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May 17, 2005
Domains
I was pondering what is better from a marketing perspective:
newproduct.domain.com
or
www.domain.com/newproduct
(as an example)
I think the world is starting to get used to 2nd level domains such that marketing something as newproduct.domain.com is mnemonic. I think 2nd level domains are easier to speak as well. They are also a hair more concise.
On the other hand, I think brands too often use too many domains when they should focus on marketing a single domain all the time. CNN does this, for example. The only domain they market is cnn.com.
I think a lot of companies grab every possible domain as a defensive strategy and that might be valuable in some respects but in general I think leads to defocus.
What do you think?
Posted by Michael at May 17, 2005 02:32 PM
Comments
Sequence is an issue here: do you want your primary brand (the company name) or the product name to appear first in your links? Can prospective visitors remember one better than the other? If you were at the helm of a very well-known brand, a second-level domain may emphasize the product.
Another point to consider: are your 404s in order? That is, if you misspell the second-level domain, will you end up at a reasonable page, or get a DNS error?
Posted by: Matt ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.techevangelists.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at May 17, 2005 05:04 PM
At an IAB conference last year, some data was presented that showed consumers are MORE likely to type in prefix URLs rather that suffix URLs (I think of anything after .com as a suffix). People tend to view ".com" as the end of a sentence, and ignore anything after that. For some reason, they're more likely to remember tv.cnn.com instead of cnn.com/tv.
The biggest reason for multiple URLs is usally the holy grail of ROI tracking. CNN never knows if people are getting there from a TV ad, or a magazine, or a direct mail piece -- and for them, it probably doesn't matter.
For us, it tends to matter more when it comes time to justify our existence -- we need to be able to point to specific stats and say, "See how successful this ad was?"
For web stuff, it's moot -- you can tell with referring stats or viewthrough or clickthrough tracking. But for offline pieces, custom domains are usually the way to go.
Posted by: Meghan at May 18, 2005 05:15 PM