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. <\/p>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.atom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Analytics.jpg\")
<\/a>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. <\/p>\n\n\n
<\/a>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<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Organic SEO<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Not only did we significantly increase our Marketing Investments, we also invested very heavily in organic SEO. In fact, one of the world\u2019s leading SEO platforms, SEMRush also wrote a case study<\/a> highlighting our comprehensive efforts in achieving top rankings for organic search. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The benefits of SEO investments are already paying off, with us ranking on the first page of Google for many relevant keywords. <\/p>\n\n\n 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<\/em> related keywords: <\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n 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<\/p>\n\n\n How Do We Reinvest Revenue?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Summary:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are 3 main paths buyers typically follow in finding domains for sale: <\/p>\n\n\n\n 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Based upon the landing page views, here is a breakdown of industries that were most popular: <\/p>\n\n\n\n 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. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n 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 \u201cMeta<\/em>\u201d domain names, it is important to know the difference in STR for domains starting with the word Meta<\/em> vs domains ending with the word Meta<\/em>. Our Deep Keyword Analytics tool<\/a> offers this data (including keyword placement) for over 8000 root words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Overall STR analysis<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n STR Left Placement<\/strong> (Domains beginning with the root word)<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n STR Right Placement<\/strong> (Domains ending with the root word)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 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 \u201cHealth\u201d on the right demonstrated a much stronger STR (17.86%) compared to domains where \u201cHealth\u201d was at the beginning of the domain name. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This data needs a bit more context because it can be easily misinterpreted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the last 2-3 months of 2021, .xyz has also seen an increase in buyer interest. <\/p>\n\n\n 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 %. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 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. <\/p>\n\n\n Here are the most popular terms that were searched in our Marketplace during 2021. It is interesting to see that \u201cMeta\u201d, \u201cMetaverse\u201d, \u201cNFT\u201d, \u201cVerse\u201d and \u201cCrypto\u201d made it into the top 25 searched terms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/a>\n
Key Insights<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
How do Buyers Find Names?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nPopular Industries<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nRoot Word Analysis<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
TLD Level Analysis<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nNumber of Extensions Registered<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nTop Searches<\/h2>\n\n\n\n