Go Daddy bets big on sports marketing

Internet domain company GoDaddy.com is increasing spending on marketing like sports sponsorships and TV ads to drive its sales as more traditional companies cut sports marketing budgets, its CEO said in an interview on Monday.

“Even though the country has been in recession, our industry, and particularly Go Daddy, has been growing,” said Bob Parsons, Go Daddy Group Inc’s chief executive and founder.

He said its sales had risen 22 percent so far this year from $497.9 million in 2008.

Companies like General Motors ¨ûGM.UL¨ü and some banks have cut sports marketing budgets, leaving many sports relying on sponsors like Go Daddy. The company’s spending on marketing, the bulk of which is sports oriented, is up 31 percent this year, Parsons said.

Go Daddy is known for Internet domain name registration, website hosting services, and provocative TV ads.

“Where we really do well is our ads on the Super Bowl, on automobile racing because it’s exciting ... bull riding, anything that’s watched live,” he said.

Go Daddy, the world’s largest domain name registrar, recently announced a sponsor deal with the Professional Bull Riders (PBR) tour, and ran ads for the first time this year during National Hockey League games, LPGA and U.S. Open golf events. It also ran ads during Major League Baseball games.

The company, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, runs an average 500 to 900 ads a week, mostly on cable TV, Parsons said. “We actually have no ad budget and just look for deals.”

Go Daddy sponsors the broadcast of the Indianapolis 500, IndyCar driver Danica Patrick, and NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. as well as an LPGA golfer, female professional poker player and country singer Erin Kalin.

Founded in 1997, Go Daddy is perhaps best known for risque ads that gained prominence during the National Football League’s 2005 Super Bowl championship and have appeared annually since then. Super Bowl ads this year cost up to $3 million for 30 seconds.

The company’s share of new domain registrations rose from 16 percent before the 2005 Super Bowl advertisement to 25 percent the week after. It now gets 48 percent of all new domain registrations, Parsons said.

“We know the formula,” he said. “It’s got to be edgy. It’s got to be a little tasteless.”

Parsons said the company, with more than 36 million domain names under management and more than 2,400 employees, had begun reviewing ads for the 2010 Super Bowl game.

Go Daddy has purchased two 30-second slots and hopes to repeat this year’s performance when one of its ads was the most popular as ranked by Tivo, based on spot users of the digital video recorder rewound and watched again.