Domain Holdings Group, a world-class leader in premium domain brokerage and monetization, recently announced an exclusive premium domain offering – Capital.com.

“Capital.com is an extremely rare premium generic domain name. Premium generics in the financial sector have historically commanded high-end prices,” Domain Holdings Senior Domain Broker Steve Smith said. “Capital.com is a gem of a name, which is one of a handful of super premium domains now available on the aftermarket.”

Capital.com overlaps various different vertical markets, including: global financial institutions, banks, credit card companies, and venture capital firms. These are among the market of potential buyers Domain Holdings Group is targeting.

Domain Holdings’ co-founder Chad Folkening, a pioneer in the domain industry, stated, “Several well known capital related companies spend billions a year on advertising. Owning and using a one-of-a-kind and powerful brand such as Capital.com is a great short- and long-term investment. Capital.com is by far the most memorable name and can be branded across many different global industries”

In 2012, there were two reported finance related domain sales which achieved seven figures, led by the sale of Investing.com at $2.45M. Domain Holdings specializes in the brokerage of premium generic domains and brokered several seven- figure premium domain name transactions in 2012 that were not reported due to non-disclosure agreements. The premium domain aftermarket is active and Domain Holdings anticipates this category defining premium name will command one of the highest finance related domain sales in history.

Interested parties in Capital.com or other premium generic domains are encouraged to contact Steve Smith, Senior Domain Broker, for more information. Email – Steve@DomainHoldings.com, or call +1 561-634-7328.

Premium Finance Domain Name Facts and Sales Figures:

- Investing.com was the highest reported sale in 2012 at $2.45M
- Fund.com sold for $9.9M (2008), PersonalLoans.com sold for $1M (2012)
- Top major corporations routinely acquire finance domains for global branding purposes. These companies include Bank of America, Barclays, Citigroup and many others.
- The premium domain name aftermarket has seen a double-digit increase in median sale prices over the course of the last year and sales in more than 160 countries worldwide.

About Domain Holdings Group

Domain Holdings is a world-class service provider in the buying, selling and monetizing of domain names. The company was co-founded by Chad Folkening, a longtime domain industry veteran, and John Ferber, co-founder of Advertising.com which was acquired by AOL for approximately $500 million in 2004. DomainPower, the company’s flagship monetization solution, is an award winning end-to-end domain monetization platform and marketplace. Like us on Facebook and Follow Us on Twitter.

What we found was encouraging and did confirm that as a whole there was a healthy seasonal spike the last three months of the year in 2011. Even more promising is that industry analysts are expecting similar growth to close out 2012 as well. Combined with our award-winning DomainPower platform technology, we are looking forward to a very strong Q4 for our publishers.

In 2011, a major upstream provider saw an Increase in Ad Spend by 9%:

A major upstream provider saw a 9% increase in Ad Spend from Q3 to Q4 in 2011. With ad budgets showing a 2.4% increase in North America and 2.7% increase worldwide, that number is likely due to increase in 2012.

Advertisers have bigger budgets and are spending more than they did in 2011

According to a Nielsen report, the $266B spent through the first half of 2012 indicates a 2.7% increase in worldwide ad spend over the same period in 2011. The ad spend is expected to maintain a similar upward trajectory to close out the year, increasing an already noticeable seasonal spike starting in the Fall.

One of our Zero-Click Partners saw a 52% increase in RPC from Q3 to Q4 2011

We reached out to a few different zero-click partners on our platform to see what type of ad spend they saw from Q3 to Q4, most of which saw document growth. The best improvement was one of our zero-click partners who saw a 52% increase in RPC and 16% increase in RPM.

Closing down 2012 is gonna be wild

With the seasonal spike at the domain parking level, domainers will ultimately enjoy the seasonal lift. The other thing to watch will be the condition of the domain aftermarket as people decide whether or not flip their names in 2012 to avoid the impending tax hikes coming in 2013 (which is documented here  in detail by Mike Berkens). This holiday season will not be without a bit of hustle.

Why benefit from one providers Q3/Q4 ad lift when you can benefit from 40+?

At DomainPower we’d like to think that our award-winning optimization engine increases your revenue, from a seasonal uptick – and then some. Why? We offer leading-edge technology and expanding coverage. As our team adds new advertising partners weekly, it opens up more options for our publishers to monetize – with direct advertisers, Google and Yahoo powered partners, zero-click partners, and other parking companies. Our award-winning optimization engine works in real-time to see which advertisers and partners are willing to pay the most for your traffic from the minute they are added to our network. In short, we create a competitive environment where MORE companies are competing for you traffic. As competition increases for you traffic, so too does revenue.

