2024 has been a year of transformation, innovation, and growth for Atom.com, defined by a relentless commitment to pushing boundaries in the domain industry. Let’s look back at some of our key achievements and insights from the year.
Rebranding to Atom.com
In 2024, we took a bold step forward by rebranding to Atom.com. It wasn’t just about changing our name—it was about embracing a vision that aligns with where we are and where we’re headed. Squadhelp will always be a part of our story, but as we’ve evolved, we needed an identity that reflects clarity, simplicity, and our mission: to become the essential building block for startups. Atom.com captures that perfectly.
The impact of this rebrand has been incredible. A name like Atom.com carries significant weight—it conveys trust, credibility, and professionalism, all of which are essential as we work to establish ourselves as the primary destination for branding and domain sales. This trust has translated into real results:
- A Stronger Market Position: Since the rebrand, we’ve seen a clear drop in bounce rates, an improvement in ad click-through rates, and a noticeable increase in customer trust when interacting with our platform.
- Improved SEO Rankings: The rebrand wasn’t just cosmetic; it created real momentum. Higher click-through rates have boosted our SEO performance, and we now consistently rank in the top three on Google for hundreds of high-volume keywords, including “Premium Domains” and “Business Name Ideas.”
- Greater Marketing Efficiency: Atom.com ads have become much more efficient than before. An 18% reduction in cost-per-click, combined with higher engagement, demonstrates how strongly the brand resonates with our audience.
- Organic Traffic Growth: While there was an expected dip immediately after the rebrand, organic clicks surged by 129% shortly thereafter. We’re now consistently receiving more than 2X as much organic traffic as we did before the rebrand. This growth underscores how effectively Atom.com resonates with a larger, more engaged audience.
Product & Tech
In 2024, innovation wasn’t just a goal—it was our driving force. We prioritized bold ideas that challenged the status quo, and I couldn’t be prouder of what our team has accomplished. Here are some of the highlights:
- Dynamic AI Search: We completely rebuilt our search technology from the ground up, training AI personas to think like end users. The AI critiques search results in real time, continuously refining them to ensure buyers can discover highly relevant domains with ease.
- AI Appraisal Tool: Appraising domains is not easy, and many traditional appraisal tools rely on outdated metrics like domain traffic to estimate value. We took a different approach, building an AI-powered appraisal tool from the ground up. This tool leverages over 50 signals and has been regression-tested against tens of thousands of data points to provide more realistic appraisals. In Q4, we expanded its capabilities to include support for additional TLDs such as .io, .ai, .xyz, and many more.
- AI-Generated Images: With a single click, our AI can now create logos, lifestyle visuals, merchandise designs, and even billboard images that bring domains to life. Visual content connects emotionally with buyers and improves sell-through rates, and now generating these visuals is simpler than ever.
- Atom Pay: At just 4.5% commission, Atom Pay offers one of the lowest transaction fees in the industry while covering fraud verification, white-glove domain transfers, and 24/7 chat support. It’s built to make domain transactions seamless and stress-free.
- Auctions: We built our Domain Auctions product from scratch, integrating unique features like forward and reverse auction formats, public auction events, AI value scoring, and automatic curation. This product is gaining momentum, and we’re excited to roll out even more features in the near future.
- Atom Connect: Our Atom Connect suite of APIs and tools is empowering startup service providers and partners to promote our domains to their audiences. These partnerships are helping generate significantly more exposure for domains in our marketplace.
- Crypto Payouts: We now support Crypto for both inbound payments and outgoing payouts, catering to a growing number of buyers and sellers who prefer transacting in Crypto. As Crypto becomes more commonplace, we’re positioned to meet this demand head-on.
- Commission Match Guarantee: In 2024, we introduced a bold initiative to pay sellers a commission from our own pocket if they sell their domains outside our marketplace through the registrar path. This guarantee reflects our confidence in our platform to accelerate sales for our sellers and our commitment to standing behind that promise.
- Custom DNS Management with Catch-All Email Forwarding: Sellers pointing their nameservers to Atom can now add custom DNS records, enabling features like TXT verification with other marketplaces and catch-all email forwarding. This added flexibility empowers sellers to manage their domains seamlessly.
- AI-Based Domain Grading: Sellers can upload large lists of domains for grading by our AI models, which evaluate overall brandability. This is invaluable for filtering hidden gems from expiring domains as well as assessing which domains are likely to be accepted into our premium marketplace. If AI-graded domains aren’t accepted, we even refund the submission coins.
- Customizable Payment Plans with Down Payments: Sellers can now collect upfront down payments on Lease-to-Own (LTO) sales, allowing them to capture a larger portion of their revenue early—even if the LTO is later canceled.
- Fully Featured API: Our comprehensive API allows sellers to automate listing management and the sales process, making domain management more efficient and scalable.
- Minimal Landing Pages: We launched minimal version of landing pages after significant testing and user studies to create a focused, distraction-free design that is optimized for conversion and impact
Every one of these innovations represents countless hours of thought, testing, and iteration by our team.
Marketing Focus
In 2024, we significantly ramped up our Marketing efforts, achieving 274 million ad impressions—a significant jump from 65 million in 2022. Through platforms like Google, LinkedIn, and X, we connected with entrepreneurs and brand managers worldwide, driving engagement and positioning Atom.com as a leading destination for domains and branding.
Key Highlights:
- Over 40% of domain sales were directly attributed to paid ads on channels like Google, LinkedIn and X, including several six-figure domain sales. This demonstrated the power of precision marketing and its ability to drive meaningful results.
- LinkedIn ads were particularly effective in engaging top executives and entrepreneurs, proving their value despite higher costs.
- We were honored to be featured in Google’s case study, with our innovative use of Google’s Beta Ad products highlighted at the Google Digital Export Growth conference.
