Why Platforms Should Provide Custom Domains in 2024

A domain name does more than lead customers to a website. A powerful domain name can establish brand identity, demonstrate leadership within an industry, and capture the attention of customers searching for a specific product or service. 

As strong domain names become increasingly more important for brands, the overall domain name market continues to grow and become more saturated. According to a 2023 Research and Markets report, the global market for domain names in 2022 was estimated at 431.8 million domain names registered, with a projection to reach 745.5 million registered by 2030.¹   

As brands navigate this growing landscape, those who are establishing their online presence often want an easy way to set up a compelling and memorable domain name. 

For this reason, E-commerce platforms, booking engines, and other SaaS businesses providing digital services are uniquely positioned to connect customers with domain names and simplify the domain setup for their customers. In fact, by bundling custom domains alongside other services, your platform can meet customer needs, stand out from the competition, and see significant business impact. 

The Benefits of Offering Custom Domains on Your Digital Platform

By offering your customers custom domain services alongside your digital solutions, your platform can: 

• Simplify the domain linking process
• Promote long-term loyalty
• Provide opportunities for growth

Simplify the Domain Linking Process

Securing a domain name is an integral step in the process of creating a website and, in turn, a digital identity. But purchasing a domain name and linking it to a platform can be complicated.

By incorporating this step into your product flow, your digital platform can simplify the customer journey and keep customers within the conversion funnel. Additionally, by streamlining the domain linking process, you can foster a positive customer experience.

Promote Long-Term Loyalty

Alongside the loyalty that comes from a positive customer experience, your platform can also promote customer retention through your availability of descriptive domains. In other words, by providing customers with a custom domain name, you incentivize them to continue to use your platform. 

This is because descriptive domains are unique to each customer. Once a brand identity is built around a particular domain name, it’s likely that the customer will continue to renew that domain, through your platform, year after year. 

Provide Opportunities for Growth

Once a business secures its domain name, that name can be an anchor for all future growth. For instance, as a website expands, business owners can create new pages and subdomains for different products or services, allowing for easy navigation between each section of their site. 

All of these additions are connected to the original domain provider, offering customers simple, in-platform domain management that encourages growth and long-term use. 

How Descriptive Domains Are Changing the Digital Landscape 

Domain names have evolved drastically since the first top-level domains (also known as TLDs) were introduced in 1984.² These included .com, .net, .org, .edu, .gov, .int, and .mil. 

Although these TLDs intended to offer a level of description for those using them, these descriptions were limited. For instance: 

• .com was meant to denote commercial organizations
• .edu signified any educational institution (although it’s now restricted to accredited post-secondary institutions)
• .org denoted organizations established for public good, such as charities or nonprofits

Over time, the limited availability of traditional TLDs forced businesses to create more complex domain names, featuring symbols, numbers, and abbreviations before the dot. This resulted in the creation of domain names that were potentially difficult to remember. Further, these names often didn’t accurately represent a brand’s identity. 

While the early 2000s brought 13 more TLDs, it wasn’t until 2011 that ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) approved a new TLD program that established the expansion of TLDs.³ 

Now, domain registrars can offer a wide selection of TLDs that digital platforms can, in turn, cross-sell alongside other products and services to attract more customers. 

By integrating custom domain registration services into your existing solutions, you provide customers with easy access to the benefits of descriptive domains—namely: 

• Searchability 
• Shareability
• Accurate brand representation

Integrate Custom Domain Name Services into Your Existing Platform

If you’re interested in expanding your platform’s capabilities with custom domain registration services to attract more customers and fuel business growth, trust Identity Digital. By partnering with Identity Digital, you receive access to different levels of domain resale infrastructure so that you can find a solution that best suits your needs. 

Choose between no-code affiliate landing pages you can launch immediately, low-code iFrame solutions that provide more integration flexibility, or a custom integration with a powerful API. 

By offering your customers the option to secure a custom domain name, you can enhance your existing services, build positive customer relationships, and promote customer longevity with a tangible business asset that sets you apart from the competition. Reach out today to get started.

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¹ltd, Research and Markets. Domain Names: Global Strategic Business Report - Research and Markets

²TechRadar. Behind the Internet: the history of domain names

³TechCrunch. ICANN To Expand Top-Level Domain Names, Applications Start Jan 12, 2012

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