Test out DomainPower today and take advantage of the upswing to close down 2012 – and get a head start on your 2013 earnings.

Read the Entire Press Release at DomainPower.com

We are pleased to announce that Domain Holdings was recognized at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. 2012′s awards show with three different awards. Domain Holdings’ flagship Monetization Platform was chosen as Best New Monetization Solution by voters.  Company Co-Founder Chad Folkening, a pioneer in the domain industry, was inducted into the Domainer Hall of Fame by his peers. Alan Dunn, hired in May of 2012 as SVP of Strategic Media, was awarded the Developer of the Year award.

Started in 2004, T.R.A.F.F.I.C. is one of the longest running and prestigious domainer conferences, bringing together the top businesses and entrepreneurs in the domaining space. The annual T.R.A.F.F.I.C. awards have been a show staple since its inception in 2004 where it started with one award – Domainer of the Year – before growing to nine categories in 2012. In all, Domain Holdings was nominated for seven awards, including the newly added Broker of the Year Award (Joe Uddeme, Premium Domain Brokerage).

DomainPower – Best New Monetization Solution

DomainPower was re-launched in January of 2012 on the heels of a Series A round that was in large part dedicated to improving the platform’s technology. Using a monetization decision engine (MDE), the platform routes domain traffic to one of 40 different advertisers. Additionally, as data and conversions accrue the MDE will ultimately get smarter as to where to direct traffic. With talented technology team, analysts, sales and marketing, the platform is aiming to grow its advertiser coverage two-fold by December 2012.

Chad Folkening – Domainer Hall of Fame

Chad Folkening joined forces with John Ferber and the two co-founded Domain Holdings in July of 2010 with the idea of bringing a better overall domain monetization solution to the table.

Only two members are inducted annually. Past inductees include Frank Schilling, Mike Berkens, Domain Holdings Advisor in Residence Monte Cahn, Rick Schwartz, Howard Neu, Ron Jackson and more (see full list).

Alan Dunn – Developer of the Year

Alan Dunn joined Domain Holdings in June of 2010 as the SVP of Strategic Media. This award is truly a testament to his large body of work which was impressive prior to joining Domain Holdings. Dunn has a knack for understanding the fundamentals of online marketing and brand building. His talents are widely revered and we are happy to have him on board. He handles all premium development for Domain Holdings.

OTHER AWARD WINNERS INCLUDE:

Best New monetizing Solution - DomainPower.com (Domain Holdings)

Best Overall Domain Solution - Sedo.com

Best Domain Blog - DomainSherpa.com (Cyger)

The “We Get It” Award - SalesForce.com

Developer of the Year Award - Alan Dunn (Domain Holdings)

Broker of the Year - Dave Evanson (Sedo.com)

Sponsor of the Year - Escrow.com

Domainer of the Year - Frank Schilling

Domain Hall of Fame - Chad Folkenning, Michael ‘Mike’ Mann

Delray Beach, FL – Domain Holdings announced Monday that they will be the broker of record for Domains New Media LLC’s domain portfolio. The portfolio, comprised of more than 1,700 names, is publicly available for the first time. With names like Cuba.com, Cali.com, BuenosAires.com, Geneva.com, Uruguay.com and more, Hoagland has what many believe to be one of the top geo .COM portfolios in the world.

Hoagland approached Domain Holdings’ Premium Domain Brokerage team about exclusively brokering part of his portfolio, which in addition to major geo names offers some category killer domains (view all names). He has developed many of his sites in an effort to attract direct advertisers at the local or national level instead of earning fractional margins with PPC networks.

“Many travel plans will eventually wind up on a .COM name of a travelers destination of choice, and that user is qualified and engaged,” explained Hoagland, who estimates about 80-percent of his Geo names are built out. “Rarely in any industry do you get the opportunity to open a storefront with millions of potential customers.”

For example, Brazil’s largest city of Sao Paulo is home to more than 11 million people and is one the top 10 most populous metro areas in the world. Owning Hoagland’s SaoPaulo.com provides an opportunity for the right company to establish an immediate online presence and profitable business model. Recognizing the brand potential of Geo names early on, Hoagland grew a $10K investment in MyrtleBeach.com in 1997 into a $2 million per year business before selling the website in 2010 for $4.5 million. Hoagland estimates It is the largest City.COM sale to date.

