Despite its focus on its own end users, Dotster offers both an affiliate and a reseller program with a wide range of options for ISPs.

by Jeff Goldman [December 3, 2007]

Dotster launched in January of 2000 as a project of Columbia Analytical Services, Inc. The registrar was sold in 2004 to the New York-based private equity fund Baker Capital, and now operates essentially as an independent company under Baker Capital's ownership.

At its founding, Dotster was focused exclusively on domain registration, but the company has expanded its reach since then to include everything from webhosting to site design and search engine optimization. As company president and CEO Clint Page puts it, the aim is to serve the small and medium sized business market with a complete solution for "helping people establish their internet identity."

As a result, Dotster is now more focused on a direct-to-the-end-user model than it used to be, with the help of a number of additional brands including MyDomain.com. Still, the company does offer a range of partner programs, including both an affiliate and a reseller program.

Affiliate program
Company senior marketing manager Chris Campbell says the affiliate program has proved to be a good fit for a wide range of Dotster's customers since it's particularly simple to implement, with no setup fees, and the affiliate gets a 15 percent commission on all resulting sales. "We have a great network of affiliates who post ads on their websites directing their visitors over to us to establish their online presence," he says.

That kind of ownership of the customer is of course attractive to Dotster, and Campbell says it's a win/win for everyone involved. "Looking long term, there's much more value to us and to the customer if we can provide the whole solution, from the domain name to the custom website design to the webhosting to the marketing pieces," he says. "That provides more value for the customer, and a better lifetime value to us."

The point is that, regardless of where they're getting it from, most customers are looking for much more than domain registration. "The domain name is just a means to an end," Page says. "It's not the end solution for the vast majority of our customers. What they're looking for is that whole full service solution—and we've focused heavily on those customers with what we call a do-it-for-you type of approach."

And Page says Dotster is constantly looking for new ways to add value. The most recent addition? As a Certified DotMobi Web Developer, the company now offers mobile site design to its customers. "We're not only able to offer custom website builds for ISPs and their partners, but mobile device website builds as well," he says.

Instant reseller
Aside from the affiliate program, the other option—and the more attractive one for ISPs—is the company's instant reseller system, which also requires no setup fee, and enables the reseller to offer a fully private-labeled version of Dotster's offering. "It plugs into our back-end system, which connects to the registries to look for availability, and it provides them a checkout process," Campbell says.

And unlike an affiliate, Campbell says, the reseller has complete control over which of Dotster's offerings they want to provide to their customers. "A webhosting company is a perfect example of somebody who would set up the reseller program to offer our domain names or our custom website design services—and they don't need to offer hosting," he says.

Because Dotster offers more 60 different country codes and top level domains, Campbell says, the company has attracted a wide variety of resellers, including a company that set up an account specifically to offer .sc domains (the ccTLD for Seychelles) to customers in South Carolina. "That is one benefit of our program, and especially, I think, a benefit that makes sense for ISPs," he says.

And despite the company's focus on the affiliate and direct-to-consumer models, Campbell says Dotster still has thousands of partners using the instant reseller system. "It's free to sign up for, and it's pretty simple," he says. "And we have dedicated people on staff here to help with individuals who want to set up that program—and who want to, under their own brand, provide these services to customers."

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