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I
started with CEO Tobias Flaitz, who
has now been on the job for 18 months after
taking the reins from company co-founder Tim
Schumacher. I fist met Tobias on the day he took the
new job when we were both in Los Angeles for
the 2012
DOMAINfest Global conference. Looking
back now, I asked him what he has enjoyed most about
the job and what his biggest challenges have been.
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Sedo
CEO Tobias Flaitz |
"In
the last year and a half, I’ve really
enjoyed connecting with people within
the domain industry and diving deeper into
specific aspects of the business. Many people
take domains for granted because they’ve
become second nature, but when you dig deeper
it’s a fascinating industry with fascinating
people behind it," Flaitz said.
"As
people close to the industry know, it’s
going through some significant changes right
now, and naturally, Sedo is evolving with
those changes to provide the market and
our clients with the right services for the
two product areas that we focus on, domain
parking and trading. The biggest challenge
in the last 18 months was figuring out how to
address these changes to ensure future
success. We attacked the challenges head-on as
a team, tapping the collective knowledge of
Sedo’s employees in Boston, London
and Cologne. I was impressed by the
willingness of our people to adapt quickly and
pave the way for our – and our clients’
– ongoing success. The team showed
tremendous creativity and critical thinking,
which is definitely a strength that I’ll tap
into regularly," Flaitz said. |
"As
everyone in the industry knows, new gTLDs are
one of the key drivers fueling change, especially
now that they’re closer to hitting the market.
With our extensive partner network, including the United
Internet Group and our global registrar
partners, Sedo is ready to provide registries with
the right services to be successful on a truly
global level. We’re committed to helping clients
through this exciting, in many ways unprecedented
period, and giving them the tools they need to
succeed."
"Overall,
this was a fantastic time to join Sedo, as I
was able to help develop and launch these new,
industry-defining services. I’m very pleased with
the groundwork we’ve laid and the direction
we’re headed," Flaitz added.
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With the exit of
Sedo's original founders and the company
having grown from a small startup into an
integral part of a large and powerful Internet
conglomerate, I also asked Tobias how the
changes have affected Sedo's corporate
culture.
"Sedo’s
evolution is a completely natural process for
any successful company. Sedo is growing up,
and like any company in this position, we are
constantly looking for new ways to improve
how we work with our clients. Without doubt,
the founders and former management team have
created a successful company over the last decade,
along the way earning great respect from all
of our employees, our shareholders and
management – including myself. However, constant
change is required to keep a successful
company on a sustainable path – especially
when the target customers, clients, market
requirements and competition are changing as
fast as they are in the domain business,"
Flaitz observed.
"One thing
that has been the foundation of Sedo’s
success is its open and friendly culture.
I am very happy that we managed to keep the
core of this culture in place amidst these
necessary changes, as it will always be
part of our success. I’ve thought this
since day one, and even gave a welcome speech
at our 2011 Christmas party where I told
everyone that I consider the sensible,
positive and |
Sedo
Co-Founder and former CEO Tim Schumacher on
the day after he turned CEO duties over to Tobias
Flaitz. The idea for Sedo was originally
laid out in a paper he wrote for his master's
thesis at the University of Cologne. |
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friendly culture of Sedo’s
people a very valuable asset. I still see it in combination
with targeted and result orientated approaches as the
foundation for the future success of the company."
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A
large part of the Sedo team at their Cologne
headquarters in April 2012. Former
President Ulrich Essman (Who was with Sedo at
the start) is in the black sweater at front.
Another
key leader at Sedo is Head of Product Management
(Trading) Simonetta Batteiger who gave me her
thoughts on what the most important industry changes
have been in the more than seven years she has been
with the company.
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"The most
important change within the domain industry is
that domain names from the secondary market can
now be purchased by end users not only through
marketplaces, but also at partner websites.
Products such as SedoMLS
mean even greater exposure for domain owners’
listings, and with this shift in how domains are
distributed there has also been an increase in priced
listings," Ms. Batteiger noted.
"It used to be the case that only very few
domain names were listed with a fixed price, but
in 2013, the majority of new listings at
Sedo are listed as Buy Now. This allows
end users to make informed purchasing decisions
on domain names listed for sale, and allows faster
sales cycles for everyone."
"Finally,
the entire industry is preparing for the launch
of the new gTLDs. Registries, registrars,
and Sedo are focusing heavily on preparation for
the launch of these new extensions, which will
both increase the choice of good domain names
for end users and offer new investment
opportunities for domainers."
