Afternic launches the lead center beta

[TangoTango]

https://www.godaddy.com/garage/afternic-launches-the-lead-center/

 

[AEProgram]

Hey, guys, what's your experience so far?
Over 90% of enquiries seem to be going nowhere. Lead created, the agent tries to contact the buyer, chases the buyer for a while, then stalled status. I only had two sales out of 35 enquiries. My prices are normal 2K-5K.

I'm just wondering if the NS5 is more effective at this point. You get the sale directly instead of checking the lead center for leads that 95% of times go nowhere.

Lastly, anyone had a LTO sale?

Please do not drive yourself mad trying to figure out what is going out with the lead center. I will help you understand it.

The numbers you are seeing is what everyone that has a big portfolio sees.

1. Since the lead center is new, some of the leads entered are marked as leads GD got before the system was around. Domains are an impulse purchase for most buyers. There are people that want your domain today real bad, they feel they must have it, but tomorrow they don't want it even if you give it to them for free.

2. Most leads are bots even those that GD doesn't pick up as a bot. Anyone that have a massive amount of listings on other platforms that require users to take action that minimize bots, will know right away that the amount of leads on GD have to be a lot of bots.

3. For GD, the lead center has many benefits and the bots are making GD a fortune. Think about how many domains are getting renewed because a bot caused a lead to be created. Was this their intention? We do not know. What I do know for a fact is, they can do more to make sure that almost no bots cause a lead to be created.

4. Some leads are people that do not read. If you have domains that are typins or they had a site on it that still gets traffic, some people fill out the form thinking it's a way to contact the company. I had my own landers once with forms. I got emails all the time from people who ignored the page and thought they are contacting a company.

5. GD brokers do work fast based on the logs so for the serious buyers, I would not worry about the brokers, not that you said you were worried. I once called to buy a name for myself, it was only 700 bucks. It was in middle of the night, the person that picked up sounded like I woke them up, I felt really bad and maybe that is why I completed the purchase on the phone. After the call I wondered, was he just acting like I woke him up so I feel guilty and buy the name lol? My point is, I did not know they work around the clock.

6. After many years in this business I can tell you that the main thing on a lander is the ability for the person that is hot on an idea is to buy the name. Your pricing in low enough that you should send them to a buy now page unless you already do that.

7. When you see a lead and you see it's not going anywhere, you can adjust the floor price and message the broker. It never helped me but who knows.

8. In rare cases, people look at names for months or even years before they buy it. This is especially true with expensive names. This business in a way is like stocks. As a domain investor, even if you buy well, waiting a long time is what is usually needed to make good profits. Obviously just like stocks, if you buy bad, you can wait forever. The difference is, with stocks you do not have a renewal fee.

9. I had two sales in the past that were LTO (lease to own) but it was via Dan. The LTO option is new for the GD platform and I think after they took over Dan, a lot of modernization is happening everywhere on GD thanks to that team, that is what I suspect.

10. Sometimes it's many months, even over a half a year without a sale and suddenly there is a large sale or a few at a time. This is part what keeps me around. Sometimes I feel like that guy that buys a lotto ticket once a week. The other thing that gives us hope is when we see low quality names going for a lot of money. It's a big misguided because a lot of money means different things to different people, but it keeps up around. We are some of the most hopeful and persistent people in the business world. We also genuinely wish others well.

Hope you all see some great sales soon.

 

[Recons.Com]

I did get response from my Afternic rep.

Taylor B is assigned (bot or human, did not discuss) to the leads that have been deemed as bad. Probably algorithmically depending on what is filled in the form. And the guy just does QA on those. So he either kills them (vast majority) or re-assigns.

 

[AEProgram]

On Afternic, will we be absolutely certain that the final price is the price being paid by the buyer, and not a lower price than ultimately presented to the would-be buyer.

A broker cannot sell your name for a price lower than your bin / floor. If you have a bin of 5000 a floor of 2500 the buyer is told about the 5k, from there, the broker has a right to sell it for 2500 and obviously, if they are paid commission, they lose the lower it goes to. Is it possible a broker will rush to fast to the lower point? Yes. It's also possible a broker won't rush quick enough and you will lose the entire sale.

