Balancing Lead Quality and Quantity: Afternic’s Innovative Strategy for Domain Sales Optimization

In the world of domain sales, striking the right balance between attracting genuine buyers and filtering out confused leads is a constant challenge. At Afternic, we continuously experiment with our Request Price Lander to find the sweet spot that maximizes sales.

Since launching the Lead Center, which displays “Confused” leads, domain sellers have frequently asked why we don’t do more to deter confused leads, suggesting pre-qualification as a solution. However, our extensive experiments have shown that this approach can actually hinder sales.

Through rigorous testing, we discovered that adding qualifying statements or additional steps to filter out confused leads had an unintended consequence: it led to a reduction in actual buyers filling out the form as well. This realization prompted us to rethink our strategy and apply a learning from Uniregistry by adopting a post-inquiry submission approach.

Instead of pre-qualifying inquirers, we allow them to submit the form without any barriers. This ensures that we collect all potential leads, including those from genuine buyers who might have been deterred by pre-qualification questions. Once the form is submitted, we present a post-inquiry survey to qualify the leads.

This post-inquiry survey enables us to identify confused buyers and filter out those leads without impacting actual buyers. By doing so, we maintain a healthy balance between lead quality and quantity, ultimately leading to increased sales.

For leads that identify themselves as confused in the post-inquiry survey, we mark them as “Confused” in the Lead Center. Based on feedback, this is an interesting and valuable data point for some domain investors, as it provides insights into traffic received on their domains.

This approach benefits all parties involved:

• Increased Engagement: By lowering initial barriers, we engage a broader audience, ensuring that genuine buyers are not deterred by early-stage screening.
• Efficient Qualification: The post-inquiry survey allows us to refine our understanding of each lead, enabling more targeted follow-up efforts and optimal resource allocation.
• Valuable Insights for Investors: Marking leads as “Confused” provides domain investors with critical insights into how their domains are perceived, potentially guiding future decisions regarding their domain portfolio.

At Afternic, we are relentless in our pursuit of optimization. There is never a moment when we are not running at least one active experiment on the landers. We constantly run experiments to enhance both lead conversion on traffic to the lander and lead scoring on submitted inquiries.

By analyzing the data and refining our processes, we can allocate the most time and resources to the leads that have the highest likelihood of resulting in a sale. This data-driven approach ensures that domain investors receive the maximum benefit from our platform, as we focus on delivering the most promising leads and streamlining the sales process.