Fairwinds Domain Strategy Blog has confirmed was we have been suspecting, that 1and1.com has spent more than $50 Million dollars on its television advertising campaign promoting pre-registrations for the new gTLD program.
“”Web hosting company 1&1 has spent over $50 million on TV, print, and online marketing for new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) and has increased its web traffic by 200% because of it.
1&1 officials disclosed these numbers at the Munich newdomains2013 conference held from October 27 – 29.
FairWinds Partners is on the scene.”
So finally we have confirmation of the whisper numbers I have heard for the spend of this media campaign.
However as an avid NFL watcher I can say I didn’t see any ads on any NFL games this weekend, whereby in the previous weeks saw 4-6 commercial during each game.
This past weekend might have been a week break for the advertising campaign or it could mean an end to the NFL ad campaign.
Personally I don’t think the campaign was that successful compared to a $3 Million dollar Superbowl Ad
4x normal traffic doesn’t seem like a home run for a spend of $50 Million, especially considering the frequency that the commercials ran not just on NFL but also on news and other stations in the US.
Preregistration’s grew from around 1.5 million prior to the campaign to over 3.5 million.
Of course there is no cost for pre-registering a new gTLD domain so in essence the company just grew its email and contact basis whereby normal traffic to the site, were for people looking to register existing domain names and to buy other products of the company.
Stunning!
Yeah, those numbers just don’t make any sense. I feel like something must have been lost in translation.
Actually the whisper numbers I was getting from those close or involved with the parent company was actually much higher, i think the campaign had a larger budget and has now been scaled back.
Of course just my thoughts based on what i heard and now seeing or actually not seeing in the case of commercials
Even if they got 2 million pre-registrations from a $50M spend, that would be $25 per pre-reg! $50M just for these ads seems high.
That said, 1&1 has a history of ridiculous ad outlays to get a business going. Remember those six page magazine spreads they bought many years ago that offered a few years of free hosting?
In a way it puts in perspective the Incredible amount of Prime Time USA TV advertising dollars WASTED by Overstock during their Xmas campaign promoting : O dot Co
(situation aka as Oh Dot Crap)
it wouldn’t surprise me if it was in the xxx Million USD range
Lost traffic = Lost Priceless market share= Lost revenue = Lost profits
Andrew
Except going into the campaign 1and1.com knew they would not generate any immediate revenue from the ad as they can’t charge for pre-registrations yet.
Big gamble
I questioned the wisdom of this campaign on the Sherpa Weekly show right after the commercials first aired.
You do understand 1and1 is a company owned by United Internet, the mega corp that also owns Sedo, InterNetX, Web.de etc. If not, at least read the Wikipedia entry. If you can read German I recommend checking out presse.1und1.de
They had 1.9 Billion euro in assets at the end of 2010, and definitely much more currently. This is a German corporation, and the euro is stronger than ever.
With the new gTLDs domaining has the opportunity to get as big as any other tech industry. Stop thinking small, $50 million is peanuts in the world of global economics.
are they only showing in europe? i’ve never seen one.