Online Personals Watch: News on the Dating Industry and Business

Sex With A Stranger

GLAMOUR MAGAZINE -- Aug 26 -- A startling number of young women are living out a fantasy with guys they meet online – and don’t know at all. Liberating or just plain dangerous? Hookup or “casual dating” websites like Fling, SexSearch, OnlineBootyCall, and others often outperform mainstream dating sites. Match.com had 5M unique visitors in May. AdultFriendFinder had nearly 24M and Fling 18M. Statistics show that ~50% of these users are women. “Most women say they get a rush from sleeping with a stranger. The rush may be largely fear. If you mix the chemicals involved with fear (adrenaline and norepinephrine) and those involved with sexual arousal (serotonin and dopamine), you create the most potent cocktail the brain can handle”, said Kelly McDaniel, author of Ready to Heal: Women Facing Love, Sex and Relationship Addiction. SUMMARY FROM SEPTEMBER 2009 GLAMOUR MAGAZINE

See all posts on Fling                     See all posts on FriendFinder
See all posts on SexSearch            See all posts on Match.com
See all posts on OnlineBootyCall

Adult Dating Market Players

E-COMMERCE -- July 8 --  Last year adult dating sites' growth rate was about 70%. AdultFriendFinder.com is the most popular adult-oriented dating site drawing millions of unique visitors per month. Besides AFF, there are many other sex-oriented dating sites including Fling.com, SexSearch and IWantU.com. Similar to the traditional dating sites, users lie about their personal information – age, marital status and appearance, so what you see may not be what you get. Sometimes men pretend to be women and women pretend to be men. Specialists suggest that up to 30% of all dating profiles are misleading. FULL ARTICLE @ E-COMMERCE

Mark Brooks: People tell white lies.  iDaters should ask 'is your photo up to date' and 'is your profile and marriage status info accurate.'  Sometimes profiles can be online a looong time. Users will join and cycle in and out of relationships (and their idating memberships) and neglect to update their profiles. ProfileHelper.com, LookBetterOnline.com and e-cyrano.com help users put their best profile forward.  IWantU is dead and dying at this stage. See Compete graph of IWantU. (Full Disclosure: Fling is a client. The Founder of ProfileHelper.com is on the Courtland Brooks team.)

See all posts on FriendFinder     See all posts on SexSearch
See all posts on Fling.com         See all posts on IWantU.com

SexSearch Joins RevenueGateway Network

EARTH TIMES -- May 16 -- Affiliate network RevenueGateway has teamed up with SexSearch, the adult personals website. RevenueGateway is giving affiliates $65.00 per sale. FULL ARTICLE @ EARTH TIMES

This post also appears on FrequentFlirters.

Niche Dating Sites Grow Steadily As Mainstream Ones Flail

TECH CRUNCH -- Apr 24 -- In the internet dating space, bigger is not always best. According to the latest U.S. numbers from Hitwise, the top niche dating sites are steadily gaining market share while their big mainstream counterparts stagnate. In March 2008, the top 5 overall sites held 7% less market share than they did in 2007 (Plentyoffish and Singlesnet were the only sites to buck this trend individually). Meanwhile, the top sites (Adam4Adam, Manhunt, Gay.com, BlackPeopleMeet, BlackSingles, BlackChristianPeopleMeet, ChristianMingle, JDate, and ChristianCafe.com) from the top five major niche dating categories made considerable gains. The biggest niche in terms of total traffic is casual dating, which consists of sites like Fling, AdultFriendFinder, and SexSearch. While the top 10 mainstream dating sites gained only 0.01% of total Internet traffic over the past year, the top three casual adult sites gained 0.07%. That's a hefty 56% increase in the traffic. (Authored by Mark Brooks)
FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH 

Casual Dating Affiliate Payouts Top The Industry

OPW -- Feb 15 -- Does anyone know of any dating affiliate programs that pay out higher than casual dating sites?  The super fast growing dating sites Fling and SexSearch are topping my research on payouts. SexSearch is paying out $90 and Fling $50 per paid sign up over Valentines. Adultfriendfinder is definitely feeling the heat on its tail from these two. I'm surprised how many dating sites don't have affiliate programs. Match, eHarmony, Perfectmatch and Yahoo! have good programs, but many top and second tier players have relatively small programs, if they have them at all. From the affiliate perspective adult dating sites just plain convert better, which would partly explain the rise in popularity of casual dating sites over the last few years. CJ, Linkshare, Azoogleads, Shareasale, Primary Ads, and Link Connector all drive significant amounts of traffic to dating sites.  CJ seems to have the most offers. Email me at mark@onlinepersonalswatch.com for a copy of my spreadsheet listing all the dating offer payouts on the top affiliate networks. - Mark Brooks 

SexSearch Offers Charlie Sheen a Lifetime Membership

PRESS RELEASE -- September 27 -- SexSearch, one of the largest adult dating sites, today offered both lifetime and Gold memberships to its most famous member, Charlie Sheen. SexSearch officials figured the notorious Hollywood bad boy would need a bit of rest and relaxation as he goes through his acrimonious custody battle with ex-wife Denise Richards. FULL ARTICLE @ FREE PRESS RELEASE

SexSearch Offering 100% Affiliate Payouts

PRESS RELEASE -- Sep 4 -- SexSearch is offering new affiliates a 100% payout on revenues generated through September 30th. The adult dating site, which claims to have the best converting affiliate program in the online dating space, currently pays out over $1 million each month to affiliates. With 15 million members, it is becoming the largest adult dating site. FULL ARTICLE @ FREE PRESS RELEASE

This post also appears on FrequentFlirters.

