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When coming up with a name for your startup, or contemplating a rebrand for your current company, do you think about domain names? For too many founders, names are an afterthought—not integrated into the fabric of the brand story or brand promise, or, equally dangerous, paired with a subpar domain name or extension (translation: anything NOT your brand + dotcom). Even those founders who do carefully consider naming, might not be giving domain names their due—or thinking about them in the right way.
Smart founders use domain names to build their brands, while improving their bottom line and overall company valuation. Founders like Noah Kagan (Sumo.com), Aaron Patzer (Mint.com), Jamie Siminoff (Ring.com), Karn Saroya (Cover.com), Tim Campos (Woven.com), and many more learned firsthand the value of upgrading to a top notch one word .COM domain, one that is short, memorable, authoritative, and “passes the radio test.” As famed tech entrepreneur and angel investor, Jason Calcanis says, "If you have to spell it over the phone, you've lost." The top 5 factors that smart founders look for in a domain name:
Mint Condition: “Four-letter words are impressive and easy to remember. But I never believed that until a few years ago. When I worked with Aaron Patzer at mymint.com, I was vehemently against him buying Mint.com. I didn’t think customers would care. “It only matters that you have a great service and product,” younger Noah said. Fortunately, Aaron was the founder and gave 3 percent of the company to acquire the domain. At the closing sale of Mint.com, that was worth $8.1 million. That’s how important the domain was to Aaron.” —Noah Kagan, CEO, Sumo (Entreprenuer.com) Aaron himself said, "You will lose all word of mouth marketing if you don’t have a good name. Most people choose their name because the domain is available. That’s a really bad idea. I spent 3 months and $182,000 negotiating for Mint.com [and gave up 3 percent of the company], and it was the best purchase I ever made.” NOTE: Mint.com was acquired for US$ 8,100,000 (cash + equity deal) You Say Oh-no, I say Sumo: His experience at Mint.com (above) led Noah to invest $1.5M into purchasing his own exact-match brand domain: Sumo.com. While that may seem like a lot of money to some, Noah knew it was money well spent. Go Public: In 2019, Jannick Malling, the co-Founder/co-CEO of HelloPublic.com decided to upgrade his brand to simply Public.com. As a result, as he recently posted on X, he saw a 2-3X conversion on his digital ads and a 50-100X conversion on traditional spend: "Just like it matters for your brand whether your store is on 5th avenue or in a random alleyway—it matters what your domain is. If physical world is 'location location location,' digital is 'trust trust trust.’ Public.com was clean, simple, serious…and easy to remember. What’s easy to remember, becomes easier to trust." Put a Ring on it: "Ring.com CEO Jamie Siminoff credits the incredible success of his brand to the foundation he built when he upgraded (to the tune of $1M) from Doorbot to Ring.com: Siminoff said getting the domain name was critically important to the company's success, giving them an unforgettable brand and instant credibility that helped turn their product into a household name. Siminoff said the same thing about Ring.com. Putting it in dollar terms he said he would estimate the name turned out to be worth between $30 million and $50 million to the company. If anyone asks you if the right domain name is really worth 7 (or more) figures, no one knows the answer to that question better than Jamie Siminoff.” (DNJournal) Cover Story: “We initially chose ‘Cover’ back when we built a prototype of the app, and the conversation lasted maybe less than five minutes. Cover just made sense. There is probably no better name to build a brand on in insurtech. You see companies using every permutation of the word, so why not own the word outright? Sure, we would save money buying the .COM domain for an alternative brand, but we also saw the long-term value of owning one of the most coveted domains in insurance. This struck us as the bigger opportunity. “We realized that despite all the obstacles — and costs — involved with committing to Cover as our brand, it was that the path of least resistance. We sell an intangible product and at the end of the day, we’re in the trust business. Owning Cover.com has lent an extra level of legitimacy to the brand and this, in turn, has translated into sales. We have seen firsthand how it helps get people over the hump when it comes to investing their money with us. Immediately after moving to Cover.com we saw our conversions rise, largely because customers would cross-reference our app on the internet before they made the purchase decision. “It has become an important and valuable asset in the context of our business. Right off the bat, it felt like a shrewd investment. I knew that, in the right hands, the value of Cover.com would become exponentially more valuable. This is exactly what we’ve seen as we have used it as a platform upon which to build an insurance business.” —Karn Saroya, CEO, Cover (Entrepreneur's Handbook) Rate High: One of my favorite personal examples is the sale I made of Rate.com to Guaranteed