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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 |
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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. |
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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.
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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 |
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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."
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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 |
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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 |
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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).
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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 |
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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. |
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