Susan Wagner registered the domain Honeymoons.com after spending 10 years producing the honeymoon section of Modern Bride magazine.

That was in 1996, and over the next 27 years, Honeymoons.com helped couples plan their honeymoons and destination weddings — everywhere from Argentina to Zimbabwe.

In the summer of 2022, a buyer reached out who was interested in the business. It was Jim Campbell, who ran HoneymoonGoals.com under Camp Media.

He talked to Wagner’s partner Tom Curtin, and the two hit it off, chatting all things honeymoons.

“I told him to give me a call if they were ever going to sell,” Campbell said.

Several months later, in early 2023, Campbell’s phone rang.

How Honeymoons.com grew organically

In 2008, Wagner invited Curtin and Martin O’Connell to help her relaunch Honeymoons.com and “amp up the site,” Curtin said.

Wagner was the president and editor-in-chief, Curtin was the director of sales and marketing, and O’Connell served as the CFO. Together, they shared more than 60 years of experience in the honeymoon space.

The key to the site’s growth, Curtin said, was publishing two to three articles daily, each written by Wagner. Honeymoons.com also once sponsored a couple, Mike and Anne from HoneyTrek, who took a 500-day honeymoon around the world. The couple shared their experiences at different resorts..

All of that content helped to grow website traffic. However, when Google Ads became popular, Honeymoons.com no longer appeared as high on the page; paid ads took those spots instead.

All site traffic — which was about 150,000 annual visits around the time of the sale — was organic. “We never once spent a dime buying clicks,” Curtin said.

Honeymoons.com initially made most of its money through paid advertising from resorts and destinations. Later, they made money through revenue sharing from honeymoon bookings.

The “X factor” of Honeymoons.com that attracted a buyer

It was early 2023 when Curtin rang Campbell and told him they were ready to sell Honeymoons.com.

“Our team was getting older, and we were not keeping up with the leaps in technology,” Curtin said.

Campbell, on the other hand, was in growth mode. He had launched HoneymoonGoals.com in 2019 as a side project, and in 2022, after selling another website he’d built, he quit his job as a growth marketer to pursue HoneymoonGoals.com full time.

“I was attracted to Honeymoons.com because I was already in the honeymoon business with HoneymoonGoals.com,” Campbell said. He was the strategic buyer every seller hopes for.

He also shared on LinkedIn: “Honeymoons.com is the premier domain name in the industry and the perfect platform for me to continue building the leading online resource for romantic travel.”

Although HoneymoonGoals.com saw about 10x more site traffic, Campbell explained on the Niche Pursuits podcast that the real “X factor” was the domain name, which ranks high in search.

Campbell offered 6 figures — all cash — and the Honeymoons.com team accepted. Although Curtin didn’t disclose the site’s annual revenue, he did share they sold for a 7x revenue multiple, which is about twice the typical multiple for content sites.

Curtin described the sale as “exciting and fast moving” and said the biggest challenge was aggregating all the necessary documents, tech assets and required signatures.

In July 2023, Honeymoons.com officially joined of Camp Media. It housed about 300 articles plus resort reviews, which Campbell said he was working to optimize as of September 2023. At that time, he had planned to keep both sites, but HoneymoonGoals.com now redirects to Honeymoons.com.

At the end of 2023, he shared on LinkedIn that the site’s organic search traffic had grown 10x. “We helped nearly 700 people book and take their honeymoons in 2023 and have already booked 500 for 2024,” he wrote.

He told us: “I am now focusing on building Honeymoons.com into the global leader in romantic travel.”

As for Curtin, he went on to serve as a consultant for Bridal Guide and The Bridal Buzz.