Legendary Domain investor Rick Schwartz a/k/a the Domain King, wrote to me about the post we published about earlier this week from MarketingLand.com, that Domain Names appeared in substantially more television commercials that aired during the Super Bowl than Hashtags and Facebook Pages.
He thinks it’s a game changer, a reset in the importance of Domains.
So here are Rick’s thoughts and why he believes it so important for the domain industry:
“This is one of the biggest stories for domainer’s in many years.
Madison Avenue finally beginning to figure out the obvious.
To advertise using a third-party platform to move TRAFFIC to was insane, but they wanted to be cool they wanted to hip.
When you send your best traffic to an intermediary it comes with a very heavy cost.
The cost is sales
Sales are what they’re in business to do to begin with and profit is what makes their salaries.
Hashtags were a distraction to a sale. It inhibited a sale. It helped to prevent a sale not make a sale. It took an immediate sale and turned it into something else. Like a distraction.
Facebook, Twitter and alike are sales tools. And they should be used as tools. They are great tools. They should not be used as home base. It is NOT your front door!!
There has been a group-think online that put sales to the side.
Sorry that dog won’t hunt.
Sales have to be at the forefront in any business.
And that includes charities and nonprofits.
But giving your front door of your business to a third-party is absolutely the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life in business.
If you had a customer the last thing you would do is bring him through all your competitors showrooms on the way to your room showroom.
That’s how not to make sales. At least not make sales for yourself. Making sales for your competition and making them stronger while you become weaker.
Not smart.
There are still many lessons for mainstream and start-ups and any type of online business to learn. Lessons we learned a decade or two ago. There is a learning curve. That learning curve can be 20 to 30 years. As they discover things It will accelerate how they do things.
We are entering an era of results.
Sales is the only way you measure results when you have a company.
So when I saw this story the other day, that the use of Domain Names were back being used in Super Bowl ads substantially more than Hashtags or Facebook Pages I knew immediately how big it was.
How important it was.
How significant it was.
We are possibly at a turning point.
What I find the most surprising is that I think many domainers don’t realize what a big deal this really is.
This was like discovering gravity for the first time for retailers and wholesalers alike.
I have long said there are more sales wasted online then actually made online.
This is when that starts to change. And remember I say start.
It will take approximately another three years for it to fully change over.
Facebook and Twitter are very big losers in this deal. I wonder if they themselves understand the seismic event that is occurring. Because if they don’t they will see it in their bottom line.
These folks have all hit critical mass. Growth is going to become harder and harder. If there is a hemorrhaging, and that just could be the case, what would it look like?
On Super Bowl Sunday domain names took back their rightful crown.
This was a big day and I want to congratulate everyone.
I also realize the significance of this event.
It may not show now, but in the years ahead it surely will.””
Im confused.. Is this the first time this has happened?
In years past hashtags and whatnot had a decent presence. But that seems to have changed a ton this year. I agree with Rick on this – why send traffic to an unofficial/intermediate source?
Great thoughts Rick.
Thank you!
…and…MIC DROP.
Spot on, Rick.
Game, Set, Match to Mr. Schwartz.
Of course Rick is spot on. Putting your info and business on a site(s) someone else controls is suicide. While no one owns even their own domain name all you have to do is pay the $10/yr if it is a dot com which of course it should be. Or maybe a short Cctld as a “b” option backup to your .com
Brilliant. Delightful.
Delightfully brilliant and brilliantly delightful.
Resilient. Insightful.
(You know the rest…)
Spoken from the heart
Go listen when you can
Take such pleasure in this visionary man. 🙂
It would be interesting to know the types of names Mr Schwartz is now buying with all this in mind.
he don’t have to buy anything, its like owning jay lenos garage and buying a beat up Yugo , I’m sure all the buying he does do is just for fun.
I couldn’t of said it better myself.
Social Media should only be used as a sales tool. End of story!
I don’t understand what Rick Says. I have MadisonAvenue.us. Madison Avenue is in US so we only have MadisonAvenue.com and MadisonAvenue.us to use. I had a money problem and I have contacted all Madison Avenue shops owner to say it was auctioned in Ebay for 100 $. And no one interested in it.
Tests have shown no relationship between the search popularity of a keyword and type-in traffic. They are two different animals. For example, “Southeast Asian Restaurant” received 50k searches per month on Yahoo in the mid 00s, yet type-in traffic for SoutheastAsianRestaurant.com averaged 17 uniques per month at the time.
Each additional word in a second-level domain reduces its market value by 95-99%. One reason Rick has done so well is that he focuses on one-word domains. Another reason is that his domains have mass appeal to consumers, as demonstrated by massive type-in traffic.
MadisonAvenue.com has only limited appeal, a likely resale value of no more than $400, and a long sale horizon, perhaps 20-40 years. Not enough to cover renewal fees. In regard to the .US version, its value is less than the cost of registration. Sadly, your entire portfolio as advertised on Alquez suffers from a similar valuation deficit.
There are still good opportunities for fresh registrations of IDN.IDN single-word names in Gurmukhi script, Devanagari, Tamil, and soon Urdu. Videshis can’t play in that space, but you can. Just keep your names short and your ROI horizon long.
The fact is Namebio.com says that MadisonAvenue.com has been sold at 2006 for 23,500 $. And I believe it is worth more now.
Here are two other positive signs. Android has recently announced that they will start to be friendlier to web sites. It seemed in the past they were kinder to apps. Also. Voice Recog is going to be very good for domains. Have a great year everybody!
Rick, please explain…
I am very disappointed with the lack of use of domains in the Super Bowl commercials.
