.brands Spotlight: ads.amazon

Sep, 2021 | Latest News, News Slider

.brands Spotlight: ads.amazon

It’s been almost ten years since the application for .amazon was submitted to ICANN and for the majority of this time, it seemed entirely possible that the global giant may not have the opportunity to get its own .brand.

However, the team at Amazon worked their way through a myriad of ‘interesting’ policy and international governmental challenges to finally get access to .amazon last year and the launch of the TLD in the last few months is big news for the .brand community.

Creative use of .amazon should come as no surprise however. Amazon have been incredibly active in the new TLD program through the submission of over 70 TLD applications, numerous launches of generic TLDs to date and of course, the extensive use of .aws in global campaigns that we have commented on regularly here at makeway.world.

A number of redirects are in place for the key Amazon brands – including prime.amazon, kindle.amazon and alexa.amazon – but these seem to have minimal activation to date.

However, ads.amazon is the organization’s first foreray into using .amazon with some vigour and is designed to support Amazon’s advertising business which generates nearly 7 Billion in quarterly revenue according to recent reports.

What we really love is the use of ads.amazon/<code> as a short link on social media, replacing the previous link identity of advertising.amazon.com/<code> in April this year.

We’ve long proposed that organizations invest in improving the link identity and consumer brand trust for their social media links given that scammers can create branded alternatives with ease.

Using ads.amazon as a link shortener delivers unprecedented security for Amazon and simply cannot be spoofed by cyber criminals.

What’s next for .amazon? Only time will tell.

What we can say is that we’re really excited to see what they come up with given their reach and historical focus on innovation and pushing the industry boundaries.

GoDaddy acquired Neustar's registry business as of August 3, 2020.

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.brands Spotlight: Insurance industry

Oct, 2017 | Latest News

.brands Spotlight: Insurance industry

The .brands Spotlight series takes a deep-dive into interesting facets of the .brands space, looking at Stats Hub data to find insights about how .brands are being used across different industries, regions and organizations. This Spotlight piece focuses in on the global insurance industry.

Summary

The insurance industry is the largest sector in the .brands space in terms of total domains registered. This is perhaps more impressive when considering it includes just 34 TLDs – ranking it fifth in this regard behind the information technology, banking & finance, telecommunications and automotive industries. While average usage is very high, this is influenced heavily by just a handful of brands that make up the large majority of activity within the sector.

Key statistics

Total TLDs delegated: 42

Including TLDs from

AXA STATEFARM ALLSTATE MMA PRUDENTIAL

Total domains registered

Average domains per .brand

Industry percentage of all .brands 25% 25%
Proportion of active TLDs (more than 2 domains registered) 55.9% 55.9%
Proportion of active domains (resolving or redirecting) 94.7% 94.7%

Key use cases

insurance industry spotlight allstate automotive

auto.allstate

A redirect to Allstate’s automotive insurance products.

sete.mma

A regional domain redirecting to local MMA broker information.

insurance industry spotlight esurance automotive

auto.esurance

A redirect to information on Esurance’s automotive insurance.

fizzy.axa

A microsite hosting information on AXA’s new insurance product, Fizzy.

Industry spotlight: MMA displays a clear strategy

While there are over 2,000 .brand domains registered in the insurance industry, 95% of these are contained in just five TLDs – and lead heavily by French-headquartered company MMA (MMA IARD SA).

Over the last year or so, MMA has registered 1,759 domains in its .mma TLD, 97% of which are active. The vast majority of these are redirects, set up as part of an extensive strategy using locations and regions to direct visitors to local broker information. For example, the domain antibes.mma displays contact details and product information for Antibes, a region in southern France.

This is a clever way for MMA to implement its .brand TLD and use it to create more localized experience for customers, in a similar strategy to that used by Audi.

Redirects, redirects, redirects

Though by far the dominant player in its sector, the MMA model of registering a large volume of domains and setting them up to redirect to existing content is illustrative of the industry as a whole. In fact, of the insurance industry’s 2,185 registered domains, 92% are redirects. Behind MMA in terms of registered domains is Esurance Insurance Company’s .esurance, which has only one non-resolving and 145 redirecting domains. Similarly, Prudential Financial Inc.’s .pru and .prudential TLDs have a combined 142 redirecting domains out of 144 total; and all 20 .allstate domains redirect to existing locations on Allstate’s website.

Where MMA’s redirect strategy is based largely on geographic locations, other companies like Allstate and Esurance have opted to set up redirecting domains based on product and service offerings, such as auto.allstate, claims.allstate and homeowners.esurance, marrying relevant, deep content to insightful, short URLs.

