Business investors, including VCs and private equity investors, are key stakeholders in early-stage startups, and demonstrating strength and ambition to this group is essential for founders. To learn more about how domains impact real-world outcomes, we asked this audience to rate how a weak domain impacts these metrics. Combined with our research into how a weak domain harms revenue, marketing ROI, and other business outcomes, this research can support entrepreneurs’ decision-making and resource allocation around domain names in the early days of their business.

By Thom Davies

A brand’s domain name is its chance to make a strong first impression on its audience. This research aims to increase understanding about how consumers use domain names as a trust signal when encountering a brand for the first time, and identify which domain characteristics most strongly influence credibility and first impressions. Our results help brands to determine the significance of domain names in trust-building exercises and to tailor their choices to target demographic expectations.

By Thom Davies

Our past research has revealed that founders think strong brand names and domains impact revenue in a wide range of ways, from customer recall to word-of-mouth recommendations. To explore this connection between name and revenue, we asked our audience of founders whether they think strong names and domains impact marketing spend, and, if so, how much more weakly-named brands must spend to compensate. This data should help entrepreneurs calculate further the potential return on investment of a strong domain, as it leads to greater revenues and more impactful marketing spend.

By Thom Davies