Hiring a buyer’s broker can be a smart decision a company makes when attempting to acquire a domain name. A buyer’s broker can anonymize the buyer and potentially save in acquisition costs. Simply using a domain broker for an acquisition may not be enough to get a good deal for a buyer. A domain broker may mask his or her identity to reduce the chance that a domain registrant prices an asset with a major corporate buyer in mind.

Marksmen is an intellectual property company that, among other things, helps clients acquire domain names. I’ve seen the company’s name appear in quite a few Whois records, and the domain names have later transferred to corporate buyers. The company posted a tweet to an article about making anonymous test purchases on behalf of clients:

It’s no secret that I like using Dan.com and have found success on the platform. A large percentage of my portfolio forwards directly to Dan.com pages. I use a combination of BIN, BIN+Make Offer, and LTO options shown to prospective buyers. As we seem to be headed into a recession, I decided to test something different with many of my inventory domain names.

Instead of having the domain names forward directly to Dan.com landing pages, I am utilizing my own Embrace.com make offer landing pages once again. Doing so allows me to control the leads. I can communicate directly with them, and importantly, I can follow-up with them over time if a deal is not struck.

Every day, I receive emails from other domain name registrants offering a domain name or multiple domain names for sale. Sorry to say, but I ignore almost all of these emails. The domain names are either uninteresting to me, the email doesn’t have the domain names or prices listed, or the price is far beyond what I would ever spend.

Here are some tips for people who think they might have a domain name I would want to buy. I would imagine others investors might give similar advice when it comes to pitching them domain names:

Because of Escrow.com’s unique position of transacting many private domain name deals, the company is privy to aggregated domain sales data others do not have. Escrow.com published its Domain Investment Index Report for the first quarter of 2022. It can be accessed via this Google Drive link the company shared with me.

In the first quarter of 2022, more than $130 million worth of domain name transactions were completed via Escrow.com. This is a substantial jump from the $110 million in domain name sales transactions the company managed in the first quarter of 2021. It is also a decrease from the $158 million in sales transacted in the fourth quarter of 2021. This is the fifth consecutive quarter Escrow.com achieved over $100 million in sales.

For most of my domain names listed for sale on Dan.com, I have a Buy It Now (BIN) price, a Lease to Own (LTO) option, and a Make Offer option. IThe majority of prospects choose the Make Offer option and submit an offer that is close to the minimum permitted. The next most popular option selected on my names, I would guess, is the LTO option.

In the last month, I’ve come across an issue two separate times on Dan.com. Prospective buyers made offers that were accepted and then stated they want to pay over time. In one case, the prospect accepted a counter-offer, and in the second case, I accepted the initial offer. Both prospects then asked the Dan.com agent handling the deal if they can use a payment plan to buy the domain name.