- Our Black Friday campaign brought fresh thinking to domain sales, delivering nearly a threefold increase in sales during the event.
Looking ahead, we’re eager to build on this momentum. We plan to scale our marketing campaigns further, expand into startup hubs, and explore new marketing channels like outdoor media and billboards to amplify the Atom.com brand and connect with even more entrepreneurs and innovators.
Team
In 2024, we brought exceptional new talent into Atom.com across various functions, enabling us to scale effectively while maintaining our culture of rapid iteration, testing, and customer focus. Many of our new team members come from outside the domain industry, bringing fresh perspectives and out-of-the-box thinking to push boundaries and drive innovation.
- Engineering & Tech: Our engineering team expanded significantly, bringing in top-tier talent from leading institutions and companies to ensure Atom.com remains at the forefront of technology and innovation.
- Customer Success: We established a dedicated Customer Success role to focus on delivering seamless and exceptional experiences for both buyers and sellers.
- Account Management: With experienced Account Managers joining the team, we’re better equipped to support sellers in onboarding their domains and helping manage & optimize their portfolios on Atom.com.
- Sales & Domain Brokerage: Our Sales team grew to include dynamic and energetic talent specializing in domain negotiations and inbound sales, providing buyers and sellers with expert support to close deals.
- Partnership Management: We introduced a Partnership Manager role to drive strategic partnerships and affiliate programs, helping us expand our distribution channels to accelerate sales.
- UX & Product: We welcomed a dedicated UX Designer and Product Manager with experience at companies like Mercedes-Benz to simplify our platform and elevate the user experience to new heights. Their work has already made a direct impact, including the launch of minimal landing pages designed to maximize focus and drive conversions.
- Chat Support: We expanded our 24×7 Chat Support team to ensure multiple support personnel are available around the clock, allowing us to respond to buyer and seller questions in 3 minutes or less.
Data-Driven Insights and Industry Trends
As a data-driven company, we rely on data and insights to guide our trajectory and make informed decisions. While we share valuable data and insights on an ongoing basis, here are some key highlights from this year:
Average Selling Price
Over the past few years, we’ve intentionally shifted our marketing strategy to focus on attracting higher-quality buyers, even if it means higher marketing costs. At the same time, we’ve placed a greater emphasis on curating premium-quality domains in our marketplace. This dual approach has allowed us to steadily increase the average selling price per domain.
Lease-to-Own Insights
Payment plans have proven to be a powerful tool for increasing sell-through rates (STR) and average selling prices (ASP). They boosted STR by 17.5% and ASP by 38%, creating more opportunities for buyers to acquire premium domains.
However, they also presented challenges, such as higher cancellation rates. Longer payment plans typically result in a higher cancellation rate, with 48 months resulting in highest % of cancellations.
To address this, we introduced the ability to send early payoff discounts, which improved buyer retention and satisfaction while minimizing cancellations. We also noticed that by requiring an upfront Down payment, the cancellation rate shows a meaningful drop.
Buyer Behavior
Understanding buyer behavior has been key to refining our tools and strategies. Many buyers start their search with broad keywords, often unsure of the exact name they’re looking for. By analyzing search queries and tracking the domains buyers ultimately click on, we’ve uncovered valuable insights into their decision-making process.
One of the most important insights is that buyers often choose unique, evocative names that don’t typically include the initial broad keywords they searched for. Instead, they gravitate toward names that capture a big idea or concept aligned with their vision. This understanding has guided us in building a dynamic search technology that bridges the gap, connecting buyers with domains that truly resonate, even if they weren’t originally part of the buyer’s search criteria.
Ultra Premium MarketpLace
Our Ultra-Premium Marketplace in partnership with Hilco Digital Assets has continued to perform exceptionally well, achieving several six-figure and seven-figure domain sales this year. The average sale price in UPM was $464,000. What’s particularly interesting is that many of these sales were driven by our marketing and discovery tools.
There’s often a belief that high-value domains don’t require much marketing, as buyers will naturally find their way to them. However, our experience tells a different story. Even buyers with substantial budgets often struggle to think of a perfect name for their business. By providing a highly curated destination of top-tier domains, we create an environment where buyers are more likely to discover a name that aligns with their brand vision.
Looking ahead to 2025, we’re planning to launch a unique marketplace dedicated to top-tier, one-word domains in alternative extensions. This marketplace will provide a similar discovery experience for buyers who may not have the budget for a premium .com domain but are seeking a strong one-word domain in alternative extensions to elevate their brand.
Atom Radar
In 2024, we launched Atom Radar, an initiative dedicated to publishing ongoing research in the areas of naming and branding. The goal is to position Atom.com as a leading authority in branding while providing actionable insights based on real-world data from consumers, entrepreneurs, and brand managers.
One such insight from Atom Radar revealed that certain country-code TLDs (ccTLDs) hold stronger trust within their local markets compared to .com. For example, in the UK, 78% of consumers are more likely to trust a business that uses a .co.uk domain over a .com.
Building on these findings, we plan to launch country-specific marketplaces in 2025. These marketplaces will serve as dedicated destinations for discovering high-quality domains in local TLDs. To ensure their success, we’ll actively promote these marketplaces through targeted marketing campaigns within each country, helping businesses discover great domain names that resonate with their local audience.
Looking Ahead to 2025
As we move into 2025, our focus remains on building momentum and delivering even more value to our community. Our vision is clear: to drive innovation and growth in the domain industry while making a meaningful impact for buyers, sellers, and the broader startup ecosystem. The year ahead is filled with exciting initiatives, and I’m looking forward to sharing updates as we bring them to life
News Source:Darpan Munjal，This article does not represent our position.
