Introduction

As 2021 comes to an end, it is time to reflect on our performance here at Atom as well as several insights that continue to guide our journey. 

First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to our entire creative and seller community who have continued to support our platform via their ongoing participation, trust and feedback. As a result of the Pandemic, both 2020 and 2021 have been difficult years for many in our community as well as our internal team. However, these tough times have also made all of us more resilient, and I wish everyone best of health and success as we move into 2022.  

On the business front, we have continued to see a record level of demand for branding and naming as more and more startups and brands continue to launch across the globe.  I would like to take this opportunity to break down our key learnings and insights. 

Marketplace Listings Growth & Revenue

Our premium listings grew from about 70,000 listings at the beginning of 2021 to about 123,000 listings at the end of the year. This represents about 71% growth in the number of listings. We continue to be highly selective in accepting those names that we believe will resonate with our buyers. At about 10-12% approval rate, our goal is to take a measured approach in increasing the listings, while finding ways to increase exposure for the names at the same time. 

Paid Marketing, Visitors & Revenue

One question that many sellers naturally wonder about is the impact of this growth on the overall sell through rate. There is no question that as the Marketplace grows, there will be some impact on the STR. However we have continued to ensure that our Marketing Spends grow at an even faster rate than our listings growth. In 2021, we spent more than $2M in digital marketing to bring over 23.5 Million unique visitors to the platform. This represents an 85% increase in Marketing spend compared to previous year, and about 78% increase in visitors from previous year. 

So while our premium listings have grown by 71%, we increased our Marketing investment by 85% to more than offset the listing growth. As a result, our  Marketplace revenue increased by 123% compared to previous year. 

Our use of AI and Tech in improving our Marketing effectiveness was recognized by Google, and their product team featured our company in a Case Study written by Google. 

Organic SEO

Not only did we significantly increase our Marketing Investments, we also invested very heavily in organic SEO. In fact, one of the world’s leading SEO platforms, SEMRush also wrote a case study highlighting our comprehensive efforts in achieving top rankings for organic search. 

The benefits of SEO investments are already paying off, with us ranking on the first page of Google for many relevant keywords. 

We are seeing these SEO benefits on recently trending search terms as well. For example, we appear in the top organic positions for several Metaverse related keywords:

As a result of the SEO optimization as well as high Domain Authority, several of the landing pages (both Standard and Premium listings) also receive top placements in organic rankings. In fact many domain landers claim multiple top positions in the search results because they are also included in several White Label Marketplaces powered by Atom

How Do We Reinvest Revenue?

It is important to note that our entire net revenue (Marketplace commissions, Contests etc) is reinvested back into our Digital Marketing and Tech. Overall, we continue to operate our business at a break-even level and do not take any profits out of the business. So while the 25-30% commissions for premium marketplace may seem high, the entirety of that commission is being reinvested back into increased exposure as well as tech improvements to improve discovery. 

Summary:

• Unique Marketplace Visitors: 23.5 Million (+77.5%)
• Net New Users: 23.38 Million (New users is an important metric because it means that more than 90% of visitors being brought to the platform are new buyers who are potentially looking for a name)
• Premium Listings: 123,000 (+71%)
• Marketing Investment: > $2M (+85%)
• Marketplace Revenue: +123%

Key Insights

We are a data-driven business and continue to analyze several insights to improve our platform. Several of these insights can also help domain investors make better decisions about their domain investments, therefore we do not hesitate to share them with our seller community. Keep in mind that these insights are based on Atom data and may not be entirely applicable outside our platform. We hope that other Marketplaces will also join us in sharing additional insights so that collectively, the sellers can make much better decisions about their domain investments. 

How do Buyers Find Names?

There are 3 main paths buyers typically follow in finding domains for sale:

• Registrar Path: Buyers already have a name in mind and they visit a registrar to check if the domain is available
• Direct Landing Page Visit: Buyers already have a name in mind and they Google the name or type your landing page directly by typing in the URL
• Marketplace Discovery: Buyers do not yet have a name in mind, and they are coming to the Marketplace such as Atom to discover potential options that might be a good fit for their business

If you have keyword rich names, then it is important for the names to be also listed in channels such as Afternic and/or Sedo because they can offer a massive exposure in situations where buyers are searching for those names via registrar path.

