Online Personals Watch: News on the Dating Industry and Business

Poll Results: Is The On-line Dating Industry On Top Of Controlling Scammer Fraud?

OPW - Dec 22 - Scammers are a serious problem and dating sites put a lot of effort in fighting them - but is it a victorious fight? We asked our readers about this and here is what we found out. We got 53 answers to the question: Is the on-line dating industry on top of controlling scammer fraud? 74% of the respondents said no - that´s an alarming number, what do you think? Let us know in the comments.

Our next question: How important is Valentine's (Dec-Feb) season for your online dating business (revenue rise)?

Poll Results: Have Free Dating Sites Hurt The Paid On-line Dating Industry?

OPW - Nov 29 - Do You Think The Free Dating Sites Have Hurt The Paid On-line Dating Industry?  That´s a question we asked our readers last week. We've just closed the poll and here are the results from 91 respondants:

• 30% said yes, free dating site have hurt the paid dating industry
• 41% said no
• 29% said somewhat 

Our next question: Is the on-line dating industry on top of controlling scammer fraud?

Poll Results: How Many Payment Processors Do You Have?

OPW - June 21 - We wondered how many dating services had backup payment processors so we ran rough-n-ready poll on the side bar of OPW. Here's the results.

We asked dating site managers: How many payment processors do you have?

There were 46 respondents. 39% said they had only one. 26% said they had two, it's always good to have a backup. 15% said they were using three and 20% even had 4 or more payment processors.

So, according to the results of this survey, more than a half of dating sites use more than one payment processor. This survey was kindly sponsored by Courtland Brooks client Optimal Payments, which provides payment processing to some of the biggest names in idating.

If you'd like a copy of a free advisory spreadsheet listing ALL the major payment processors in use by the dating industry, please email me at mark@courtlandbrooks.com. 

Survey Results: What Proportion Of Your Dating Site User Transactions Fail Each Month?

OPW - May 9 - I heard from Daniela at iTelebill that transaction failure rates are a rising problem in the idating industry. Really? So, we asked you this survey question. What proportion of your dating site user transactions fail each month?

There were 64 respondents. You said. 34% of you had more than 15% of your transactions fail each month. 12% of you had 10-15% fail. 12% saw 5-10% of transactions fail, and 12% saw 2-5% fail. 28% of you said you had minimal failure rates. So, yes, it does seem like a serious problem for over half of you.  

This survey was kindly sponsored by iTelebill and Optimal Payments. Both these companies can help you with this problem.

What Do You Pay To Review Your New Profiles? - Poll Results

OPW - Aug 4 - Last week, we asked dating sites owners and executives how much do they spend to review and approve new profiles on their dating sites. We've closed the poll and here are the results: 

• less than 10c per profile      35,7%
• 10-25c per profile              25,7%
• 25-50c per profile                7,1%
• 50c-$1 per profile               11,4%
• not sure                              20%

(Total votes: 70)

OPW Sponsor: OculusAI is one of the services that can help you speed up the profile approval process and lower the cost. OculusAi's Automatic Image Rejection (AIR) software detects and rejects inappropriate images uploaded on your site.