Acquiring User.com was strategic, the price was a steal

User.com is an all-in-one marketing automation platform aimed at boosting customers engagement and conversion. In one place, companies have several tools that allow them to
take advantage of a multitude of communication channels (such as email, live chat, chatbot, push notifications, dynamic page content, and many more; all available in one place. What does this all mean? Let’s check in with Tomasz Sawicki, CMO at User.com

Mike: Tell me a little more about your business at user.com. The description is inclusive of so many areas of user experience. Can you walk me through an example of how a typical online business might use the user.com product?

Tomasz:  Imagine you are an eCommerce company. With just a few clicks, you can integrate your Shopify, Magento, or WordPress online store with User.com. After importing your contacts from CSV file, you can start tracking all your website users. If you are aware of what are their main interests you can adjust your offer to their needs with dynamic page content, exit-intent popups or chatbot. Possibilities are infinite. What’s more, the same scenario can apply to all industries, no matter of location or company size.

 

Mike: Your business is run on a short, four-character, memorable, applicable, relatable domain name. How did you come to select the name and why has that been so important to your business?

Tomasz:  Two years ago, when our application was created, we were called UserEngage. Sure, this name expressed a lot about what we were doing, but it was quite a difficult domain name to remember.

To be honest, we knew that user.com would be the right choice since the very beginning. That’s why in the spring of 2018, our CEO, Greg Warzecha began negotiations with Sedo and user.com’s owner. The negotiations process took a few months and we exchanged many, many emails and phone calls.

And then, in November 2018 we finally succeed. We purchased the domain for only $150,000 and I believe, it’s a great move for our image. Marketing automation market is constantly growing, and according to some studies, it will double by 2025. This means that there will still be a lot of competing companies, and User.com with such a generic name will have a great deal of punch against other brands.

In addition, customers are more likely to buy from companies that have simple names. Unlike our competition, for example, SendinBlue or ActiveCampaign, we have strong, generic, and 4-L name.

To sum up, the purchase of user.com domain was definitely image-oriented. If we meet in a few years, I think I will be able to repeat that it was the right decision.

 

Mike: Although you are running a business on the name, do you ever receive offers from others asking to purchase then name?

Tomasz:  No, we have never received such an offer. We’ve received very positive feedback from companies and customers around the world, but no one wanted to purchase user.com.

Mike: What drove the business need to develop User.com? Various tools are available from different providers. What led to the collection and capturing of these all as one package?

Tomasz:  We believe that the highest effectiveness of business marketing actions can be brought by having all of the various types of marketing tools in one place. Thanks to this solution you are able to keep an eye both on your marketing and sales results – and react appropriately whenever something needs quick decisions.

But how it all began in our case? Before User.com was founded, our CEO was the owner of a small, open-source startup, serving for organizing grassroots social initiatives. He was looking for one tool for managing all marketing-connected activities but couldn’t find the one that would be the best one for his needs.

That’s how we started creating User.com. Later on, as we added new functionalities to our project (like CRM or visitor tracking) people came to us and said they would pay for such a tool. We gained a product-market fit before we had established a platform.

Currently, User.com consists of many features that can be useful for the entire company. We’ve gathered in one place a CRM, chat widget, push notifications, calendar, sales pipeline, email automation and many, many more – to help our customers with finding as many marketing opportunities as possible, quickly and effectively.

Mike: I’m going to venture to say that the domain name negotiations didn’t start at $150,000. Where did negotiations start and what has traffic growth been since you acquired the name?

Tomasz:  The initial price was $700,000 and we purchased the domain for $150,000. So imagine how difficult was the negotiations process.

After acquiring user.com we noted 300% increase in traffic. Unfortunately, I can’t share more details.

Mike: What types of businesses can benefit from the app. Is this designed for the big players, little guys or can it span the spectrum?

Tomasz: User.com is specially designed for companies that want growing their sales fast and effectively manage their digital marketing activities. In practice it’s a good match both for small and medium sized-businesses, however, enterprise-level organizations are our customers as well.

Mike: Does the short, generic, premium domain name eliminate the need for online marketing or advertising, or do you still invest in promoting the site in search engines and elsewhere?

Tomasz:  The purchase of User.com is just the beginning of our journey. It’s part of our brand strategy to become visible around the world. Consequently, we won’t go global without great SEO and other activities supporting the brand visibility. We want to take full advantage of the chance that the new name gives us.

 

Mike: Anything else you would like to add?

Tomasz:  We use User.com on a daily basis and we know that it works. If you want to increase your sales, automate marketing and support – just leave us a message on User.com chat. You’ll receive 1-month free trial, active until the end of May. Just write you came from dsad.com.

Author note: The author, nor DSAD.com has no monetary incentive and provides no endorsement of the service described in this interview.