The discovery focused Marketplaces such as Atom mainly target a different group of buyers – typically those who haven’t yet thought of the exact name. While we get a diverse group of buyers from across the globe, in most cases the buyers are in the initial stage of their branding project. In other words, they are coming to our platform to explore names that might be a good fit for their specific use case, or to get help from our creative community via our Crowdsourced contests. As a result, we target more than 10,000 search keywords via Google paid marketing to bring such buyers to our platform. In addition, we also target these buyers via several other digital channels with Display ads. This is also the reason why AI and discovery experience is extremely important within the platform so that we can recommend the most relevant names to the buyers based upon their search intent, as well as browsing history.

While we do get several visits that are direct to the landing page, an overwhelming majority of the landing page visits (more than 85%) are via a discovery path. In other words, the buyers first visited the Marketplace, and performed some sort of search or discovery before visiting the specific landing page. This means that a substantial % of incremental exposure is mainly coming from buyers who do not have a specific name in mind before coming to our platform.

Popular Industries

Based upon the landing page views, here is a breakdown of industries that were most popular:

Note: Sell Through in below charts is calculated as the total number of domains sold as a percent of total listed for atleast 6+ months in each category.

Root Word Analysis

When analyzing root words, it is important to also consider the placement of the root word inside the domain. It is interesting to see that domains starting with a certain word demonstrate a very different STR compared to domains that end with the same word. For example, if you are investing in “Meta” domain names, it is important to know the difference in STR for domains starting with the word Meta vs domains ending with the word Meta. Our Deep Keyword Analytics tool offers this data (including keyword placement) for over 8000 root words.

Overall STR analysis

Below table and chart provides analysis of all root words which demonstrated a high number of sales as well as a strong STR. Outliers have been removed from these charts if those root words only had a small number of sales.

STR Left Placement (Domains beginning with the root word)

Below table includes those words which demonstrated a high number of sales as well as a strong STR when the word was at the beginning of the domain name. For example, domains that include Meta on the left demonstrated a much stronger STR (13.51%) compared to domains where Meta was at the end of the domain name. 

STR Right Placement (Domains ending with the root word)

Below table includes those words which demonstrated a high number of sales as well as a strong STR when the word was at the end of the domain name. For example, domains that include “Health” on the right demonstrated a much stronger STR (17.86%) compared to domains where “Health” was at the beginning of the domain name. 

TLD Level Analysis

This data needs a bit more context because it can be easily misinterpreted.

The number of listings in some of the extensions such as xyz, net and org is much smaller in comparison to .com. More importantly, the number of domains that we typically accept in non .com extensions are typically strong dictionary words. Therefore, when we compare the STR with .com, it is not really an apples to apples comparison. Having said that, we saw a significant increase in STR as well as overall demand for the .io extension. 

However before you start loading up on domains in non .com extensions, keep in mind that the demand for such tlds is only strong for high quality, single dictionary word domains. Other than .io, the hold time for most other extensions will likely be much longer than .com. 

In the last 2-3 months of 2021, .xyz has also seen an increase in buyer interest. 

Number of Extensions Registered

We recently added a TLD Tracker feature where we can automatically notify the sellers when their domain is registered in a new extension. This is an important metric because we find a strong correlation between number of TLDs taken and Sell Through %.

The buyers typically do not purchase domains based on number of extensions taken. However if a domain is registered in multiple extensions, it usually signifies a higher quality, and therefore it is much more likely that those domains will resonate with potential buyers. In addition, if end users develop their businesses in non .com extensions, it is much more likely that they will upgrade their domain to a .com down the road.

Top Searches

Here are the most popular terms that were searched in our Marketplace during 2021. It is interesting to see that “Meta”, “Metaverse”, “NFT”, “Verse” and “Crypto” made it into the top 25 searched terms. 

clothing

tech

meta

metaverse

go

real estate

bet

finance

nft

food

luxury

pay

medical

crypto

travel

co

insurance

mortgage

beauty

data

agency

health

fashion

verse

fintech

Contest Loves vs Sell Through Rate

Submitting relevant domains to contests can not only provide rapid feedback from end users, it is really interesting to see how this feedback directly correlates with the Sell through rate of the domain.  