Rate—an upgrade from GuranteedRate.com. The founder, Victor F. Ciardelli III, was getting ready to launch new consumer-facing technology and immediately got that acquiring Rate.com was the way to go. A stunning upgrade that looks even better up close. (Those huge Rate.com ads look great on all those commercials, billboards and in the White Sox stadium.) Dream Weaver: Woven.com CEO, Tim Campos, knew it was important to pick the right name for his startup. The former CIO of Facebook, Campos knew the importance of selecting the right name to help it scale organically. “I really had to start thinking about this as an asset,” Campos said. “It’s like I’m buying a house or I’m buying real estate. I’m buying something that will have residual value. In my business, I may create additional value for it. There may be brand recognition and other things that I’m going to put into it. But that’s just like putting improvements on your home.” As interviewer Andrew Allemann shared, "As soon as he got in this mindset, it allowed Campos to think differently about the domain’s cost and how to finance it. He ended up paying cash, but he realized he could even take out a loan for the domain because it has value on its own. It would also be easy to justify the cost to his investors. Woven was able to go to market with Woven.com as its domain rather than Woven.app or an alternative. Campos said this is critical to the company’s success as it grows its userbase organically." “We grow through word-of-mouth, through people tweeting about us and talking about us, so the address matters,” Campos explained. “As soon as you start to introduce a trick for the user, like, ‘Oh, it’s getwoven not just woven,’ or its woven.app, or its woven.io, you’re going to lose a percentage of those [prospective users]. Com is where people default." Allemann stated that Campos believes that if the company were to have used Woven. app, its conversion rates would have be affected. “But more importantly, traffic would be affected,” Campos said. “People are much less likely to find us.” (DomainNameWire.com) The Honeymoon Phase: Jim Campbell of Honeymoons.com recently published an article on Entrepreneur outlining how his canny acquisition of Honeymoons.com (in a considerable upgrade from HoneymoonGoals.com) "resulted in a 7x increase in traffic and a 10x increase in revenue." Raise Your Voice: In June 2019, voice.com sold for $30 million in cash. To put that in perspective, that’s more than double the previous record for a publicly disclosed cash domain sale. Why did they spend that kind of cash on a domain name? Here’s what the divesting company, MicroStrategy, had to say: ”Ultra-premium Domain Names like these can help a company achieve instant brand recognition, ignite a business, and massively accelerate value creation.” (Bloomberg) Simply Brilliant: A hosting company based in Denmark called UnoEuro recently shared a blog post in which they announced that they are rebranding as Simply.com. They explained that this rebrand to a one word, English, dictionary .com makes it easier for customers to remember, spell, and type in the company’s name. Simply brilliant, if you ask me. In the company's own words (courtesy of Google Translate): "We are reminded time and time again that everyone has different ways to pronounce (and even spell) "UnoEuro" if we have been lucky enough [that they] remembered the name at all. That's why we now rename UnoEuro to Simply.com — a simple name that hopefully everyone can remember and love." Teamwork(.com!) Makes the Dream Work: What is the Lifetime Value of a new customer? Which do you think will achieve higher CTR and conversions: teamworkhq.com or Teamwork.com? Which one would you trust? Which one provides immediate trust, credibility and global scale? On that note, here’s a fantastic video clip of a talk from from the founder of Teamwork explaining the bargain he got on Teamwork .com (for $675K...all the way back in 2014!) and how it paid for itself in one year and his resulting explosion in growth. As he says, “Boom! We had a hockey stick event with instant credibility and trust.” The Honeymoon Phase: Jim Campbell, Founder of Honeymoons.com, published an article on Entrepreneur.com that discussed how his acquisition of the premium domain Honeymoons.com (a considerable upgrade from HoneymoonGoals.com “resulted in a 7x increase in traffic and a 10x increase in revenue.” The Halo Effect: Aura, a device and data protection platform with $150M in funding, recently acquired Aura.com in a stunning upgrade from AuraCompany.com. “Acquiring the Aura.com domain is an investment in the Aura brand as we grow our business and build the best all-in-one digital protection platform for consumers.” —Lark-Marie Anton, CCO, Aura They've Got Swagger: “There is so much value in a good domain name. From the very beginning our goal was to convert offline conversations to online purchasing. We wanted to be memorable enough so that when people are discussing their need to buy swag, their first instinct is to just type Swag.com directly into their browser. We started with the domain name and worked from there — being memorable was the first step to becoming the go-to source for swag. As a B2B startup you have to do whatever you can to be top of mind with customers.” --Jeremy