Sedo's
customers have noticed that the company has
rolled out a number of new initiatives and
improvements over the past year. I asked
Simonetta to summarize those and how they are befitting
the company's clients. |
Simonetta Batteiger
Head of Product Management (Trading)
Sedo.com |
"We’ve
been making updates and changes to improve our
services for all of our customers, from domain owners
and parkers to end user buyers, partners, and new gTLD
registries. End users are seeing a much more
user-friendly purchasing platform when they come
to Sedo.com, and we have further updates in the
pipeline on this front. These updates lead to higher
sales conversion and, ultimately, more sales for
Sedo’s sellers," Ms. Batteiger said.
"For
the domain investor, we have updated the look and feel
of our parking statistics, have added ways to request
price suggestions for entire portfolios, created
tools to enable account managers to advise their
clients on pricing strategies, and expanded the
exposure domain listings get by expanding the SedoMLS
network (the network now accounts for one out of
every four sales at Sedo)."
"Our
parking clients have also benefited from new
advertising partnerships, allowing more of their
traffic to be monetized than ever before. Finally,
Sedo has begun to partner with leading new gTLD
registries and applicants to help run sunrise, land
rush and premium auctions for the new gTLDs
and distribute premium names from the new extensions
through the SedoMLS network. This offers even more
domain inventory to end users at Sedo.com as well as
on all our SedoMLS partners’ websites,"
Simonetta noted.
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Kathy
Nielsen, Sedo Head of
Business Development, New gTLDs |
Another
Sedo veteran, Kathy Nielsen, now serves
as Head of Business Development for those New
gTLDs. She explained why the company decided to
focus on providing services to new gTLD
registry operators rather than apply to run
some of their own TLDs.
"As
one of the most established companies in the
industry, you’d think it would be a natural
fit for Sedo to apply to become a new gTLD
registry, but it’s important to point out that
we made the conscious decision to not apply so
we could remain a neutral third party advisor
and provide a full suite of services for new
gTLDs," Ms. Nielsen said. "As you
know, Sedo has more than a decade of experience
– first working with individual buyers and
sellers, and over the last few years helping
launch and develop ongoing sales strategies for
registries like .CO and .ME.
We’ve taken everything we’ve learned over
the years to develop our gTLD offerings and
be able to add value for new gTLD registries
that have some industry experience as well as
those with less experience. Given the
unprecedented scope of |
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this expansion,
there are many groups that fall into the latter
category, but we have a lot to offer both in
terms of data, knowledge and the most expansive
sales infrastructure in the industry." |
"The
suite of new gTLD services we’ve developed can be
tailored to any new registry’s needs,"
Kathy added. "We’re able to help with strategy
and/or execution for the full lifecycle of marketing
and sales initiatives, from presales preparation
through sunrise, land rush and general availability.
This includes:
●
Presales Preparation – Once a registry is
approved, there’s a lot of groundwork that has to be
done to ensure an effective launch and long term
success. In addition to developing an overall
marketing plan, one of the most important steps is to
identify a new registry’s most valuable assets. With
more domain sales data than anyone else in the
industry – and an MIT economist on staff to study it
– Sedo understands domain pricing better than
anyone. This gives us the ability to help build
premium and reserve lists of the most valuable domains
within a registry and develop strategies for how and
when they should be released. We also have an
unmatched ability to build custom lead lists of
potential buyers. We know who might be interested in
which domains, and our experience and existing
relationships with buyers takes a lot of the guesswork
out of the process.
●
Sunrise & Landrush – A sunrise period for
new domains in mandated by ICANN as a means to allow
trademark holders early access to new domains, but
many people don’t know that the landrush period is
optional. Sedo can help determine the right strategy
and timeframe for these introductory phases and help
market the fact that they’re taking place to ensure
that potential buyers are aware. We can also run
auctions for duplicate sunrise or landrush
applications and close sales via Sedo’s secure,
trusted platform. We’re a global company, so we can
reach buyers all around the world.
●
General Availability – When it is time to
open a registry to the general public, it is important
to understand that there is no “one-size-fits-all”
way to sell domains under your extension. Developing
relationships with the right registrars is a key
foundation for your registry, but premium sales can
make a huge difference in profitability. Getting a few
premium names into the hands of the right end users
early – companies or individuals that will invest
marketing dollars in their new domains – will also
help drive awareness in your registry and interest
from others. Once a registry has entered general
availability, Sedo will continue to advise and execute
the brokerage and auction of premium names to help
find the right buyers who are willing to pay the best
price. We accomplish this through the hard work of our
knowledgeable brokers and through the reach of SedoMLS,
the largest domain distribution network globally.
Getting relevant names in front of the right buyers is
really the name of the game, and we have more ways
than anyone else to do that.