For example if a domain was liked in 2 or more contests, it’s STR more than doubled to 10.86%. The more loves a domain receives, the higher the expected STR. This is due to two main reasons:

• First reason is obvious. If a domain is being liked by multiple contest holders, it suggests it is a strong, high quality brandable domain and will therefore find a buyer soon.
• As a domain receives more loves, it’s overall ranking in the Marketplace increases substantially. This indirectly benefits the domain in the long run because names that rank higher receive substantially more exposure and will therefore sell more rapidly. 

If you have domains in your portfolio that have received 1 or more loves from contest holders, that insight can also be used while rationalizing your portfolio. For example, you are much better off holding on to such domains vs dropping them. 

Key Initiatives and Features added in 2021

Our goal is to continue to make investment in tech/ new features to offer best in class tools and experience to our users. Here are some of the features we added in 2021:

Platform Level

• Geo Marketplace: A smart location based marketplace for Geo domains with 7.5% commission
• API for Marketplace: A comprehensive API to manage your listings at Atom and easily sync your prices and other details across multiple platforms. 
• Reduced Commissions For Sellers: Lower premium commissions for sellers who have listed their domains for 2+ years
• Deep AI and Instant Search Improvements: Significant improvement in AI, Recommendations as well as Discovery experience for buyers
• Account Beneficiary & Pulse Checks: Automatically send followups to you and your beneficiaries if you have been inactive on the platform for an extended period. 
• Additional Tools For White Label Marketplace (including SEO optimization)

Payouts

• Introduction of Wire Transfer Payouts: Setup payouts via Bank/ Wire Transfer
• Partial Payouts: Choose a partial payment if you do not wish to withdraw the full amount

Merchandising & Listings Management

• Automated Merchandising
  • Automated AI Descriptions: Natural language based AI generated descriptions that can boost SEO
  • Automated Root Word and Category Identification: Automatic association of root words and industries based upon keywords inside the domain as well as buyer browsing data
  • Automated Price Increases Based On Buyer Demand: Automatic scheduled a future price increase if a domain is receiving a higher than usual interest from potential buyers
  • Automated Visual Images: Automatically generate visual images for your domains to further improve the discovery experience and exposure
• Pick Your Own Logo Designer & Block Designers: Ability to pick your favorite Logo designer for your Marketplace names
• Google Sheet Integration Enhancements: Additional options to manage your domain portfolio offline in Google Sheets and one click synchronization with your Atom listings

Selling Tools & Analytics

• Incentives For Contest Submissions: Receive additional exposure for your domains by offering incentives to other creatives to submit your names in naming contests
• Deep Keyword Analytics Tool: Receive detailed insights on over 8000 keywords including their sell through data based on Keyword placement
• TLD Change Tracker and Notifications: Automatically receive notifications when someone registers your domain in an alternate TLD (extension).
• Scheduled Price Increases: Ability to schedule future price increases for your domains. Shows a “Scheduled Price Increase” notice on your lander to create additional urgency for buyers.

Looking Ahead

We have a fairly extensive roadmap to further improve our platform and introduce several more features. While we can not disclose our exact roadmap, here are some of the strategic priorities for our platform:

• Continue to expand and scale our Marketing as well as new customer acquisition 
• Continue to invest in AI & Tech to significantly improve the discovery of relevant domains 
• Continue to build out the crowdsourcing ecosystem to offer core branding services to startups and established companies
• Additional partnerships and syndication opportunities to provide even more exposure for our domains

Closing Thoughts

Brandable domains can be highly subjective. There are aspects related to keyword synergy and overall brandability that require quite a bit of creativity and branding expertise. While the subjective aspect of brandable domains can not be replaced by data, successful domain investors do utilize data and insights to make better decisions that can help improve their Sell Through Rate. As a platform, we will continue to offer tools, data and insights that will allow our sellers to make more informed decisions about their portfolio.