After the market closed today, GoDaddy reported its Q1 2021 earnings. The quarterly earnings report can be accessed via the Investor Relations portal on GoDaddy’s website. Depending on what time you read this, GoDaddy CEO Aman Bhutani is either preparing to share some remarks on the investor call today at 5pm Eastern, or he already gave them.
Whether you listen live or not, you can have a look at the prepared remarks to see what was said. Most interestingly, domain investors were specifically mentioned:
“Moving onto Domains, last quarter I shared with you the acceleration of velocity we are seeing in experimentation in our Domains business and the innovation it is driving for our customers. The acceleration is a function of focusing on the customer needs, and when we provide customers with better products, they reward us with high engagement with our products, and higher revenue.
It started showing up in the numbers meaningfully last quarter, and accelerated in Q1. The result in Domains demonstrates the opportunities that exist for GoDaddy even in its most mature business. We are a two-sided marketplace for Domains – independent customers on one side and domain investors on the other. The highteens growth in Domains is driven by innovation on connecting these customers and we will continue to innovate to drive these high levels of growth. I wanted to share a couple of examples of this with you:
We created new experiences for Domain Investors that allowed them to quickly do bulk searches and orders. That simplified the day-to-day experiences for them. As Domain Investors engaged more, they added domains into the aftermarket which we then pulled into new search experiences for independents, so they could have access to more inventory and find the right name for their venture.
We also did the reverse; we gave independent customers an easy way to list their domain name in the aftermarket – a way that was seamless and custom-built for them. Independent customers added over 200 thousand domain names, that had otherwise been passive, into the aftermarket, spurring activity for Domain Investors.
Creating these types of loops can quickly accelerate, and our team is reviewing every experience from basic parking to deep learning models, and testing improvements that add value to the customer and spur network effects.”
In addition to discussing domain investors, GoDaddy’s registry acquisitions was also discussed in the CEO’s prepared remarks:
“The efficiencies of scale make obvious sense, and the reason for us to scale GoDaddy Registry is to be able to innovate for our customers. Following the acquisitions that we’ve announced, GoDaddy will be the third-largest registry in the world, and our platform allows us to add TLDs at near-zero incremental cost. The high-margin business gives us investment dollars while keeping costs low. This is key to us creating new experiences for customers while giving them a choice of the best TLDs – both from our partners and from GoDaddy.”
I would not be surprised if GoDaddy continues to acquire registries and/or extensions because of the incremental cost and efficiencies mentioned. Separately, I know the UNR auction recently concluded, and I am curious if GoDaddy was the winning bidder for any of the extensions.
True Domain Investors are a rare breed. Very few exist.There are a lot of pretend Domain Investors out there. They will bail on domains as soon as something hotter comes along like Crypto, NFT’s etc.
Real Domain Investors have gone through the highs and lows.
Going through a low really makes you appreciate the high.