Conclusion

As a highly complex industry with a wide range of detailed products and services, insurance companies by their nature tend to have large multifaceted websites that would otherwise be very difficult to navigate and would force customers to rely on third parties like search to find the information they need. The current usage of .brand domains within the insurance sector shows a clear trend towards redirect strategies.

This approach can provide memorable, meaningful pathways to deeper website content that improves the customer experience and also reinforces the brand in the link. With one of the highest rate of domain usage than any other industry (94% vs industry average of 67%), the insurance sector – and a few key players in particular – is leading the way in this regard.

GoDaddy acquired Neustar's registry business as of August 3, 2020.

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Did you ever stop to think what the ‘link’ is all about?

Oct, 2017 | Latest News

Did you ever stop to think what the ‘link’ is all about?

By Tony Kirsch
Head of Professional Services, Neustar

From as far back as the 1400s, marketing has existed with three simple objectives;

1. to inform consumers about products and services they may want or need;
2. to brand that experience in order to build loyalty or recall; and
3. to prompt customers to take action.

And despite a myriad of technical innovations over that time, the game remains pretty much the same. But things do change.

Innovations evolve from raw, often simplistic initial forms into something far more elegant as utilization spreads and they benefit from continual refinement and learning. This is the core of progress. To question the existing and follow the potential of finding a better way.

This leads me to the URL shortener, or the ‘link.’ A tool built from necessity in a social digital world. A tool that until recently, no-one stopped to ask ‘what the hell are we doing?’

Saving the character count

Writing content for social media has its own particular requirements due to the audience, typical behavior and general restrictions of the various platforms available. Twitter in particular presents a challenge for marketers to adhere to the 140-character limit. However, even this in itself has evolved with Twitter making changes to the treatment of photos, videos and quotes within the character count over the last few years.

But because of these limitations, a new ‘best practice’ has developed – the use of a URL shortener – where the destination URL of the content (typically on a long URL) is transformed into a short URL.

In addition to keeping the number of characters down so you can share more of your genius, one of the additional benefits of using a URL shortener platform is that it can often provide you with great insights into how your posts are being shared, clicked and are otherwise performing.

Options aplenty

Sure, there are lots of options to shorten your URLs – from free services through to more advanced and expensive analytical providers. And if you think about it, you’ve seen them everywhere.

Market leader Bitly (who noticeably rebranded themselves away from bit.ly in recent times) shortens upwards of 400 million links a month which is a staggering number in itself.

Others are infused in your daily social feeds – from bit.ly to goo.gl to ow.ly. And we never blink an eyelid.

The game is changing

The first time I really started to think about this was when Bitly reported that shortened links that have some reference to your brand were capable of driving up to a 34% increase in click-through rate. We’re not talking about minor improvements here – 34% is a massive boost in any context.

And so brands took the advice, to varying levels of success:

Some did a good job by using a shorter ccTLD or similar – ibm.co etc.
Some added a little extra to the domain – on.nfl.com
Some threw a dot in a strange place or abbreviated their brand to make it work – bloom.bg, xfin.tv, ora.cl
Others just completely hacked something together out of their brand – capitl1.co, at.van.fedex.com, s.gm.com

But despite this clear insight from the organization who really has the data to make such a statement, a large proportion of brands – some of whom really ought to know better – still use generic links in social media.

Time to get real

The .brand juice flowing through my veins was starting to pulse as this all started to formulate in my head. We’ve been teaching all of our customers to use their .brand to get people to the content they want through simple and powerful URLs.

So what really is the difference between a social media link and a link we may use in a TV campaign? Are we constrained by slightly archaic mindsets and could our .brand approach work across traditional and social media platforms?

Looking at the BrandFinance Global 500 brands, 142 of those applied for their own .brand TLD but a staggering half of those .brand owners are using a generic URL shortener or no shortener at all.

Something’s wrong with this picture. Could this be an opportunity to not only see .brand usage increase, but start the process of meaningful link development?

A new way of branding links

For organizations with a .brand, there now exists a better way to approach social links. The ability to create something short, with your recognizable brand to the right of the dot, means the best of both worlds – custom links, control of data and an accurate representation of your brand in every post.

In fact, this can be one of the simplest ways to get started with a .brand domain as we’ve noticed with organizations such as HSBC, Philips and our good selves at Neustar.

But even then, not all customized links are created equal. It’s all well and good to include your brand in your links, but what about that randomly-generated text after the slash?