You must set your price to the min you will be happy with selling and forget about it. Every domainer feels the broker could've gotten more. Everyone that hires a broker for anything feels the broker could've gotten more. One of the worst feelings as a broker is when you put in work and the sellers are always unhappy when you get them the price they agreed on.

Some people, really horrible ungrateful people, will always feel the broker undersold even if the broker happen to get them twice the asking price. It is brutal being a broker, most people that call or contact are not upfront if they can afford something. They ask you to call them on a specific day and they are not available. They agree to a price and even tell you they are sending the money and they don't. They agree to a price and then talk to some guy they meet at a public restroom and that guy told them to offer half.

If you are the type that always feels a broker is not doing enough, you should try a lander that only has your info. You are also the type that is probably paranoid that when you get an email that your name sold for 3k that maybe you priced it 7k but someone secretly edited the price.

FastTransfer has a lot of benefits. One big one is that before fast transfer, some domainers would change their mind when they got a notice their name sold. If I was a broker I would not broker a name that is not in an escrow account already. Too risky with many ungrateful domainers.

 

[411domains]

I think everyone needs need to take a closer look at their stalled leads.

I have what appear to be 30 auto-stalled leads between 2 brokers over the past month.

By auto-stalled, I mean of 30 of the 120+ recent leads that came in were automatically closed as either "attempting to qualify buyer" or "Confused and not interested in purchasing a domain."

The timestamps tell the story.

This was a massive red flag for me.

Not to mention, there were also over a dozen leads closed as "confused." (They didn't even have brokers assigned to them.)

Needless to say, I'm no longer parking with Afternic and if this keeps up I'll wash my hands of them once and for all.

 

[mdent]

Taylor B must be a bot! I managed to message Taylor B and got a response from Seth.

I guess his name must be Taylor Bot, huh. Makes sense

 

[VadimK]

Yeah, looks good. Any sort of statistics, especially when it comes to Afternic - where you normally have zero clue of what's going on - is a good news.

 

[411domains]

Any positive results with all the other leads?

I had a decent January with roughly 25K in sales the first two weeks. However, Afternic hasn't produced a single sale for me since the beginning of February.

To go a week or two without a sale happens occasionally. To go a month or more without a sale is very rare. That's when I start looking into why, which is how I discovered that leads were being killed without a single email being sent to the inquirer.

When I sorted the leads a pattern appeared.

When I exported the leads, I was able to see the timestamps and that's when everything became very clear. I knew right then something was definitely off.

I immediately changed all of my nameservers and BOOM, just like that, action that resulted in a sale through the new lander! (Godaddy customer.)

In life I've learned the bigger they are, the more you have to keep an eye on them.

The only reason I even keeping my names listed with them...for now, is because up until they aligned the commissions, the majority of my sales have been through the Afternic network.

(Who knows? Maybe someone got upset that I made the errant listing workaround public.) LMAO! It wouldn't surprise me, since right after I did, they put it on the chopping block.

We'll see what happens.

 

[phaethon]

Great. Just saw that I had a $750 low ball offer for a $4500 name. Very useful feature.

 

[Recons.Com]

I have same experience, 3 offers stalled without any tries by Taylor B borker

Fascinating. I just checked and every lead assigned to this particular broker is dead at "attempting to qualify buyer" without single email sent or call logged. This doesn't seem to be the case with ANY other broker I randomly checked.

 

[biggie]

How's it work exactly?

Hi

if, a broker gets a qualified lead, (as in one where the inquirer responds to email/phone call)
and negotiates w/broker on price > ie: your BIN / or floor price that is equal to or above your minimum <
then...maybe the broker will contact you at that point with the offer.

when brokers have contacted me in the past, it was always with offer in hand
so, basically, i think that's how it should work.

imo...

 

[Dane]

Too bad we can't see slightly older leads.

 

[LoveCatchyDomains]

I had a decent January with roughly 25K in sales the first two weeks. However, Afternic hasn't produced a single sale for me since the beginning of February.

To go a week or two without a sale happens occasionally. To go a month or more without a sale is very rare. That's when I start looking into why, which is how I discovered that leads were being killed without a single email being sent to the inquirer.

When I sorted the leads a pattern appeared.

When I exported the leads, I was able to see the timestamps and that's when everything became very clear. I knew right then something was definitely off.

