by Justin Hartland, Global Marketing Manager, CSC
Given the amount of money companies spend each year on search
engine marketing and affiliate programs, getting visitors to your website has
never been so important. According to the market research firm Outsell Inc., in
2010 spending for online marketing surpassed even that of print advertising,
soaring to a record $119 billion.
There are good reasons for this. For marketing departments, online
spend is transparent and can be easily tracked and measured to show return on
investment (ROI), something that can prove harder to do for other marketing
activities. In fact, it’s quite simple to track a variety of online metrics,
build reports with them and present the results to your management team.
However, there is one metric that is routinely overlooked
by marketing departments: traffic driven through direct navigation.
First let’s examine what we mean by “direct navigation.” There are
many ways for a person to find a particular website, including through search
engines or by clicking a link in an email or banner ad. However, many Web users
still make a habit of typing Web addresses (domain names) directly into their
browser, also known as direct navigation. Findings from Forrester Research
suggest that no less than 40% of Web users currently reach their content this
way.
You may be asking, “What does this mean for my organization?” In
short it means that one of the most obvious sources of Web traffic is being
ignored by most companies. Many organizations have no idea how much direct
navigation traffic their domain names drive to their websites, and even worse,
many companies don’t even point their domain names to live sites.
In a recent study, CSC analyzed more than 200,000 domain names
containing more than 100 brands. We found that nearly 50% of domains owned by
brand holders did not point to a live site. On the other hand, 76% of branded
domains registered to a third party did point to a live site. What is
clear is that third parties know how to exploit the value of traffic driven to
their domain names, whereas many legitimate brand owners who have registered
domain names defensively have never bothered to set them up to garner traffic.
So how can corporations harness this “missing metric” and drive
more traffic to their websites through direct navigation? CSC recommends taking
these four simple steps:
Step 1 –
Point Existing Domains
Gather a list of your existing domain names and run a report on
them to show which point to live websites.
Step 2 –
Identify Third Party registrations
People who register variations of your brand names do so because
those variations drive traffic that can be monetized. Wise organizations will
identify third party registrations, prioritize the list based on which names
drive the most traffic, and take action against those third parties.
Step 3 –
Identify Available Domain Names
Using strategic tools such as those provided by CSC, you can
identify available domain names that will drive traffic to your sites.
Step 4 –
Track, Track, Track
Once all the names in your portfolio point to live sites, monitor
their traffic on a monthly basis. Understand which domain names are performing
well. Allow underperforming names to lapse and redeploy those savings to your
budget. With this information in hand, your marketing team can quickly measure
the ROI your direct navigation efforts yield.
With more and more emphasis being placed on getting Web users to
your websites, it’s important that you understand all the ways Web users reach
you, including the missing metric—direct navigation.
About CSC
An ICANN-accredited domain name registrar since 1999, CSC is the
trusted partner of more than half the 100
Best Global Brands (Interbrand®) and the customer
approval leader for domain name services (World Trademark Review, 2010).
CSC offers an end-to-end solution for all corporate brand protection needs,
from strategic domain registration and online monitoring to digital
certificates and trademark screening. Visit www.cscglobal.com or call 800-927-9800
to learn more.
