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Web presence companies ramp up ad spend as demand soars

by — Domain Registrars 1 Comment

GoDaddy and Wix spend more to capture demand surge during the pandemic.

Screenshot of Google Ads for the term "domain name?

Top ads for “domain name” on Google.

It’s been a good year for service providers that help people establish a web presence. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced businesses to shift business online in whole or in part. From yoga instructors offering online instruction to restaurants adding online take-out ordering, businesses have flocked to companies like GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY) and Wix (NASDAQ: WIX) for help.

GoDaddy has added more net paying customers (over 1 million) during the first three quarters of this year than it ever has during three quarters in its 23-year history. Collections (sales) at Wix were up 33% in Q2 2020 compared to Q2 2019.

These added sales aren’t purely organic, though. The companies are spending heavily on advertising to capture this new demand.

GoDaddy’s Q3 marketing and advertising spend was up 45% year over year to $115.4M. It was up 16% to $104.4 million in Q2.

Wix doesn’t report Q3 results until later this week. In Q2, the company increased its acquisition marketing spend by 90% year over year to $75 million.

This is paying dividends. Wix reported that it recouped $38 million of its Q2 acquisition advertising in new sales through the end of that quarter. It expects people who signed up in Q2 to spend $570 million over their lifetime.

Increased advertising spend comes in two buckets.

One is somewhat natural: as more people search for ways to get their business online, the companies will pay more for Google ad clicks targeting relevant terms. The companies are also likely bidding more or expanding their ad budgets across other media.

Not all companies are following this track. Web.com, the parent company of Network Solutions and Web.com, has seen a dramatic drop in new registrations this year. A likely explanation is that it has stopped advertising on Google for domain name related terms. It used to advertise low first-year prices (a couple of dollars for a .com) on search ads. I suspect that the increased bid prices weren’t delivering the ROI it hoped.

Understanding GoDaddy’s Full Domain & Privacy Protection

by — Domain Registrars 0 Comments

GoDaddy’s paid domain privacy service has some practical implications for domain owners and the expired domain market.

The word WHOIS in blue and yellow letters on black background

Earlier this year, GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY) made its basic Whois privacy protection service free. By default, GoDaddy now shows a registrant’s organization name, country, and state/province in public Whois.

The change was good for customers but cost GoDaddy lots of revenue. The company doesn’t disclose how many domains used the paid Whois service called Domains By Proxy. But it could have been about 18 million domains, which would generate $180 million in high margin revenue every year.

So the company added two new levels of paid domain protection and privacy. It upgraded domains that used the paid service to Full Domain & Privacy Protection unless customers opted out.

Compared to the free level, this level redacts the organization name and location from Whois, protects against unwanted transfers, and protects against accidental expiration.

The new service has some practical implications.

Earlier this year, I helped a friend register some domains for his business, and we added Whois privacy. These domains were upgraded to Full Domain & Privacy Protection. I had to remove the paid service in order to transfer the domains to his account recently.

The second implication is that we might see fewer expired domains hit GoDaddy Auctions over the next year. Full Domain & Privacy Protection automatically extends registrations by a year if the renewal fails due to an outdated or invalid payment method. This does not kick in if the registrant doesn’t turn on autorenew. However, we should see fewer expirations at GoDaddy, at least in the short term.

GoDaddy earnings: 1 million net new customers this year, COO Andrew Low Ah Kee leaving

by — Domain Registrars 0 Comments

Customer base and revenue continues to climb as business quickly transition online.

Headshot photo of Andrew Low Ah Kee

Andrew Low Ah Kee

Domain name and web presence company GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY) announced earnings after the market closed today.

The company said it has added over one million net paying customers in the first three quarters of 2020. That’s the biggest nine-month increase in net paying customers in the company’s history.

It also announced that Chief Operating Officer Andrew Low Ah Kee is departing the company to take the President role at another tech company.

