Advertising during the Super Bowl, GoDaddy “spent at least $660 on each new customer… to get what they hope to add up to $54.30 each by 2015.“
In his Copywriter’s Roundtable today, John Forde wrote:
You remember, I’m sure, that I joined the legions that trashed one of the “GoDaddy” Super Bowl ads.
You know the one, where a computer nerd sucks face with supermodel Bar Refaeli to prove something or other. I hated it. And so did a lot of people.
I praised GoDaddy’s other ad, where an international cabal of disenchanted wives and girlfriends chided their men for not acting on the online ideas that might have made them rich.
This, I thought, communicated the promise.
But ultimately, of course, you’ll also remember that the big question about ALL the ads was whether it was “worth it.”
Well, at least with GoDaddy, now we have some data.
As many wrote in to tell me, it turns out that the day after the Super Bowl, GoDaddy’s new customer sign ups went through the roof.
In a single day, they added approximately 10,000 new customers. That certainly sounds like a coup, yes?
But is it time for me to grab the ketchup and my crow-eating utensils? Maybe not yet.
The folks over at Yahoo Finance did some math. Considering typical domain renewals and other factors, the estimated lifetime value per customer works out to about $54.30.
That means those new Monday sign ups are worth about $540,000 over the next couple years. (Again, an estimate, but a fair one.)
Thing is, each 30-second commercial — not counting any production costs or post-commercial mouthwash for Ms. Refaeli — cost them $3.75 million.
So, to get $540,000 in lifetime value out of those first 10,000 customers… they spent $7.5 million.
Looking at it another way, GoDaddy spent has already spent at least $660 on each new customer… to get what they hope to add up to $54.30 each by 2015.
So, asks Yahoo Finance, what if the smooch-heard-round-the-world lingers a bit longer, with the media coverage and all?
Even if the net result is another 50,000 new customers from the two ads, the same lifetime value puts the cost per new customer at $150.
$150 to get $54.30 in return still isn’t a great deal, any way you slice it. For GoDaddy, that would still add up to a $4.7 million loss.
But hey, at least the actor got to make out with what might be considered a super-babe on national TV, right?
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