Soars as CentralNic turns in strong first half — Ad revenue

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 firms ParkingCrew and Tonic.

The firm noted revenue of $111.3 million for the first half of 2020, up 124% year-over-year. This was, in sizable part, due to the buyout of Team Internet’s monetization services. The monetization segment contributed $48.5 million in revenue.

CentralNic states 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 since of the pandemic.

The firm also credits SSL monetization with part of the boost. By SSL monetization, the firm is referring to how ParkingCrew enables SSL on domains that receive a lot of traffic.

The note also states that the monetization segment has one client 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 following receiving a response from CentralNic.