Parker, CEO, Swag.com Tune In: Here's a great quote from a CEO of a D2C company who decided to invest in his best category-defining.com: “The Headsets.com domain has been the smartest thing we ever did, I think. It gives us credibility as a market leader, it’s an easy domain for people to remember, and ranks well in search engines.” --Mike Faith, CEO, Headsets.com Investing In Your Future: "The most important change we have done was obviously the domain change...moving from ForexPros[.com] to Investing.com. It was a very costly event for us, both on the price of the domain and on the fact that we didn't have growth during 2013, but it was the best move and the best strategic decision we've taken that now allows us to raise our prices, allows us to get partnerships and all kinds of cooperation with different companies that we found very hard to do in the past..." —Dror Efrat, Founder & CEO, Investing.com (Efrat paid $2.45M for Investing.com) Make Your Name POP: "Yes, the domain was expensive. Roughly $1.5m... After starting with [the domain name] screen.so, we realized firsthand the importance of having a name that's easy to remember and communicate. Also, instead of viewing the domain as an expense, it's more of an enduring asset, which potentially increases its value over time." --Jahanzeb Sherwani, Founder & CEO, Pop.com [NOTE: $1.5M for Pop.com was a STEAL. Easily a $5M name.] Pilot Your Way to Success: Waseem Daher, Founder and CEO at Pilot, recently shared via a LinkedIn post how the 2017 purchase of Pilot.com for $400,000 (a steal in today's premium domain aftermarket) helped positioned them for success (Pilot is now a billion dollar company). "We paid $400K for the Pilot.com domain. This is the story of why we made that decision. A good startup name: 1. Is a single word 2. Is easy to pronounce & spell 3. Has a .com that you can buy....$400K was a lot of cash. We only went for it because we had raised a $3M seed round, and I believed that the long-term branding benefit outweighed the short-term cost. I definitely don’t regret it." Close the Deal: "Beyond just the benefits of properly aligning our brand with the .com name, we knew that owning this domain [Close.com] would illustrate to future customers that we’re here to stay for the long haul." -Steli Efti, CEO of Close. com Ready to invest in your company’s success? As you can see from the examples above, acquiring an ultra-premium domain names is a one-time investment that yields dividends for the life of your business—conveying instant trust, authority, and brand recognition, reducing your incremental cost of customer acquisition while increasing your bottom line and overall company valuation. Most companies are in the digital equivalent of an arm's race with their top competitors; an ultra-premium .com domain name provides the key differentiator that they need to prevail. Interested in learning more about what a premium domain can do for your company or startup? Contact us today for a complementary consultation. Buckley Media has a carefully curated list of premium domains for sale and you can find them at the simple, one word, English dictionary .com: Defining.com. Please keep in mind, this is a short list, and contact us with whatever kind of domain you need, as it's a good bet we can get it for you. Buckley Media works diligently with both buyers and sellers to ensure a smooth transaction. We pride ourselves on our matchmaking skills—developing deals that benefit both parties. About the Author: Kate Buckley is CEO and founder of BuckleyMedia.com, a premium domains, naming and branding agency. She is an expert at premium domain consulting and brokerage, specializing in private domain acquisitions and divestments of ultra-premium domain names. Kate has personally brokered millions of dollars in both private and publicly-recorded top domains sales.  I recently sat down for a coffee with Tim Hargis, the former VP, Marketing & Business Development for Tuft & Needle, an American direct-to-consumer mattress and bedding brand acquired by Serta Simmons Bedding in 2018. We had a great chat about domains and branding, and the impact that the right premium .COM can have on a business. The interview has been reproduced here. — Kate Buckley, CEO, Buckley Media | Defining.com
Kate: Tim, tell me about your role at Tuft & Needle. What initiatives were you charged with enacting? Tim: As is the case with most startups, when you join very early, you can expect your role to change over time, and that was certainly the case while I was at T&N. When I joined, I didn’t have much of a defined role even though I was the first person on the “marketing” team. Over time, I went from marketing to business development, landed wholesale deals with Lowes, Crate&Barrel, WalMart, etc., and then I eventually shifted over to the real estate side where I helped lead search and lease negotiations for our retail store expansion before transitioning out of the company to pursue new ventures in mid 2018. Kate: What were some of the issues you were experiencing with your existing domain name, tuftandneedle.com? Tim: For the first few years, the majority of our limited marketing spend had been centered around digital channels—primarily AdWords. So our domain wasn’t much of a concern at that