Cahn & Crew Pulled It Off — How Monte

$3 million auction was well executed.

If anyone was scared regarding how yesterday’s live domain auction at TRAFFIC would go, their fears dissipated regarding 30 minutes into the auction. Domains were selling and bidding was intense.

Sure, the final tally of $3 million ($4 million for all auctions this stretch) was much less than the $10 million last year, but it’s a coup given what’s going on in the economy.

So how did Monte Cahn and his crew at Moniker pull it off?

1. Good mix of low priced and high priced domains. Moniker managed to list some killer domains at no reserve and low reserve, guaranteeing that bidding would be intense. It also mixed up the high priced and low priced domains, so there weren’t exceptionally long periods of domains not selling. Perhaps they were a little heavy on $1M+ domains, but selling just one of those can make a show. FinancialAid.com et al at $800,000 is a case in point.

2. Great auctioneer. These guys are professional and know how to pull bids out of the audience.

3. Monte. It’s hard not to get sucked into his enthusiasm on stage.

4. Good execution of online bidding. Although I again had difficulty completing the download/registration process using Firefox 3, the auction flowed smoothly and internet bidders were always given the option to bid the same amount as floor bidders.

5. Trust and experience. Moniker has built up a reputation of trust in online auctions, which means a lot of people were willing to sell their domains at low and no reserve, knowing that the combination of Moniker and the TRAFFIC conference almost always delivers.