Think about it, what looks better:

i.neustar/3nsdD7
or i.neustar/socialblog

This part of your link gives people a preview of what to expect. If your brand comes after the dot, the text after the slash gives you the chance to feature a product, service, promotion, content piece and so on, so people know exactly where they’re going when they click.

Which of the options above is likely to get more clicks?

Highly-available tools allow you to easily set up branded link shorteners with the freedom to also customize the extension – and for many of them it’s a free service. It’s almost too simple, and is out there waiting and available for any brand to take advantage of.

The importance of brand in social

The matter at stake here is bigger than freeing up a few more characters in your Twitter posts.

It’s about building things that people can identify and can trust. It’s about increasing visibility of your brand, and your product. It’s about creating a consistent experience for customers.

With a custom link shortener using a .brand, your company’s identity can be present and strengthened with every post, while creating a more trustworthy experience for audiences that they’re more likely to engage with.

On top of this, customizing to the right hand side not only looks better, but gives people something they can identify and connect with.

Identifying, connecting, tracking, building trust, branding. All of these outcomes are crucial to what marketers try to do every single day.

So why are so many stuck in an old way of thinking?

Mark my words, this is a game changer and in the very near future we’re all going to reflect on this and wonder why it took us so long to come up with this simple and efficient improvement to the ever powerful ‘link.’

GoDaddy acquired Neustar's registry business as of August 3, 2020.

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Amazon Web Services Targets Startups and Creators With .aws

Oct, 2017 | Latest News, News Slider

Amazon Web Services targets startups and creators with .aws

By Tony Kirsch
Head of Professional Services, Neustar

It will come as no surprise to those who’ve read my blogs that I get pretty excited about seeing .brand domains launch.

At Neustar we’re all in on promoting .brand usage in any industry, from all around the world and as such, we’re always watching closely for any signs of new domains on the horizon, trawling for case studies or any hint of new activity.

So imagine my surprise when a brilliant .brand example jumped out in front of me at JFK airport.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) recently launched a campaign around its AWS Cloud solutions, appealing to startups, creators and ‘builders’. The catchy tagline “Build On” rounds out the branding nicely – and the go-to location for information is the new address www.buildon.aws.

The campaign includes a great video that speaks to ‘the new builders’ of today’s startups and big businesses, as well as billboard and other display advertising at major airports and train stations throughout the US. All these efforts use the www.buildon.aws call-to-action.

“Widespread advertising using a .brand domain is still something we’ve seen only sparingly, and Amazon has gone big here with its buildon.aws campaign.”

Credit where it’s due

This is an extraordinary effort from AWS. As I’ve written in the past, we’re under no illusion that changes to branding in major organizations is easy. In fact, my entire job revolves around slowly but surely making the case for brands to change their approach to branding, marketing and online navigation. And that can be a gamble – it’s no easy feat and I acknowledge that.

And that’s why I’m so impressed by this launch from AWS – for a brand as established, recognized, and customer-facing as Amazon this must have taken a lot of effort.

It takes guts to see the potential benefits of .aws to the brand as a whole. It takes trust that customers won’t be deterred by an unfamiliar domain. And it takes some awesome forward-thinking to rethink customer experience in this way and consider how to create the most memorable, meaningful call-to-action possible.

Back to advertising basics

I’ve written before about the considerations required for using .brand domains in advertising, and how a simple ‘back to basics’ approach to advertising theory can remind us of the most important aspects of audience, medium and recall.

AWS has done an excellent job here of applying solid ‘old-school’ advertising principles to a ‘new-school’ asset. And who would expect less of Interbrand’s number five ‘Best Global Brand’, especially one highlighted as one of the top growing brands in 2017?

You don’t get to a position like that by sticking to the status quo, and Amazon has really shown its mettle here.

For example, the decision to include ‘www’ in the call-to-action is a clever tool to avoid any possible confusion around the new .aws extension and to reinforce audience education that this is a legitimate address.

Also, given the ads appeared largely in locations where people are commuting, recall is vital for the success of the campaign – so the ‘build on’ branding and a call-to-action that sticks in audience’s minds are essential.

Throwing down the gauntlet

With almost 9,000 domains registered under .brand domains, momentum is undeniably growing. In fact, this isn’t even the first domain on .aws – Amazon has also created specific product domains like www.ecs.aws and www.kinesis.aws.

However in this burgeoning space there is still an opportunity to be a ‘first mover.’ Widespread advertising using a .brand domain is still something we’ve seen only sparingly, and Amazon has gone big here with its buildon.aws campaign.

