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August 27, 2012

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Here's the The Lowdown from DN Journal,
updated daily
to fill you in on the latest buzz going around the domain name industry. 

The Lowdown is compiled by DN Journal Editor & Publisher Ron Jackson.

New Wave of Domain Monetization Companies Seek to Cash in on Dissatisfaction With Reduced Payouts at Current Parking Providers

It's no secret that PPC earnings have fallen off a cliff the past couple of years, leaving a lot of domain owners ready and willing to pull up stakes and move on - if they only had somewhere to go.  With the parking revenue declines affecting all of the current players that rely on Google or 

Yahoo (now Bing) as their upstream provider, there haven't been a lot of options. However, any time there is a problem, sooner or later some ambitious entrepreneur or new company will come along and promise a solution to that problem. That's what we are seeing in the domain monetization space with Frank Schilling's rollout of InternetTraffic.com last month and, just this week, Media Breakway's debut of TheParkingPlace.com

While InternetTraffic.com relies on a Google feed like many others, Schilling had earned very warm early reviews by, apparently, simply giving his select clients a considerably higher share of the revenue (you need to have a very high quality portfolio to be accepted at InternetTraffic). TheParkingPlace is taking a different approach, welcoming all comers while generating their revenue through a mix of monetization options.

Scott Richter
CEO, Media Breakway LLC

Scott Richter, the CEO of TheParkingPlace.com's parent, Media Breakaway, told us more about how his company differs from others in the monetization space. "TheParkingPlace.com is operating on a different revenue model than current parking companies. They concentrate on PPC while we utilize a combination of CPA, CPC and CPM offers," Richter said. "We also accept all types of domains including top-level, premium and adult. There are no bans on domains."

"One other thing that differentiates us from other companies is that we are able to monetize 100% of existing traffic, including all international. We have a broad range of offers for 100's of countries and landing pages are translated and optimized for each individual country giving our clients an even larger increase in their previous revenue. By enhancing the user experience, this model has proven especially successful with domains that

are currently generating a $20 RPM or lower, increasing their revenue by up to 400%," Richter said.

With a focus on optimization we asked Richter how much of a role the client has to play in the optimization process. He said, "Clients do not have to do anything to optimize their domains.  TheParkingPlace.com has a dedicated optimization team that manages the client's domains and monitors them around-the-clock."

Of course, a handful of existing companies already have had alternate monetization platforms in place for some time, using methods that range from mini-site development to utilizing new 

upstream providers that sidestep the search engine monopoly. Last August I wrote about my positive experience with NameMedia's SmartName stores that use a Shopping.com feed to create ecommerce and informational 

sites. I am still pleased with their storefront solution for product domains and continue to use them and add additional domains that are appropriate for that approach. In the current environment (which the newcomers may change), one size does not fit all. 

With that in mind, I have also been moving some domains that get decent traffic but are not making money via PPC to my own landing pages to emphasize sales rather than monetization. Domain sales have always been a much higher source of revenue for me than parking, so if names make little or nothing parked, I am better off using that traffic for a detailed sales presentation of my own (rather than a one liner, like "This domain may be for sale" on a parking page with ad links that don't convert).

I also continue to use traditional parking companies for other domains that still mange to do well parked or for which there is currently no better option. The byword now seems to be experimentation. Everyone is seeking a better solution. For most, the ideal solution would be one that can be applied to all domains, with a minimum of elbow grease required (that is because the high number of domains in most portfolios make individual optimization by the user a very time consuming process). TheParkingPlace says that description fits them. Time will tell and when a new solution does prove to cover all the bases and produce noticeably higher payouts in the process we will be seeing a new market leader. Though some 

have given up on them, that leader could even come from the old guard. I have a hard time imagining them standing around with their hands in the pockets while newcomers eat their lunch but business history is littered with the bodies of companies that did not successfully adapt to customer demand.

(Posted June 3, 2012) 


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