I immediately changed all of my nameservers and BOOM, just like that, action that resulted in a sale through the new lander! (Godaddy customer.)

Certainly sounds unusual. It's great that at least you had some decent sales at the beginning of the year!

What were the nameservers that you changed to, leading to a sale right afterwards? And was that buyer effectively a new lead? Or was it an old lead that then proceeded to purchase the domain?

And, BTW, it's good that you are keeping on your toes. Hopefully, this simply helps remind GD to keep on theirs, to help you have even more sales!

 

[411domains]

Certainly sounds unusual. It's great that at least you had some decent sales at the beginning of the year!

What were the nameservers that you changed to, leading to a sale right afterwards? And was that buyer effectively a new lead? Or was it an old lead that then proceeded to purchase the domain?

And, BTW, it's good that you are keeping on your toes. Hopefully, this simply helps remind GD to keep on theirs, to help you have even more sales!

Thank you. When everything is working as it should, the sales flow.

Changed over to DAN and as far as I can tell, it was a new lead.

 

[pinkdragon]

I just checked my AF account, and I have 3 leads assigned to Taylor B. They are all "Stalled", and at all of them is written:

"Low quality lead score based on data endpoints - automation only until engagement from inquirer"

 

[lknights1987]

I just checked my AF account, and I have 3 leads assigned to Taylor B. They are all "Stalled", and at all of them is written:

"Low quality lead score based on data endpoints - automation only until engagement from inquirer"

Taylor B must be a bot! I managed to message Taylor B and got a response from Seth.

 

[AEProgram]

Yes, I have a BIN price and a Minimum Offer price.

I had gd reps reach out with offers that were below my min but somewhat reasonable. I have a name name that is about 1k and the status shows like your

"Status updated to Negotiations Stalled
Buyer indicated the domain was priced outside of what they wanted to spend"

I am assuming the buyer didn't give a price or if he did it was too low. I agree that if the buyer does say a number, it should be entered into the system for us to see.

 

[Rajiscripts]

Just read it as about five minutes ago as well.
It's a good read and a nice development.

Thanks for keeping this in the open

 

[sharfab]

Looks like a step in the right direction for the domaining community, And its free.

 

[LoveCatchyDomains]

https://www.godaddy.com/garage/afternic-launches-the-lead-center/

This increased transparency is important.

Some questions, though:

1. What is the "y" axis for the above chart. In other words, what are the actual "conversion" rates we a re talking about?
2. Does this process provide clear confirmation of the actual price ultimately being paid by the buyer?
3. Is there an opt-out, that allows sellers listing with AN to NOT have broker involvement? If, for example, there is only a BIN price, which is the floor and minimum as well, would this exclude any broker involvement (without someone actually paying for a GD brokerage contract).
4. Are traffic stats to the domains going to be provided, especially for the Ns5,ns6 landers?
5. Was there ever an actual "opt-in" for this arrangement with sellers on the Afternic platform when this started late last year? That may have been useful information for some customers, especially if they were deciding on a marketplace for their listings.

Basically, now listing your domains with Afternic means that they are now part of the GD brokerage? That might be a tremendous asset, but perhaps further clarify an the ability to opt-out would be beneficial for some sellers. After all, there are apparently some excellent negotiators on this forum, who likely could do the transactions on their own with their expertise.

 

[jim h]

Just checked, this is a huge progress.

 

[phaethon]

I see two leads from the end of February that stalled a few days ago. Does this feature show only recent leads? If we could see any activity over the last 1-2 years, that would be very helpful.

 

[phaethon]

Those offers are all $0 right?

First offer was $500, second was $750, then the sale stalled due to my $4500 bin, the other one was a lead, but no offer made yet. Both leads are very recent between the end of February and 12th of Matrch.
Can anyone see older leads from January or last year?

 

[phaethon]

Too bad we can't see slightly older leads.

Yeah, that would be awesome. We would make small adjustments that could help, I think.
Maybe they could do it, it's already recorded.

 

[phaethon]

Anyone seeing the status of "stalled" and "confused"? what do these two statuses mean? Godaddy didn't do a good job of explaining in the initial article.

Also anyone seeing a conversion increase from this tool?

I have two ''stalled'' leads, which probably means 'case closed' at the moment due to a second low ball offer or due to 'no offer yet' in my case.