DOMAINfest 2012 – Day One In Review

Day one is winding down after a great day of seminars and networking. I spent most of my morning hopping from meeting-to-meeting and then headed over to the seminars for the afternoon. DOMAINfest brings Domainers and Domaining companies in from all over the world so there are some incredible opportunities to make deals whether you’re buying domains, selling domains, or developing software in the space.

fairmont_santamonica As usual there are some very exciting companies sponsoring the show and the booths were packed with Domainers learning about different solutions that might give them an edge in 2012. For anyone who thinks these booth areas are dead during a show – think again! The booths were buzzing and business was getting done! Below is the Above.com booth – if you don’t know Above they are a very cool service that can help you A/B test different parking services to optimize your parking revenue.

abovedotcom_booth

After hanging-out with some of the cool companies that are here I headed to a very interesting seminar all about mobile – below is a quick review of the talk.

mobile_seminar

Mobile and Local Opportunities for Publisher and Advertisers
Very interesting seminar on a topic that really should be at the front of all of our minds, mobile! More and more people are browsing the web on their mobile phones. There were some very interesting points that came-up during the talk, some highlights are:

  • Test your site on a mobile phone – see what the user will actually see!
  • Optimize for mobile and create a specific site for mobile users to improve usability
  • Mobile security is important
  • Complexities dealing with Android vs. iOS devices – optimizing for both

The main point of this seminar made a lot of sense, if you’re not thinking about mobile, you are missing-out! There are great opportunities both for Publisher and Advertisers but it takes doing things differently than you would for a standard website.

The next seminar was right up my alley with a nice focus on affiliate marketing. Below is a quick summary:

lead_generation_seminar

Affiliate Lead Generation Best Practices
Affiliate programs can offer some great options for lead generation and improving your revenue moving from PPC to CPA. DOMAINfest brought-together an expert panel to share their advice for being successful in the space.

Sites to know that will help with affiliate tracking and monetization support:

Anyone with traffic can monetize their traffic which means that in some cases merchants can also become affiliates themselves. Mobile Affiliate programs are getting hot, the main player in the niche is Ring Revenue.

What Domains Owners Need To KNow About Lead Gen In Ten Minutes

  • Domainer Lead Gen Mindset – adding value to something you bought, taking beautiful domains and making them better. So why isn’t it more popular?
  • It’s hard and it’s a completely different mindset
  • A lot more money in lead generation than parking, but a lot more work
  • You will be dealing with fewer people but making more money per person
  • So what can you do?
  • Educate lead gen guys and sell your names for good money
  • Find partners with lead liquidity -> ping tree, buyers, etc. and become an affiliate
  • Do it yourself
  • What to ask yourself
  • Do you want to be an affiliate? (good for those with less tech and time, smaller investment, smaller payouts)
  • Do you want to build a business (good for those with more tech, time, and capital)
  • Getting there
  • WordPress has unlocked easy content creation and management
  • Simple and powerful software plays a nice role, tools like MailChimp, Unbounce, Formstack, etc.
  • Wide range of aggregators who can offer outsourced sales and manage the relationship/tech hassles

Okay, now I’m off to my last meeting for the day and then back home for a little R&R before the Sedo party tonight! As you have all probably learned by now, I don’t blog about parties so if you want to join in the fun, you’ll have to be here!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton