“The domain is _____ years old. It gets ___ search volume per month. It’s____”
“25 years isn’t so old. And I hate the damned traffic.”
“It’s for sale at ____”
“20 dollars. And that’s my final offer.”
“Sir, that’s not possible.”
“Put your manager on the line. I don’t like rude. I’m trying to give you business here, and you treat me like a a thief.”
“Sir, I-
“What’s with the attitude. I make a very fine offer for a lousy name, and this how you treat your customers”
…….
“
J.R. says
I’m not a fan of PPC landers.
But this is a good suggestion for domains without a potential registered trademark issue.
I’ve been having the false/confused issue with a specific .com due to a VC backed startup on .co.
How do you check PPC earnings and analytics on the Afternic PPC sales lander in your dashboard?