1. How is CitizenHawk paid?

CitizenHawk is paid on a 100% CPA basis

2. How does CitizenHawk drive traffic and revenue to an advertiser?  What are the metrics for determining the type of traffic and sales we can expect to see?

• CitizenHawk re-directs recovered domain names and resulting traffic to an advertiser’s specified landing page (most often the home page URL).
• Please refer to the ROI calculator, but on average we see a 3% lift in traffic and 20-50% lift in average order value.

3. How long does CitizenHawk monetize the recovered domains?

CitizenHawk monetizes the recovered domains through the advertiser’s affiliate program for a contractually agreed to period of time.

 4.  Are there additional costs, outside of the CPA, to work with CitizenHawk?

No. CitizenHawk pays for all hard costs (including UDRP fees) and there are no setup or monthly fees.

5.  Don’t most consumers recognize they have mis-typed the domain and re-enter it correctly or just click on the intended brand link on parked pages anyway?

Although a large number of consumers do re-enter the correct spelling of the name, a significant majority do not. Industries such as Domain Parking and Direct Navigation are two verticals that drive hundreds of millions of dollars per year and are premised on consumers not correcting themselves.  The growth in these industries over the past several years has relied heavily on providing convenience and rich content specific to the search, and in fact, there is no guarantee the intended brand will be displayed on a parked page.  Oftentimes even if the trademarked brand is displayed, a click on that link may forward to another parked page (causing a bad consumer experience and erroneously driving up CPC costs).  Or, the link may redirect the consumer to a competitor or other site not associated with the brand the customer was originally intending to reach.

6.  Is defensive registration a good practice? Is this a service that CitizenHawk offers?

Yes, however, even relatively short domain names have thousands of possible misspelled permutations, so it really isn’t practical to buy and own every variation to prevent typosquatting.  CitizenHawk has developed sophisticated models to guide our customers on which domains/registrations will likely yield the greatest traffic/revenue and can work with you to register those domain names on your behalf.  With over 3,500 domains under management across 60+ customers, CitizenHawk has unparalleled expertise in the realm of defensive registration. Please contact us if interested in this service.

7. My brand isn’t trademarked; does that mean I am out of luck?

Not necessarily, but without an active/live trademark per the US PTO, CitizenHawk has limited grounds for enforcement and may not send out cease & desist letters nor file UDRP on behalf of the customer until a trademark registration number is granted.  CitizenHawk can work with you on passive domain recovery efforts if your brand has an expired/dead trademark or a trademark with a registration number pending.  Passive domain recovery includes defensive registration services, registering domains which have been dropped or deleted by cybersquatters, and working to broker purchase of domain names from the squatters themselves.  If you are interested in these services, please contact sales@citizenhawk.com.

8.  I found a typo on my domain but the page isn’t doing anything similar to my product or service. Can I recover the typo-domain?

Although each case is unique, in doing domain recovery, our expert team analyzes a number of variables related to the trademark in question—the registration date, the scope of the trademark (what is the mark intended to protect), and the first use in commerce date.  The CitizenHawk recovery team then compares these variables against the typo-domain in question.  In order to increase the likelihood of reclaiming the typo-domain via active means (cease & desist and/or UDRP), the brand/CitizenHawk must show:

·         The trademark owner’s mark is distinctive or famous;

·         The typo domain name owner acted in bad faith to profit from the mark; and

·         The domain name and the trademark are either identical or confusingly similar
(or dilutive for famous trademarks)

      Absent these characteristics, CitizenHawk can work to recover the domain in a passive fashion—we constantly monitor for dropped/deleted domains, domains which may be up for sale on sites such as Sedo or Buydomains.com, or work to broker a purchase/acquisition of the domain from the squatter him/herself (with the brand and/or trademark holder's approval).

9.  Do we have to run through an affiliate network to work with CitizenHawk?

Technically, no.  CitizenHawk has a number of customers who do not have any affiliate or ad network affiliation.  However, CitizenHawk views the third-party reporting, optimization and management tools offered by the affiliate networks as valuable services that provide transparency into CitizenHawk’s performance on behalf of its brands, and visibility into traffic and revenue recovered during the term of the contract.