Whether you are an experienced domainer or new to the industry, this Masterclass is packed with invaluable information on how to get the most out of your domain traffic.

Everything from normalized RPM, traffic routing and better management practices are openly discussed and backed up with with case studies and real-life experiences.

Meet your new instructor: Michael Gilmour, domain monetization expert, speaker, writer, and commentator. Michael explains why he loves the domain industry and how he wants to show you how to optimize your returns by understanding the numbers that matter.

What is a domain name?

• Computers think in IP addresses (IPv4, IPv6)
• Right and left of the dot
• Generics, ccTLDs, new gTLDs
• Sub-domains

Business models

1. Stock items
2. Rainbow domains
3. Development
4. Traffic

Monetization is alive and well

• Gold rush analogy
• How revenue is generated
  – a match made in heaven
• The real-estate analogy
  - Billboard in the desert vs. a freeway

• How pay-per-click transformed online advertising
• Understanding the fundamentals of views, clicks, EPC, CTR, CPA and CPM models
• Monetization as a business
  – the quest for traffic and advertisers
  - The temptation of arbitrage
  - Finding traffic domains
  - Getting access to advertisers

• Definition of RPM millennium
• Case Study - comparing two domains
• What is a unique visitor? - Traffic filters and how they impact RPM
• How is revenue measure and allocated?
• Advertising demand
• Next level understanding of RPM
• The advertiser perspective
• The tension in the keyword auction system
• Extracting the maximum amount for your traffic

• What is the best number to measure?
• Why traditional metrics do not stack up.
• The importance of defining an index.
• The difference between RPM and normalized RPM.
• Why normalized RPM is so powerful.
• Getting to the right answer every time.
• Normalized RPM fosters a true traffic marketplace.

The three primary benefits of traffic optimization

1. Maximize your revenue - the importance of the normalized RPM - simultaneous testing vs. changing DNS
2. Flexibility to test/move traffic - benchmarking to prove performance
3. Manage downside risk and exposure - smoothing out the risk Traffic routing at both
   - a domain level, and
   - portfolio level

Who is the best domain parking company?

• What makes a traffic domain?
• The cost of buying information
  - How traffic rotating works.
  - The inherent power of algorithmic switching
  - What needs to be considered in traffic routing
• The 7 different revenue numbers
• Getting to the correct nRPM for optimal routing traffic

• The impact of direct advertisers
• The spot vs. average price dilemma
• How you can win bigger with zero-click
• Case study - How this impacts the bottom line

Four different types of leakage that costs you money

• Technical
• Parking
• Financial
• Renewals

Case Study - Domain Mismanagement

Case Study - Well managed portfolio

What is the goal of the test?
Conditions for a traffic test
- Baseline data
- Duration
- Simultaneous testing
Analytics
- Macro trends
- Micro fluctuations
- Group traffic dynamics
Domains to exclude
Case Study
- results of an actual traffic test

The domain eco-system and value flow
Why traffic quality is so important
The impact of traffic quality on performance
- examination of 4 traffic aggregation companies
The concept of Unit Pricing
- how it impacts revenue
The Domain Risk Index (DRI)
- DRI vs. Revenue
- The four quadrants
- Examples of domains in the 4 quadrants
Impact of quality on domain value