This is the third in the series on running a traffic test. The first three articles in the series can be viewed at:
Part 1 – Baseline Data
Part 2 – Focusing on Performance
Part 3 – Improving the Revenue

In the previous three articles I’ve been taking readers through an actual traffic test that a real prospective client is doing with ParkLogic (I'm a co-founder). I have not doctored the numbers or done anything to make them look better. They’re the real deal.

The traffic test is now at the stage where we are looking at really putting the foot down to maximise the revenue. Overall, there has been a 36% uplift in revenue, which for most people this would be an outstanding result. Once you begin to dig into the numbers the results look even better.

The following chart compares the performance of the latest week’s data versus the baseline as a percentage for various traffic levels. For instance, for domains where we saw at least the same level of traffic as the baseline there was a 46% uplift in revenue, for domains with at least 80% of the traffic, an overall 43% uplift. This continues on until for all domains it’s just shy of 36%.

 All domains will have varying traffic levels over time and what this chart displays is the performance of the traffic test at the different traffic levels. Since domains with less traffic take longer to optimise then it also suggests that the low traffic domains still have potential upside that is yet unrealised.

Have you ever been asked the question, “How much are you worth?” Most people immediately think of it in terms of dollars and answer, “I’m worth blah, blah, blah….” Is this really the best way to view yourself and is money the only measurement of a person?

If someone asked me how much my wife Roselyn is worth to me then I’d immediately respond by saying, “You can’t put a price on her.” When it comes to relationships, monetary valuations completely fall apart as we more often than not place “irrationally” high values on them…..but there are some exceptions.

Several years ago, I was asked to settle a dispute between a couple of friends who had jointly rented out a house together. It was at lunchtime and I sat down to eat my meal while they were both yelling at each other across a big boardroom table.

For about fifteen minutes I didn’t say a thing while I finished my lunch and just let them go at it. Each one was accusing the other of not paying a $600 bill. I finally pushed my chair back and said, “I’ve never been in a situation where I could put a precise value on a friendship. You both disgust me.” I then walked out of the room.

To this day I have no idea what happened with the situation but there was one thing for sure, both the friends had a lot more problems than $600. The question I’m left with is why do the majority of us find that our relationship with loved ones are incalculable?

A number of things happened to me when I turned around fifty years old. For a start, I found myself less tolerant of putting up with friends that had the habit of making bad decisions and then asking to be bailed out. Why should I perpetuate their illogical decision-making processes?

The second thing that happened was I became very aware of my own mortality. Sitting in front of a computer twelve plus hours per day and living on a diet of Coke-cola, chips and basically anything bad for you had finally caught up with me and I felt terrible.

Once my personal pity party was over my wonderful wife gave me a swift kick up the backside, dragged me away from my PC and introduced me to the outdoors. I would like to say that I had an epiphany of how good it was to be outside but in reality, I went kicking and screaming.

I almost began to dread the weekends because I knew Roselyn would suggest going for a walk, a bike ride or God forbid a hike. When I look back on it now, I have no idea why she put up with the myriad of excuses that I came up with so that I would remain locked inside.

It was when she suggested we watch a documentary on Netflix titled “Forks vs Knives” one evening that the message was finally brought home. For those of you that haven’t seen it, the film discusses changing what we place on our forks versus going under the surgeon’s knife. It presents some pretty compelling evidence that clearly showed me that I was in the process of killing myself or at the very least shortening my lifespan.

This is the third in the series on running a traffic test. The first two articles in the series can be viewed at:
Part 1 – Traffic Test – Baseline Data
Part 2 – Traffic Test – Focusing on Performance

As we discussed in Part 2, what’s vital in running a traffic test is understanding the performance, both positive and negative. The data is the data but interpreting what it’s telling you is far more important if you are wanting to develop long-term value from your domain traffic.

So how is the real live test portfolio progressing so far? The following two charts show the overall trend lines are all heading in the right direction. Despite the time of year and the typical overall decline in advertising spend over the northern hemisphere summer, revenue is continuing to trend upwards.

The second chart clearly shows the reason for this is due to the normalised RPM (or plRPM as we call it at ParkLogic) is also trending upwards as the optimisation algorithms continue their work. For those of you that are unaware, RPM stands for Revenue Per Thousand - more of per thousand what shortly. It’s at this point that I’m going to take a little detour to explain a few things about plRPM and how it differs from RPM.

I’ve had a long-standing reseller account with Enom for many, many years and being a bit lazy I really haven’t checked the pricing for a while. I had the need to register a .com recently and as is my habit I found what I was after and went through to my shopping cart. Boy was I in for a surprise!

I couldn’t believe it but Enom was trying to charge $13.50 for .com domain? Considering that I also use Epik for my personal domains I’m more familiar with paying $8.49. The difference doesn’t sound very much until you multiply it over a lot of domains…..suddenly that five star vacation is getting further away with every registration.

For those of you that are wondering why I didn’t just register the domain at Epik in the first place then you’d be asking a great question. Call it stupidity on my part and I mistake I don’t plan on making into the future.

When did all these pricing changes at Enom happen? I actually have no specific date but wouldn't be surprised if it related to being purchased by Tucows. There’s one thing for sure, the remainder of my domains at Enom will shortly be finding another home.