Fueled in large part by the development of countries both in the digital front as well as an attractive travel destination to tourists, Geo .COM names have held their value quite well. Geo .COM names are also among the more notable public domain sales. Geo .COM sales since 2000 include Britain.com ($1M), Melbourne.com ($700K) LongIsland.com ($370K), Buckhead.com ($250K) and Vancouver.com ($300K). Global tourism numbers are also promising for those looking to pursue Geo .COM domains. International tourism grew 4% in 2011 and generated about $1 billion in export earnings, according the U.N. World Tourism Organization. The Organization also expects the same growth for 2012.

The announcement to bring his portfolio to market comes on the heels of one of 2012′s biggest sales in Denver.com. Sold for an undisclosed “seven-figure” price, Denver.com is speculated to be the biggest publicized geo .COM sale since Korea.com sold in 2000 for $5 million, proving the market for notable GEO names is thriving. Said Peter Niederman, who purchased Denver.com, “I viewed the purchase of Denver.com as a unique and historic opportunity. To acquire the intuitive Internet brand of a world-class city like Denver is very rare.”

Domain Holdings has notched some of the year’s top sales as well. With a staff of eight full-time brokers specializing in end-user outreach, Hoagland sought out Domain Holdings Group to “touch as many end-users as possible.”

“In this space we are constantly reaching out to the international business community, but it’s rare to get the kind of response we have been getting already for some of these names,” Domain Holdings’ Mark Daniel said. “Skip’s flexibility to work with end-users to strike a deal also puts us in a position for unique conversations.”

In addition to single and bulk domain sales, Hoagland is open to joint ventures or partnerships and lease options. All inquiries should be directed to Mark Daniel – 561-634-7349, or Mark@domainholdings.com.

Our own Joe Uddeme was featured, as was Toby Clements (TobyClements.com), Dave Evanson (Sedo.com), Brian Kleiner (The AfternicDLS), Mike Robertson (DomainGuardians.com), Andrew Rosener (MediaOptions.com), Bob Olea (DomainSalesPlus.com), Kevin Faler (GTLDVille.com), Evan Horowitz (HuntingMoon.com) and Jeff Gabriel (DomainAdvisors.com). Collectively, this list has accounted for hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions going back a decade or more. If you are interested in brokering, or even buying a name, this is a good guide post for the current state of the industry from the guys on the front lines.

Some Takeaways::

- Communicating with the client, setting expectations, getting on the same page and being honest are essential day-to-day functions.

- You will/must understand the entire online marketing ecosystem, either coming into or within a very short amount of time. Also understanding that the right domain can serve as an alternative and extremely viable lead source is a compelling point for any online enterprise.

- Sales is relationships (and numbers). Build and maintain relationships, but also build and always communicate.

- It’s a small industry of domain brokers, so honesty and integrity will go a long way.

And perhaps the most important …

- SETTING THE RIGHT PRICE. The market changes, so too must pricing. Good brokers are able to find the happy medium on both sides.

Read the full article on DNJournal.com. If you are interested in domain brokering, we are looking to add to our staff as well.

Domain Holdings is looking to grow its Premium Brokerage Division by adding a “few good men and women” to our sales team.

We are located in sunny Delray Beach Florida and also have remote work opportunities available for the right candidate.

Are you a sales superstar with a successful track record?
Do you listen to your clients and put them first?
Do you consistently exceed monthly sales quotas?
Are you an expert communicator and possess saavy computer skills?
Are you comfortable making 50-60 outbound calls to end-user companies each day?
Knowledge of the domain industry and experience using Salesforce a plus.
Do you have 2-4 years sales experience?
If the answer is yes, then we’d like to hear from you!

Domain Holdings is located in Delray Beach on historic Atlantic Boulevard, minutes from the Ocean. We offer a competitive base salary and commission structure. Benefits (Health, Dental, 401K) and Options are available following a 90-day probationary period. Please email your resumes to sales@domainholdings.com. We’d prefer someone in our offices but willing to allow telecommuting to qualified candidates.

“Michael knows this industry. He knows where it is, where it is heading and how we can reach across multiple channels to service the evolution,” Domain Holdings CEO Jason Boshoff said. “With our technology capabilities, his technical wherewithal in direct navigation, error traffic and the search landscape … ”

Read the entire Press Release at DomainPower.com.

