Aftermarket metrics and how to calculate them

Portfolio metrics exist to answer management questions: whether names are turning over, whether the holding is growing faster than it sells, and whether pricing is set where buyers actually engage. None of them predicts an individual sale, and any of them can be reported over a window chosen to make the result look better.

Sell through rate

The share of names sold in a period, measured against the number held during it. Names sold in the period divided by names held, expressed as a percentage.

The definitional choice that changes everything is the denominator. Counting only names that were listed and visible produces a higher figure than counting the whole portfolio including names that were never offered. Both are defensible, and they are not comparable with each other, so the basis has to be stated whenever the number is quoted.

Two further distortions are common. Measuring over a period that happens to contain one large sale describes that sale rather than the portfolio. Excluding names dropped during the period removes the failures from the denominator while keeping the successes in the numerator, which inflates the result silently.

Read as a trend across several years, the rate answers a real question: whether acquisition is running ahead of what the market absorbs. That is why it belongs in the review described in portfolio and renewal discipline.

Renewal rate

The share of names due for renewal in a period that were actually renewed. Names renewed divided by names reaching their renewal date.

A very high renewal rate is not a strength. It usually means nothing is being pruned, and that weak names are carried indefinitely on the assumption that a buyer will eventually appear. A very low rate suggests the acquisition criteria are too loose, since names are being registered and abandoned within a cycle or two.

The number is more informative when split by cohort: names acquired in the same year, followed through successive renewals. Cohort curves show how quickly a given vintage decays, which is a better guide to whether a buying strategy works than any portfolio-wide average.

Average holding time

The mean time between acquisition and sale, calculated only across names that sold. It describes how long capital and renewal spending sit in a name before an outcome.

The trap is in the population. Averaging only the names that sold ignores everything still held, which is the large majority, so the figure understates real holding time considerably. A more honest pair of numbers is the median time to sale for sold names alongside the median age of the names still in the portfolio. The second number is usually the uncomfortable one.

Holding time also varies by type in ways an average conceals. Liquid names in mainstream extensions turn over on a shorter cycle at lower levels, while names whose value depends on one specific buyer can sit for years and then sell in a week when that buyer appears.

Inbound offer rate

The share of names that received at least one unsolicited offer in a period. Names receiving an offer divided by names visible and reachable during it.

This is the most useful early indicator, because it moves before sales do and does not depend on pricing being right. A name that draws enquiries and never converts has a price problem. A name that draws no enquiries over years of visibility has a demand problem, and no price fixes it.

The rate is only meaningful when the denominator is limited to names that were genuinely reachable: resolving to a sales page, listed, with a working contact route. Counting names that pointed nowhere makes the portfolio look unwanted when it was merely invisible, which is why the checks in for sale landers come before any interpretation of this number.

Using the four together

Track each on the same schedule, over the same window, with the basis written down. Metrics recalculated on a different basis each year cannot be compared, and a metric that cannot be compared with itself has no management value.