All the big brands own the dot com but did not display their website address…they only displayed their logo…
Skittles
Snickers
Intel
Mr. Clean
Netflix
KFC
Expedia
Budweiser
Busch
Hyundai
Audi
Kia
T-Mobile
Coke
Sprite
Google
Amazon
And the list goes on…
No website address anywhere…
Of course they didn’t use Facebook nor twitter…they didn’t even use any freaking website address…
I am very disappointed…don’t know what the heck you’re talking about Rick…
I agree, how is this a game changer, how can this be compared to the discovery of gravity. I think he needs to lay off the booze. Advertising now is about branding and creating memorable brand names, it does not matter about domain names, domain extensions, apps or social media. Its about brands
Anunt,
Might I solicit a professional appraisal from you SnakeCharmer.ai
Should I register?
Thanks,
Biff
Does Schwartz also think water is good for plants???
I totally agree with Rick on this one, way too many companies, or start-ups are relying on third party site’s rather than having their own domain and Website. And this should be used as an alternative means. They’re great for additional advertising and exposure but shouldn’t be their home base.
It’s like buying your first home, placing your hard earned cash were it needs to be rather than renting and actually throwing your money out the window. Sure you have a place to live when renting but you’ve invested in nothing at the end of the day.
I can’t tell you how many business I’ve looked up, all I can find is a Face Book page or Twitter page and no Website. It’s like entering the backdoor to get where I want to be, that’s their Website/Domain.
Auunt
What Rick is talking about is the article that MarketingLand.com published after the Super Bowl looking at how many commercials contained URL’s or Twitter handles or Facebook pages
http://marketingland.com/hashtags-in-super-bowl-51-ads-205706
I tend to believe their stats and results not yours
Surya
He is using “Madison Avenue” in the Geo sense since historically that is where the big ad agencies have been located.
Now why no one would pay much of anything for the .US version, is well, in the US big companies and most smaller one’s use .com and if not .com’s then . co, ,.me, .tv, .io.
You still have to have a good domain if you want to sell it for much.
In my many years i have seen just a handful of .us domain names advertised on TV.
Thank you Michael for your insight. What I want to said, Madison Avenue is a good keyword. 3 millions search a month. That’s why MadisonAvenue.com has been sold for 2,300 $ in 2006. And .us is good for Geo in US, like Nashville.us, Hollywood.us, CaliforniaPoker.us, BurminghamNews.us those where sold in good price. The problem I think is even TRAFFIC 2007 has targeted Madison Avenue and Manhattan Ads Agency and retailers, they still don’t understand the use of domain names. Even Geo domains. They use only for one website, their official ones. I don’t understand how they will use domain names for hashtags, something more wide from locations. Thank you.
Sorry I meant madisonAvenue.com was sold 23,000 $ in 2006, thank you
> “In my many years i have seen just a handful of .us domain names advertised on TV.”
Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a single one advertised anywhere at all.
That’s the point I want to ask. Ads agency don’t know about Domain Name use but only as online business name card. I found a lot of people in business share name card or using TV ads to share their website. Not using their website to share their business. So most of them are still use .com just for their official website, using name without keyword. Most of them don’t know other use of domain names such as for ads, to shorten urls, or for geo locations. Only a view that knows.
John
I bought Boardroom.com with Rick last year.
We have another story coming out on a few of Rick’s acquisitions this week
This Super Bowl ads, with domains supplanting #hashtags, coupled with Noah Kagan’s blog about the importance of his company’s acquisition of Sumo.com for $1.5 million, should result in a spike of domains sales, as well as companies buying domains for future product offerings, maybe high 5 figures & 6 figures, as opposed to launching and having to pay 7 figures .
It’s a great time if you own key word (single or two )premium domains .
As Rick has always opined: demand for high quality domains will only rise.
The domain speculation frenzy in China was a distraction.
Now we’re back to “antifragile” assets — those assets that can retain value, and even increase in value, when other assets (crazy domains) diminish in value and collapse.
I think marketing ran out of ideas in the last 5 years so went hashtag mad. That or FB don’t convert so now the trend is ‘brands’. When that fails due to confusion and lost sales in few years they’ll resort to the good’ol domain.
The use of third party platforms FB, twitter and snapchat you loose control of your content, customer and marketing. Hashatgs have lost their value as you do not control them. Anyone can use a hashtag. We are at the 30 yr period and domains should now be adopted for their intrinsic value. The domain is key to a sale. As rick stated the superbowl is the Madison avenue for domains. At 5 million for a ad spot! You did not see one new TLD advertised. Rick clarified this point in a prior post. In snap disclosure for an ipo. They revealed it cost 93% of their revenue for their servers/overhead which they lease from google? A 7% gross profit for a 25 billion dollar snap ipo valuation. Talk about a looser of an investment.
Mike we need a follow up article from rick on what happened to his sold domains for millions. xxxvideos.com. property.com, properties.com and ebid.com All sold for millions but are advertised for sale on ricks blog. Did all these buyers default and rick took the collateral back(domain)? It would be educational as to what rick informs the domain community as to what happened with these million dollar sales. If this is the case IMO rick overpriced these domains? Clarification is requested from the real domain king!
Making these kinds of grandiose claims on the back of one slight increase – 4% since last year, and in fact URL usage in Superbowl ads has been declining prior to that – is ludicrous. Let’s wait and see how this all pans out, shall we? This doesn’t prove that “hashtags are dead”, nor does it prove empirically that domain usage in advertising is on the increase generally. To claim that this is some kind of watershed moment is silly, at best.