Advertising in the sunday times

[Edwin]

Has anyone tried advertising a domain in adwords? that would be interesting.

I tried that a couple of years ago, but the ads quickly got suspended because they weren't deemed "high quality" enough (probably because they got lots of impressions but almost no clicks). I may give it a try again sometime though because the current sales page is more "tailored" to the particular domain name than it used to be.

The best possible ad would probably be one targetted to only be triggered by the ACTUAL domain name, i.e. if somebody searches for "example.co.uk" and you have an ad saying "Buy example.co.uk today" with a landing page URL of www.example.co.uk

Mind you, that might generate too few impressions and get suspended automatically by Google. There are so many pitfalls to tiptoe around in order to keep a campaign running but cheap.

 

[Brassneck]

Some interesting ideas here. What frustrates me though is that after all these years there is still no proper tradition of trading domains in a secondary market. Even my Sedo sales (when they happened at a reasonable frequency) were often to other domain investors rather than real end users.

All the above ideas are fairly marginal at best. If there was a proper secondary market (in UK domain names) then we wouldn't be racking our brains to make something happen.

Stephen.

 

[foz]

Pushing or pulling methods I don't think have ever been satisfactory.

The best buyer is the one that approaches you first. They either type the domain into the browser or check the whois. So make sure you have a for sale link on the lander and your whois info contains the words "for sale" somewhere.

 

[DaveP]

Some interesting ideas here. What frustrates me though is that after all these years there is still no proper tradition of trading domains in a secondary market. Even my Sedo sales (when they happened at a reasonable frequency) were often to other domain investors rather than real end users.

All the above ideas are fairly marginal at best. If there was a proper secondary market (in UK domain names) then we wouldn't be racking our brains to make something happen.

Stephen.

There's surely enough of us here alone who want this and should chip in together to build something and market it.

 

[foz]

There's surely enough of us here alone who want this and should chip in together to build something and market it.

From experience the domains do the selling not the market place.

 

[Edwin]

From experience the domains do the selling not the market place.

+1 to that. If you follow the advise earlier in this thread and have a simple sales lander for all of your domains then anyone who might want to buy the name can get in touch with you.

If you already have that in place and are getting no enquiries at all, then that says more about your domains (or your pricing strategy, if you're displaying prices) than it does about the market.

Of course, you can always tweak and optimise the copy on the lander to try and get a bit more interest from those who type in the domains and land on it, but if nobody's typing the names in that means again that they're very unlikely to sell (i.e. demand = 0).

The problem with the domain name "market" is those holding portfolios of "good" names will not see any benefit from having their names diluted by being displayed alongside "poor" names belonging to other sellers. In other words, a hypothetical "unified sales platform" rewards the owners of bad names and penalises the owners of good names (since buyers can already access them directly via the sales landers) The incentives just aren't right, and never will be.

What might make sense is a registrar-driven initiative (or even a Nominet driven initiative) whereby the largest registrars club together on a MLS platform that would allow domain owners to "flag" their domains as being for sale, and that would automatically show up when somebody looked up the names on that registrar's site (via a Whois query or a search in a "register your domain" box) with a simple mechanism for the domain name to be purchased (and a commission remitted to the originating registrar).

But it makes no sense at all to push for a domainer-driven sales platform, because of the inherent contradiction between risk/reward I outlined above. That's incidentally the same contradiction that means that while Sedo has many millions of names listed, almost none of the "top" portfolio owners (as far as I'm aware) use Sedo!

 

[Brassneck]

Does anybody have any views as to why the secondary market in the UK is virtually non-existant and has always been the case (barring the reseller sales and the odd random sale to an end user either by them finding you or by proactive marketing).

The register grew to 10 million domains. What is it that meant that businesses decided to register a brand new name rather than buy from the secondary market?

What is different from the UK market compared to say, .de.

Stephen.

 

[foz]

Does anybody have any views as to why the secondary market in the UK is virtually non-existant and has always been the case (barring the reseller sales and the odd random sale to an end user either by them finding you or by proactive marketing).

Sales happen, they're just not reported.

 

[Edwin]

Sales happen, they're just not reported.

Correct.

 

[woopwoop]

Is .de really that different? I have no idea.

But if the goal is that domains are bought and sold more freely between resellers and end-users and even between end-users to end user I think that the nature of the 'product' we trade is different to any other (for example cars or shares).

1. They require some technical knowledge that isn't taught ay school or passed down from parents. So the demand is limited.

2. The sales are less fluid. Often the domain falls into a hole and sticks with an end-user who'll never part with it either developing it immediately or one day. Or the hole could be with a domainer who sees the value and will hold out for the value they perceive (possibly more than the current market sales average for similar names).

The names that don't fall into these buckets are often mediocre (I'll admit the majority of my names are such) and these are either the most fluidly traded (between domainers, when the biyer perceives the value a little higher than the seller) and if not the most fluidly traded, they are make up most of the lists of names that are advertised.

