What Happened at NamesCon 2021?

It seems like nothing can stop the domain name event NamesCon from being a success, not even a pandemic. While it didn’t look exactly as it has in the past, the people, sessions, and networking were all present, this time from the comfort of home as this year’s NamesCon was completely online. CentralNic was happy to be a Platinum Sponsor and participate in four exciting sessions. In case you weren’t able to attend, here’s a quick recap of NamesCon Online!

More Than Just Another Video Conference

The online portal was your personal control centre to all things NamesCon. From here, you could plan your day, navigate to current sessions, join workshops, speak with exhibitors, have meetings, and more. CentralNic had a table in the Networking Lounge staffed with a team of experts ready to help anyone who stopped by.

From the 'Agenda' tab, you could see all of the sessions on up to six different tracks. All of the sessions were recorded, so you didn’t have to choose between two sessions happening at the same time. Just one of the benefits of an online event, you can watch one session live and the recording of another later. Luckily, CentralNic's sessions were spread across the three-day event.

Ben Crawford Addresses the State of the Industry

Ron Jackson from DNJournal.com interviewed an expert panel that included CentralNic’s CEO, Ben Crawford, to check in on the health of the domain industry. Here’s what he found out.

While many industries have been struggling with the changes brought by COVID-19, the domain industry has not been one of them. In fact, CentralNic experienced 17% organic growth and over 100% growth if you include companies acquired.

The most prevalent downside was that enterprise and corporate customers wanted to conserve cash. However, monetization companies, like Team Internet, did very well.

Uniquely positioned as an infrastructure provider, CentralNic was in a sense, prepared for the pandemic. In fact, CentralNic has contingency plans for terrorist attacks, natural disasters, etc., to protect the millions of end-users should the worst ever occur. This type of planning helped CentralNic succeed and grow throughout 2020.

Tony Kim and Francesco Cetraro’s talk: Help Maximize Your Profits as a Domain Registrar and Reseller

CentralNic’s Head of Product Management (and one of the founders of HEXONET) Tony Kim and Senior Product Manager Francesco Cetraro have a combined 35 years of experience in the domain industry. They know what it takes to succeed in the industry and here’s what they had to say about maximizing profits.

As a reseller, everything distills down to products. If you’re offering a bad product, you’ll likely struggle. The product is really the value proposition. With our CentralNic reseller brands, our goal is to provide quality products directly to resellers to help them drive their business.

As a reseller, you want to be working with someone that gives you as many products as possible. Creating one unified connection between all products, including providing connection options like API’s and WHMCS modules. Working with a singular company that offers what you and your customers want is the most efficient way to run a profitable domain business. Easy and efficient tools in a singular place saves time searching and shopping around, letting you spend more time where it matters most, with your customers - reducing complexity increases profit.

Adam Wagner Shares the Future of Domain Monetization

Manager at our sister brand ParkingCrew, Adam Wagner, joined a panel of experts on the future of domain monetization. The discussion started with the changes in the domain industry brought by COVID before turning to important themes that will likely drive the domain industry forward.

In 2020, online traffic increased. This included small to medium-sized businesses adapting to the changing environments resulting in a good year for the domain industry and domain monetization.

In the most recent months, there’s been a substantial increase in demand from advertisers. Their cost per click ratios, demand, and actual spend budgets increased overall. So 2020 ended as a profitable year. Some industries, including travel, are starting to rebound from the negative effects of COVID, so there are opportunities there moving forward.

Many people have speculated that domain monetization is dead, but as long as there is good quality traffic that advertisers want, domain monetization will always be alive. The fact is, domains have the best highly targeted traffic you can get.

As an industry, we want to provide value to the advertisers, so they get conversions. If they don’t get conversions, they’ll stop spending money online. Make sure they get the traffic they want, and the rest takes care of itself.

To do this, data will continue to have a significant impact on domain monetization. You have to understand the traffic to monetize it better. Having data points around the traffic is key. This includes testing, estimations, and analyses as a never-ending process because every click is different.

Looking Forward to NamesCon 2022

With NamesCon Online all wrapped up, we’re already looking forward to next year. And who knows, maybe by then, we’ll get to connect in person. Until then, make sure to stay up to date with the latest domain news, promos, and events by signing up for our newsletter.