While
new gTLDs have grabbed everyone's attention, domain
monetization (parking) continues to be a hot topic of
discussion in the industry. There was a significant
decline in PPC revenues in recent years but of late
many are reporting the start of a turnaround. While the number of PPC providers shrunk
in the downturn, many new competitors have now popped
up and some vitality seems to be returning to the
space. We asked Joel Ghebaly, Head of Product
Management (Monetization) at Sedo, how he would
you characterize the current health of the domain
monetization business and what is Sedo doing to
stand out in what has become a very competitive space.
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"It’s
no secret that parking has been a challenging
part of the domain name industry for the past
year," Ghebaly concurred. "New
competitors joined the market, parking
technology went through a lot of changes, and
like many of the more established parking
providers, Sedo was affected. But our
experienced, smart parking team has stepped
it up a notch, creating an even stronger
network of advertisers, and thereby giving our
clients the best and highest earnings in the
industry. Today we are happy to say that we are
the parking leader again, something which can
see in our daily traffic results and hear at
industry shows from our valued parking
clients."
"Among
the changes we’ve made have been to add new
templates, optimize existing ones, and add new
advertising providers to help monetize as
much of our clients’ traffic as possible.
There is still opportunity to improve, too: we
now constantly A/B test our templates to improve
them, and our new 1-click/2-click decision
engine selects the best templates for each
domain, |
Joel
Ghebaly, Sedo Head of
Product Management (Monetization) |
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resulting in an
average of 15% higher earnings. In
addition, we’ve added more mobile templates,
since mobile traffic accounts for a third of our
total traffic globally, and new ad formats such
as zero-click, in order to monetize even
more of our customers’ traffic," Ghebaly
said. |
"The
key in the future will be a holistic approach.
By integrating parking with the marketplace, we make
the most out of every user, whether they intend to buy
or not. Parking companies, especially the newer ones,
will need a strong and diversified business model.
Sedo has this diversified business model around
domains in place and is constantly improving and
extending. So while there is still more
competition and a tough market, we’ve continued
to adapt and improve our parking product, and
we’re starting to see the effects of that among our
customers," Ghebaly concluded.
When
many people hear the name Sedo, the first thing they
think of is the compamy's global domain sales platform
as it was Sedo's first business line and remains the
company's hallmark. While only a fraction of
aftermarket domain sales are reported, the trend,
based on data reported to us in the first half of this
year, seemed to be fewer high end sales but still
plenty of activity in the low to mid ranges of the
market. We asked Sedo sales data analyst Dr. Thies
Lindenthal from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology is he was seeing similar patterns.
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Dr.
Thies Lindenthal |
"Our
sales numbers show that the domain trades in the
higher end, premium price segment of $100,000
and over are not disappearing. Domains still
trade at these levels, and the advent of new
gTLDs is not the tombstone of high-value sales.
Nevertheless, the number of 100K+ transactions
is below the figures for the bullish 2007 or
2009-11 years," Dr. Lindenthal said.
"There
were always more domains for sale than buyers in
the market, and with the arrival of the new
extensions, even more names will compete for
the same buyers’ dollars. We believe that the
competition from new TLDs will improve the
quality of domains that are up for sale. The
competitive pressure will be felt by ”not so
great” names in the existing domain space, but
strong names will remain in a good position.
In the end, only the market will tell whether
the new domains will be accepted as valid
alternatives to the current “.com is king”
mantra," Dr. Lindenthal noted.
He
added, "We are thrilled about the upcoming
internationalization of the domain space
with more non-Latin extensions. The new
TLDs in non-Latin characters offer a great
opportunity |
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to translate the
surge in more and more internet usage in
countries like China into domain sales.
Sedo has strong global ties around the world,
and we are expecting to benefit from the
internationalization of the domain space." |
Before
saying goodbye for now, we asked CEO Tobias Flaitz for
a few closing comments on the outlook for Sedo as his
second anniversary at the company approaches. "I
and the whole Sedo team are ready and excited for
the next chapter in Sedo’s story, as well as
seeing how the industry changes and grows around
us," Tobias said. "We see new gTLDs becoming
a major part of our business and we’re focusing a
lot of time and energy into getting that right,
which includes bringing a number of new team
members on board to further strengthen our
capabilities. Dima Beitzke recently joined as
our new Chief Sales Officer, and Christian Voss
came on board as Director of Marketing & PR
globally."
|
Dima
Beitzke
Sedo Chief Sales Officer |
Christian
Voss
Sedo Director of Marketing & PR |
"We’re
putting a lot of firepower behind our marketing
and sales organization to be fully prepared for new
gTLDs and we’re excited for the possibilities for
us and for our clients!," Flaitz said in
closing. |