Total revenue for the quarter was $844.4 million, up 11.0% year over year. Total bookings were $945.0 million, also up 11.0%.

The domains segment turned in another strong quarter. Total revenue from domains was $387.4 million, up 12.2% year over year.

October’s Top 5 domain name stories

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PayPal, a fly, and some expensive domain forwards made for top domain name news last month.

The words "Top 5" written on a purple background

Here are the stories that attracted the most attention on Domain Name Wire last month.

1. PayPal drops Epik, sparking registrar to cry it is being “deplatformed” – PayPal wasn’t trying to deplatform the company; it had risk concerns. Regardless, Big Tech has too much power.

2. Biden campaign jumps on fly on Pence’s head with FlyWillVote.com – A quick and clever domain registration. Some people thought the fly was part of some conspiracy, though, which says a lot about the state of the nation.

3. Domain appraisal scammers try to take advantage of new GoDaddy contact system – The appraisal scam is now pretending to be a “certified” offer from GoDaddy or Sedo.

4. 3 companies paid $100k+ for domain forwards – GoDaddy released its first batch of domain sales data in years, and three of the top sales went to companies that bought the domains to forward them to other domains.

5. XYZ acquires 5 more top level domains including .Autos, .Homes – XYZ keeps adding to its top level domain stable, this time by acquiring Dominion Domains’ portfolio.

Miss a Domain Name Wire Podcast in October? Listen now:

#307 – It’s on .Fox with Crews Gore (listen)

#308 – Domain valuation with Michael Cyger (listen)

#309 – Domain leasing, selling domains and more (listen)

#310 – The domain sales stack with Reza Sardeha (listen)

It’s in: the latest list of which registrars are top in .Com

by — Domain Registrars 2 Comments

 

The words "top 10 domain registrars" in purple and yellow text

ICANN has published the latest official data from Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) about the .com namespace. This registrar-by-registrar report covers July 2020.

For the second month in a row, Chinese domain name registrar Xin Net has hemorrhaged domains. I suspect some Chinese domain investors are letting their subpar domains go.

Here’s how registrars did in terms of new .com registrations in July:

1. GoDaddy.com* (NYSE: GDDY) 980,072 (1,019,809 in June)
2. Namecheap Inc. 281,870 (276,463)
3. Tucows** (NASDAQ:TCX) 248,333 (261,936)
4. Endurance+ (NASDAQ: EIGI) 200,407 (198,274)
5. Alibaba (HiChina) 193,608 (160,422)
6. Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) 169,345 (159,637)
7. Wix (NASDAQ: WIX) 109,552 (118,685)
8. United Internet^ 71,225 (78,001)
9. Dynadot 61,679
9. NameSilo 57,944 (58,967)

Here’s the leaderboard of the top registrars in terms of total .com registrations under management as of the end of July 2020.

1. GoDaddy* 54,055,970 (53,921,563 in June)
2. Tucows** 12,926,699 (12,911,196)
3. Endurance+ 7,123,142 (7,054,410)
4. Web.com++ 7,035,136 (7,036,119)
5. Namecheap 6,177,045 (6,001,568)
6. Alibaba 5,923,722 (5,877,037)
7. United Internet^ 5,552,903 (5,550,769)
8. Google 3,753,882 (3,653,632)
9. Xin Net Technology Corporation 2,793,597 (3,087,400)
10. GMO 2,249,611 (2,270,872)

Many domain companies have multiple accreditations and I’ve tried to capture the largest ones. See the notes below.

* Includes GoDaddy, Wild West Domains, Uniregistry and 123 Reg
** Includes Tucows, Enom, Ascio and EPAG
+ Includes PDR, Domain.com, FastDomain and Bigrock. There are other Endurance registrars, but these are the biggest.
++ Includes Network Solutions, Register.com, and Crazy Domains/Dreamscape
^ Includes 1&1, PSI, Cronon, United-Domains, Arsys and world4you

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