time. As we expanded into OOH channels like billboards, radio, and TV, it became challenging because of how long the domain was. Also, “tuft” is not a common English word. So we were forced to squeeze “tuftandneedle.com” on billboards due to space constraints and it caused serious readability/legibility issues. In addition, on the radio, “tuft” sounds very similar to “tough,” so there was consistent confusion around that. We ran some analysis and realized what consumers were actually searching for when trying to find us online, and it was pretty eye-opening. It became obvious how difficult it was to spell and remember our name, let alone pronounce the correct version. We’d get search queries for “tough mattress,” “tough needle,” “needle mattress”… Kate: Who had the idea to acquire TN.com and why? Tim: I’ve always been a domain name nerd and big believer in the value they add, so I brought up the idea casually, and there was a fair amount of immediate support from different people inside the company. We all recognized the challenges the domain presented, but we were a bootstrapped company growing very quickly with limited financial resources. We knew that a super-premium domain was going to be high-6, to likely 7 figures to obtain. It was really more a question about the right timing. We continued to seriously talk about it more, and then brainstormed potential alternative domains. We thought of the most “obvious” options (that would have cost significantly less), but each of them had clear problems. We knew if we went with “TN.co” most consumers would just go to the .com (and also drive up the price of the .com in the future), “tan.com” wasn’t ideal because it was read as a word and not an acronym, “tuft.com” presented the same spelling challenges we already had, and an entire new brand was off the table. At that point, we were boxed in and had one option—TN.com. Even though we knew it was going to be the most expensive option, by far, it was clearly the best option for the company. Kate: Talk about the acquisition and negotiation process. How difficult was it to secure TN.com? Tim: I originally reached out to the domain broker who was representing the name in mid-2015. Once we determined who owned it, we knew we weren’t going to be getting a “deal” by any means—and the broker was also a great negotiator, I must add—but we were committed to pursuing it. I went back and forth on it for about 2-3 months, as their original price and our offer was vastly different. Eventually we negotiated close enough on the price and terms that it made sense to just go for it. So we acquired the domain. After we agreed on the deal structure, it took about a week or so to get the purchase contract drafted and executed. We then finalized the transaction through escrow.com. Kate: There are only 676 two-letter .COM names in existence. It couldn’t have been cheap! Are you able to share the acquisition price? If so, how did you determine how much to pay based on the domain’s potential value to the company? Tim: Ultra-premium domains are interesting in that they seem very “expensive” from the outside looking in, but after owning one, you recognize very quickly how incredibly undervalued they are relative to what they cost. Of course, the tricky part is you don’t realize this until you have one (and why it can often be hard to determine if it’s worth the high price tag to begin with). To put it in perspective, at T&N we were bringing in 9 figures in revenue (this is publicly stated at close to $200m in 2018), and most DTC e-comm companies are spending 20-25% of net revenue on marketing—some are even much higher than this. So, if for example, a company is spending $40-$50m a year on marketing, while increasing the budget every year as they grow, you can expect $200-$300m in spend over the next 4-5 years. Why would you not allocate a fraction of 1% from that entire spend on the entry point (domain) you’ll be driving all the traffic/eyeballs to...AND it's also an asset that continues to appreciate? At this stage, we were still under the radar and knew that if we waited and became even more well known as a brand, the price would just continue to climb and we’d become a victim of our own success. It just made sense to stretch ourselves a little initially, rather than run the risk of it being sold out from under us in the future. That would have been a huge missed opportunity, and if we had taken that risk, the potential alternative outcome would have been significantly worse. I can’t disclose the exact price, but it’s been stated publicly before (by one of the Co-Founders) that it was seven figures—that I can confirm. I think it was a fair price given other two letter .COM end user sales. Kate: And it had to substantially impact user experience! How did the domain acquisition impact your marketing strategy? What did you do differently as a result of landing TN.com? Tim: Initially, we used TN.com exclusively on billboards so we could accurately segment the traffic coming from that channel (to get a directionally-accurate measure of the ROAS) while we continued to use tuftandneedle.com on our digital channels. Prior to this, we'd used tuftandneedle.com on billboards—having TN.com made a huge difference in the amount of traffic that channel generated. If