Still opportunities, just a business like no other and that's why I like it. Just development is the way to go.

If focusing on becoming wealthy, I'm trying to keep telling myself don't set out to build cash (by selling domains) nut instead build assets (great websites on great domains and not just the domain itself)

 

[Brassneck]

Correct.

Not saying it isn't so but wouldn't it better all round if domain sales were more visible? To me the market is either £5 for a new reg, or £2k for a domain owned by a domain investor. Why shouldn't it be normal to trade domains more openly?

Stephen.

 

[foz]

Not saying it isn't so but wouldn't it better all round if domain sales were more visible? To me the market is either £5 for a new reg, or £2k for a domain owned by a domain investor. Why shouldn't it be normal to trade domains more openly?

Why? Except getting applause or jealousy from fellow domainers.

The juicy ones xxx,xxx+ range are usually under NDA (do not disclose) anyway.

 

[Brassneck]

Why? Except getting applause or jealousy from fellow domainers.

The juicy ones xxx,xxx+ range are usually under NDA (do not disclose) anyway.

The reason could be that a (more) transparent / competitive market with healthy sales across all price ranges would benefit all.

 

[foz]

The reason could be that a (more) transparent / competitive market with healthy sales across all price ranges would benefit all.

The healthy sales are happening, just not being broadcast. Pointing buyers to a list of publicly sold domains in the past does not get them to open their wallets (have been there done that). If someone wants to spend xx,xxx to xxx,xxx on a domain they've come to that conclusion on their own.

I'm not against publishing sales BTW, but I wouldn't rely on them to drive my own sales. I set my own benchmark and hardly do comparisons at all now. As the seller I control the whole process, not the buyer. You can ask £1 to £1 million for a domain, their are no rules.

 

[martin-s]

As the seller I control the whole process, not the buyer.

I can vouch for that foz, having bought a name off you in the past before I knew you on here!

 

[domainseller200]

The healthy sales are happening, just not being broadcast. Pointing buyers to a list of publicly sold domains in the past does not get them to open their wallets (have been there done that). If someone wants to spend xx,xxx to xxx,xxx on a domain they've come to that conclusion on their own.

I'm not against publishing sales BTW, but I wouldn't rely on them to drive my own sales. I set my own benchmark and hardly do comparisons at all now. As the seller I control the whole process, not the buyer. You can ask £1 to £1 million for a domain, their are no rules.

Couldn't have put it better myself, no length of sales patter will convince a potential buyer it is worth £10k if they are only seeing it as worth £500 to them.

It is no different in the real world, just too many buyers/sellers seem to not connect the real world with the domain world which is a mistake in my opinion. The Hilton in Park Lane charges £4.50 for a Mars Bar in the minbar in their rooms. They don't need to justify the price to anyone. People either buy it if they really want it, or they don't. Some will choose to look elsewhere for a cheaper alternative. No amount of justification on their part will convince that person to buy the Mars bar from them if they don't want to pay that price.

The bottom line is if you have to justify the price, then the sale is unlikely to happen anyway - this goes for domains or anything else in life.

 

[foz]

I can vouch for that foz, having bought a name off you in the past before I knew you on here!

Thanks for the business.

 

[Murray]

I can vouch for that foz, having bought a name off you in the past before I knew you on here!

I also inquired about a domain of foz's before I knew who he was on here and I was a bit of an a** in my reply email, which I feel about and I'm sorry for, so I hope he hasn't realised it was me

 

[Brassneck]

Couldn't have put it better myself, no length of sales patter will convince a potential buyer it is worth £10k if they are only seeing it as worth £500 to them.

It is no different in the real world, just too many buyers/sellers seem to not connect the real world with the domain world which is a mistake in my opinion. The Hilton in Park Lane charges £4.50 for a Mars Bar in the minbar in their rooms. They don't need to justify the price to anyone. People either buy it if they really want it, or they don't. Some will choose to look elsewhere for a cheaper alternative. No amount of justification on their part will convince that person to buy the Mars bar from them if they don't want to pay that price.

The bottom line is if you have to justify the price, then the sale is unlikely to happen anyway - this goes for domains or anything else in life.

Frank - I agree with what you say.

But my point is slightly different. If the 'real world' knew more about buying and selling on the secondary market and was better informed about the potential value of domains then in my opinion we would have a potential way of growing the secondary market. Unfortunately we have to rely on anecdotal evidence as we don't have any real stats on numbers of domains sold, for how much and who to (i.e. end user or reseller etc.).

Stephen.

 

[foz]

I also inquired about a domain of foz's before I knew who he was on here and I was a bit of an a** in my reply email, which I feel about and I'm sorry for, so I hope he hasn't realised it was me

No. I get 15-20 inquiries per day so it becomes a blur. Thanks for your apology and interest.