Investing data from Paul Nicks (GoDaddy) at NamesCon — Great domain
This is a live blog of Paul Nick’s keynote at NamesCon this morning.
Paul Nicks shared some valuable data regarding 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 stated 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 fresh 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 fresh 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 states 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 client 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.