you’re going to be doing any meaningful amount of OOH marketing, you must have a great .COM or you’re likely just throwing money away through inefficient ad spend, and blaming the marketing channel instead. Once we ran this test, we switched all of our OOH channels to TN.com. Kate: Did you see a measurable difference in traffic or conversion rates—or a reduction in your cost of customer acquisition? What was the biggest difference or impact that TN.com had on your business? Tim: This gets very complicated to accurately determine, especially when you’re in many different channels, but we definitely noticed an increase in mobile traffic when we started using TN.com in OOH. Assessing whether or not our blended acquisition costs dropped as a result of having TN.com would be much harder to definitively say one way or the other. But do I believe our marketing was more effective by having it? There’s zero question in my mind about that. I believe it more than paid for itself in a relatively short period of time, and think most would agree it was one of the best investments the company made. But putting that specific impact aside, there are many other benefits it brought: credibility and legitimacy (because typically only larger brands have very short .coms), its strong visual “appearance” on packaging/products/creative/etc, and fewer email issues. For example, we’d run into issues surrounding customers spelling the company name incorrectly when emailing support. The domain [ TN.com] is just far easier to remember. Interesting story: We had an employee at Tuft & Needle (that had previously worked at a domain registrar) who saw our billboard one day and thought, “How did they get a two-letter .com?!” and applied for a Customer Experience position and got hired! Kate: Tuft & Needle was acquired by Serta Simmons Bedding in September of 2018—congratulations! That had to have been an exciting ride. Do you think the acquisition and subsequent deployment of TN.com played any role in this acquisition? Tim: It’s hard to say if the domain itself played much of a factor, but there’s no doubt it was a huge asset in growing the company (which of course helped the business become a desirable M&A target). Kate: How did this experience impact the way you view premium domains as tools for marketing and business development? Tim: I’ve always been a believer in the value of premium domains, and it’s good to see more and more companies building on them and leveraging their impact. They’re an asset, not an expense—and if your “marketing agency” doesn’t understand this, they should be fired. It still boggles my mind when I see companies that are clearly spending a fortune on marketing, attempting to drive traffic to a mediocre (at best) domain that is hard to remember, easily misspelled, and often confused. It’s like spending millions of dollars remodeling a $100,000 home—it just doesn’t make any sense. Kate: Do you own any premium domains personally? Tim: I own a super premium one-syllable, one-word .com with a partner that we had planned on using for a startup (prior to COVID) and have a handful of other average domains. I’m not an investor or broker—I just geek out on (and love) domains. My friends think I’m super weird, and they’re probably right! Kate: What advice would you give to any company that is considering upgrading to an ultra-premium domain name? Tim: First, I’d suggest trying to make the move sooner rather than later, even if it feels like a little bit of a stretch financially. If you have product-market fit with clear traction, and ambitions to build a company of any meaningful size, it becomes an asset that you can’t afford not to have. Super-premium .coms continue to get more and more expensive as they become rarer and rarer—so waiting and hoping that the price comes down over time isn’t a useful strategy for extremely desirable domains. There are plenty of creative ways to acquire and finance domains, if the cash purchase price is currently out of reach (lease option, seller financing, etc.). These structures at least allow you to secure the domain and begin leveraging it right away, while providing a payment plan that’s manageable for your company. Secondly, engage with a great domain broker who understands the premium domain market (strong 6 to 7-figure sales) and knows how to approach these domain owners with a reasonable and compelling offer that gives you a real chance at securing the name. The owner profile can alter the strategy and offer you make, and you need someone who has successfully executed high-value name transactions before that can effectively navigate these negotiations. In addition, using a domain acquisitions broker gives your company anonymity and ensures the price you pay is fair and in-line with current comparable sales (most of which are never publicly disclosed and likely only known by the top brokers inside the domain community). Good luck acquiring your premium domain—I can assure you that you won’t regret it after you get the opportunity to begin utilizing it! The short answer is: Yes. Premium domains not only make VC funding stronger, but are for companies who want their brands to be taken seriously, even revered; who want to achieve brand notoriety—woven into the fabric of the culture for decades to come.