It’s truly impressive to see a brand of this size get a campaign like this off the ground using its .brand domain.

And it’s not a stretch to say this serves as a challenge to other .brand applicants: tackle the challenges of internal engagement and take advantage of the unique branding opportunities offered by .brand domains – or be left behind by those who are.

GoDaddy acquired Neustar's registry business as of August 3, 2020.

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.brands Spotlight: Google

Sep, 2017 | Latest News, News Slider

.brands Spotlight: Google

The .brands Spotlight series takes a deep-dive into interesting facets of the .brands space, looking at Stats Hub data to find insights about how .brands are being used across different industries, regions and organizations. This Spotlight piece focuses in on search giant Google’s use of its .brand TLD.

Summary

One organization applied for more new Top-Level Domains than any other. That organization also happens to be one of the world’s most ubiquitous and innovative brands and is widely regarded as the global leader in digital. That’s right, it’s Google.

After applying for over 100 TLDs (including 17 .brands such as .chrome, .android and .youtube), the world remains highly interested in their strategy. This Spotlight piece will focus specifically on Google’s use of the .google TLD to date.

Key statistics

Total domains registered

Proportion of active domains (resolving or redirecting) 67% 67%

Number of domains in Alexa

Key use cases

environment.google

A project page displaying information on Google’s renewable energy goals and strategy.

pride.google

A microsite on US Pride celebrations from Google.

ai.google

A microsite centered around Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, coinciding with the Google I/O conference.

google design designers collaboration dotgoogle dotbrands

design.google

A microsite for Google’s creative collective of designers, writers and developers.

Industry spotlight: Aligning corporate priorities with a .brand

If it’s valuable, it’s on .google

Google has clearly taken a ‘quality over quantity’ approach so far in its use of the .google TLD. As covered before on MakeWay.World, the assets Google has chosen to transition or launch on .google domains to date all relate to significant corporate programs, future-focused projects and community-based offerings.

One of the first domains Google launched was when it reconciled a number of varying company and product blogs into a single location, entitled ‘The Keyword’ and hosted at blog.google. At the time, this was pitched as the place to go in future for all information on Google products and services – a significant asset to tie to the .google TLD. [Read more about blog.google here]

Shortly afterwards, a new microsite dedicated to information and resources relating to Google’s environment and sustainability goals was launched at environment.google. Similarly, this was a case where a project of great importance to the company was aligned with the .google TLD – tying the domain to the future of the organization and the brand. [Read more about environment.google here.]

This trend has continued throughout Google’s site launches, creating a strong association between the .google TLD and projects that are imperative to the future of Google’s operations and brand value.

New releases, new domain

Another pattern that can be seen in Google’s .brand launches so far is the release of new products on .google domain. Some .brands have shown a reluctance to move existing digital assets without significant planning and strategy for maintaining SEO ranking and other accrued authority, however introducing new properties on a .brand TLD is a good way to maximize search indexing and educate users in a streamlined manner.

The earliest such introduction was Google’s domain Registrar service launched in tandem with its TLD applications – which is hosted at domains.google. However newer offerings have quickly expanded beyond the domain name space, with Google’s artificial intelligence-focused, venture capital fund at gradient.google and broader AI projects site at ai.google.

A good omen for search?

The SEO performance of .brand domains has been the elephant in the room since the release of new TLDs, with organizations keen to establish whether keyword-rich domains offering additional information through the inclusion of their company name would help boost search ranking in the long term.

Google’s own .brand domains are an interesting case study in how relatively new domains using a relevant, branded extension are thus far performing in search.

Search ranking example – as at September 2017

google SERP search ranking SEO example design dotgoogle dotbrands ai artificial intelligence

Obviously, .brand domain launches from Google carry particular weight as examples to the broader community, as its willingness to adopt this branding asset may be a good sign for the future treatment of .brands in search. How this will develop in future will continue to be a fascinating space to watch.

Conclusion

Google’s use of the .google extension is a wonderful sign of the power that .brand TLDs can bring to companies of any size.

In their use of .google, Google is showing a methodical approach can reap dividends as it continues to launch new products, transition supporting services and align corporate programs and activities to the future of its brand. Google shows having a measured approach to introduction which is rooted in measurement and customer education is key to success.

On a broader level, the possible implications of Google’s .brand launches for the treatment of new TLDs in search are incredibly fascinating and makes this particular .brand TLD one that is watched closely by the industry as a whole.

GoDaddy acquired Neustar's registry business as of August 3, 2020.

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