The test examined the results of a 30-day test, where a portfolio made up exclusively of

DomainPower’s MDE can provide data at a more granular level for domains’ history (traffic, revenue, user behavior) and optimize at the domain level rather than the portfolio level.

wildcard traffic grew from a $22.98 RPM on its previous monetization platform to an $84.21 RPM on DomainPower.

“Our ability to monetize wildcard traffic features customization options, simple implementation, and access to one of the best parking monetization platforms in the industry,” Domain Holdings CEO Jason Boshoff said. “The results of the test speak for themselves, and we are excited to explore this new opportunity.”

The results of the Wildcard traffic test are highlighted in detail in a comprehensive overview of DomainPower’s Monetization Decision Engine (Download the PDF), where four distinct domain portfolios were measured over a 30- or 60-day test period. The results revealed a significant revenue increase for each portfolio in favor of DomainPower over the previous parking monetization options.

Beta launched in January of 2012 and officially announced in March 2012, the MDE makes data-driven decisions based on historical learning’s of a domain’s traffic and monetization, or domains of similar composition, routing traffic to the advertising partners that will yield the highest revenue.

“With the Wildcard Traffic test, the methodology used to monetize the portfolio relied exclusively on the MDEs ability to drill deeper into the data on a domain,” DomainPower analyst Cory Lamay explained. “The MDE was able to quickly learn the monetization behavior of a wildcard domain and optimize accordingly. The result was a 4X growth overall.”

To learn more about how DomainPower can monetize wildcard traffic, please contact a DomainPower sales representative to request more information – mailto:info@domainpower.com, or call 561-634-7334.

About Domain Holdings

Domain Holdings is a world-class service provider in the buying, selling and monetizing of domain names. The company was co-founded by Chad Folkening, a longtime domain industry veteran, and John Ferber, co-founder of Advertising.com which was acquired by AOL for approximately $500 million in 2004, and whose collective online products and services have grossed more than $3 billion since 1996. DomainPower is an end-to-end domain monetization platform and marketplace. Like us on Facebook and Follow Us on Twitter.

Recently, we published a PDF that peels back the curtain to give current and future customers a deeper look into DomainPower. We reveal how and why DomainPower’s MDE works, and illustrate its performance by highlighting performances across four distinct portfolios. The growth in these highlighted snapshots is marked, and they represent the type of performance DomainPower can deliver.

This growth and performance are fueled in large part by the science and technology behind the platform, but also by our team of dedicated analysts, growing advertiser relationships and our platform users. The data we receive allows our analysts to look for improved monetization, which opens the door for new advertising relationships. It is a circuitous optimization process, where each component and business decision positively impacts the entire engine. Ultimately, what proves whether we are on the right track is how much revenue we are generating for our customers.

The Portfolios

The highlighted portfolios were chosen because they represent four distinct types of traffic, which the MDE monetizes well.

To read the first two pages, you can also Download the entire PDF as well.

Before: Portfolio 1 was on a parking platform that used a leading paid search network as its primary monetization option. Zero-click advertisers were reserved for domains blocked by the paid search network, regardless of whether or not the zero-click advertisers could outperform the paid search network on unblocked names.

Portfolio Makeup: Portfolio 1 had a high volume of specific niche search terms that were highly marketable to zero-click and other direct advertisers.

Optimization Method: The MDE was free to pass traffic to zero-click and direct advertisers without restriction.

Before: Portfolio 2 was on a platform using a leading paid search network with no other monetization options available.

Portfolio Makeup: The portfolio was a mixed bag of names bought on drop based solely on historical traffic.

Optimization Method: Optimization was achieved by diversifying advertising options (Direct-to-Advertiser, Zero-Click) in addition to relying solely on a leading paid search network.

Before: Portfolio 3 was on a parking platform with two leading paid search networks – Provider 1 and Provider 2. Traffic would route to Provider 2 only after it was determined Provider 1 had blocked a domain’s traffic, regardless of which monetization option might produce the highest yield.

Portfolio Makeup: High-value premium generic short-tail keyword domain names.

Optimization Method: The MDE measured high demand for short-tail keyword domains from direct advertiser and zero-click partners, and thus produced a significant lift.

Before: Portfolio 4 was on a parking platform that used a leading paid search network as its primary monetization option with secondary monetization options.

Portfolio Makeup: Wildcard Traffic (e.g. Leased Subdomains, 404 Traffic from webhosts)

Optimization Method: The MDE was able to dynamically categorize the domain at a more granular level to optimize the traffic.

Visit DomainPower.com to learn more.