Why? Quality premium domains are lead generators, brand enhancers, and appreciating assets. All three lead to increased ROI and higher company valuations—while reducing the cost of customer acquisition. As MicroStrategy’s CEO, Michael J. Saylor, said about the $30M sale of Voice(.)com (2019): "Ultra-premium Domain Names like these can help a company achieve instant brand recognition, ignite a business, and massively accelerate value creation.” Here’s a just a few of my favorite examples of companies leveraging a premium domain to accelerate value creation (you can find more at BuckleyMedia.com/casestudies):
As renowned angel-investor, Jason Calacanis famously said: “The name of your startup is critically important to its success—six letters or under, generally easy to spell and certainly unique. Great entrepreneurs tackle and solve challenging issues like naming their company well, and if you can’t name your company well, you’re simply not worth investing in. I know it’s a harsh statement, but it is true. better you hear it now while you still have a chance to hit a home run. "If you go into a VC or angel meeting with a crappy name, they will look at it the same way they look at you unshaven with a stain on your shirt and a deck full of misspellings: that you lack focus and attention to detail. A stunning domain name paired with a world-class logo makes you look like a killer. That is what you want when you’re in a meeting asking people to give you money: Credibility. Under no circumstance should you settle for an ok or bad name, except if it’s just a placeholder and you’re not showing it to investors.” It's also worth noting that premium domains also provide a safety net for investors as well: "The inherent multimillion value of an ultra premium domain name serves as a key startup venture asset to raise capital that protects the investor's investment. It's like a piece of raw land in the financial district of New York City. No matter what the success of the building built on that land the land itself is a concrete invincible asset that will never lose value and always increase in value." —Kevin R. Leto, Venture Capitalist Want more proof that premium domains make VC funding stronger? Here are some recent VC/PE/Fortune 500 domain upgrades:
“Acquiring the Aura.com domain is an investment in the Aura brand as we grow our business and build the best all-in-one digital protection platform for consumers.” —Lark-Marie Anton, CCO, Aura
Acquiring and investing in category-defining, and/or exact match domain name brands not only massively accelerates value creation, but also enhances exits and—when done first—makes VC funding stronger. Premium domains are both addresses and assets and leverage value exponentially. Reach out today for a complimentary consultation: [email protected] Note: My thanks to Crunchbase, along with industry colleagues Jamie Zoch, Elliot Silver, and Andrew Miller, whose reporting assisted in the compilation of this post. Today, in a huge win for generic domains, the Supreme Court, in an 8-1 decision, ruled that, as a general matter, you CAN trademark a generic term + .com. So while you can't trademark "booking," you CAN trademark “Booking.com," rendering top tier domains more valuable than ever.
As Jess Collen wrote at Forbes.com: "The Supreme Court just this morning affirmed that an Internet domain name including a generic term – specifically Booking.com – can function as a trademark. ... "Most small and mid-sized businesses frankly cannot afford such a high-level domain, which will often – if not usually – sell for seven-figures plus. Up until now, companies have been buying those names because they are so memorable and are common words that consumers would use to find products in a specific category. That the Trademark Office now must allow registration and that these names have been ruled protectable makes a huge advance in their value." It’s worth taking a look at the wording in the (considerably long) decision; here are some notable excerpts: "Generic names are easy to remember." "Because they immediately convey the nature of the business … the owner needs to expend less effort and expense educating consumers" "a generic business name may create the impression that it is the most authoritative and trustworthy source of the particular good or service" This is a definitive win for top tier .com domain owners everywhere—dramatically increasing their value. SCOTUS gets it in spades. Location: Brand Credibility & Market Share Brand Recognition + Generic/Authoritative Credibility = More Brand Recognition Companies often acquire category-defining domains to lever existing efforts, rebrand, or launch new consumer-facing campaigns—for instance, I sold Rate.com to Guaranteed Rate, eBike.com to Bosch and Advance.com to Advance Publications (Conde Nast); Oracle utilizes Sales.com, Retail.com and Think.com, and L’oreal owns Skincare.com and Makeup.com; Nationwide owns PetInsurance.com; Honda owns Motorcycles.com; Intel owns PC.com; Hubspot owns Connect.com; PetSmart owns Dogs.com; Frito-Lay launched Snacks.com, and the list goes on and on. This is not only a smart move offensively, but defensively as well—for instance, many times a company will lock up a domain name to block competitors from acquiring and developing it. In 2013, Brian Sharples, former CEO of HomeAway spent $35M to acquire VacationRentals.com just to keep it out of Expedia's hands! Which worked. Expedia later acquired HomeAway in 2015 for a whopping $3.9Billion. You can read the article/see the video with Mr. Sharples' comments here. The case studies on the inherent advantages of leveraging a premium .com are legion. Look at Russian Standard Vodka’s $3 million acquisition of premium domain Vodka.com. Furthermore, look at the timing: the Russian company was one year into their first foray into the lucrative US market. For three straight years after the acquisition of Vodka.com, with US growth rates at 56.5%, the brand received honors and awards for understanding and achieving consumer appeal. Acquiring the premium domain name was an integral part of this success. And, as a startup, Mint.com credited their investment in a premium short, brandable, memorable domain as a primary factor that enabled their brand recognition up to the 20 million users they now report. What these case studies show repeatedly is that when companies utilize a premium domain name, particularly with a name in direct alignment with their brand and positioning, they see a huge bump in traffic and conversions. What do these smart companies know that you don't? Premium domains (authoritative, one-to-two word .coms) do very well in natural search, particularly if developed correctly—think: a content-led strategy in traffic. Moreover, their authoritative nature leads to trust and credibility—resulting in higher click-throughs and conversions, not to mention intuitive, type-in traffic (direct navigation). Here are some of the other inherent benefits of owning a premium domain name:
Most companies are in the digital equivalent of an arm's race with their top competitors; an ultra-premium domain name provides the key differentiator they need to prevail. How can you begin developing your own domain strategy and building out your portfolio?
Buckley Media has a carefully curated list of premium domains for sale and you can find them at the simple, one word, English dictionary .com: Defining.com. Please keep in mind, this is a short list, and contact us with whatever kind of domain you need, as it's a good bet we can get it for you. Buckley Media works diligently with both buyers and sellers to ensure a smooth transaction. We pride ourselves on our matchmaking skills—developing deals that benefit both parties. Here are just a few of the smart companies that have acquired and aligned themselves with premium, generic, short .COMs:
About the Author: Kate Buckley is CEO and founder of BuckleyMedia.com, a premium domains, naming and branding agency. She is an expert at premium domain consulting and brokerage, specializing in discreet, professional acquisitions and divestments of ultra-premium domain names. Kate has personally brokered millions of dollars in both private and publicly-recorded top domains sales. |
AuthorKate Buckley is CEO and founder of BuckleyMedia.com, a premium domains, naming and branding agency. She is an expert at premium domain consulting and brokerage, specializing in private domain acquisitions and divestments of ultra-premium domain names. Kate has personally brokered millions of dollars in both private and publicly-recorded top domains sales. A member of the ICA, Kate is also a member of the Business Constituency of ICANN. Archives
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