Which Dating Sites Affiliate Programs Convert the Best?

OPW -- May 28 -- These are the conversions for the affiliate programs that Online Personals Watch makes money from. The period is for March 21st 2006 through March 21st 2007. I only list the affiliate programs from which Online Personals Watch generated more than 1000 unique click throughs for. Here are the top converting programs ranked by the earnings per unique. Affiliate links for these sites appear in the left bar in the form of industry rankings, and from links from posts on OPW.

	Dating site	Affiliate System	Total Commission	Total Uniques	Income per Unique
#1	SexSearch	In House	$1,200	3018	40c
#2	TRUE	Primary Ads	$1,926	5368	36c
#3	Yahoo Personals	Commission Junction	$1,430	5303	27c
#4	PerfectMatch	Commission Junction	$267	1221	22c
#5	eHarmony	Commission Junction	$465	2678	17c
#6	AdultFriendFinder	In House	$1,017	10271	10c
#7	Match	Link Share	$464	6113	8c
#8	AmericanSingles	Commission Junction	$200	2912	7c

TRUE Spices Things up With Truespice.com

OPW -- TRUE has succumb is offering a piece of spice with brand extension TRUESpice.com. They've been throwing 25k uniqes at it per day since the beginning of April. (See Quantcast graph. Lavalife is broadly known as a casual dating product. Mate1 offers 'intimate dating.' SexSearch leads the way as the most full on sexy of the sex dating sites. I wonder how far TRUE is willing to go with their sexy ads? - Mark Brooks

COMMENT: Meir, CEO of Date.com, enlightened me that TRUESpice.com is actually an Azoogleads splash page.

The Accidental 'Friend' Finder

BUSINESS 2.0 MAGAZINE -- Mar 30 --  Andrew Conru, a mechanical engineering Stanford PhD, started the first online dating site, WebPersonals, in the early '90s, sold it in 1995, [started again in 1996] and now owns 27 sites under Various Inc. which control twice as much online dating traffic as Match.com.  AdultFriendFinder accounts for 60% of the revenue. Conru's privately held, 450-person company brings in well over $200 million in annual revenue, and averaged 40% annual growth for the past nine years.  With more than 35 million visitors in 2006 and 75,000 new users registering each day, AFF ranks among the 100 most popular sites in the U.S.A. It's become so mainstream that a joke about it appeared in the Diane Keaton and Mandy Moore romantic comedy, Because I Said So. "In Hugh Hefner's day, it was 'It's OK to look at sexuality,'" Conru says. "Now it's OK to be sexual." The average AFF user pays $20 a month; others shell out as much as $50. "The more niche you get, the more value per member," Conru explains. To expand without investment capital, Conru invented a massive affiliate program, in effect outsourcing his marketing to the public. Various now has more than 500,000 affiliates.  This year his goal is to buy six businesses. So far he's done well with the three purchases he's made (Gradfinder.com, Bondage.com, and FastCupid.com). FULL ARTICLE @ CNN

Mark Brooks: Here's the Quantcast numbers for the top adult dating sites...
AdultFriendFinder - 9.6m uniques/month stats
SexSearch - 3.3m uniques/month stats1, stats2
Mate1 - 2.5 million uniques/month stats
I worked for Andrew in 2003 and remember Andrew walking into the marketing office one day and declaring part serious, part in jest, 'who can I fire today.' He was on his third marketing team in two years. Six months later one third had quit and the other third had been canned.

Which Dating Sites Convert the Best?

OPW -- Jan 2 -- Online Personals Watch is for online personals marketing managers and executives to stay ahead of the news, and for the press to research the industry. It's not really designed for end users. Having said that, I make a few bucks from affiliate text links. $5k last year. Not too shabby. I thought I'd share the conversion numbers with you, for open discussion. I'm listing companies with which I had more than 1000 click throughs. I'm told affiliates will usually send an affiliate program 300 clicks before drawing initial conclusions on conversions. Here's the rankings drawn from stats for January 1st 2005, through December 25th 2006.  I'll redo them for a smaller date range later this quarter. 

	Dating site	Affiliate System	Total Commission	Total Uniques	Income per Unique
#1	PerfectMatch	Commission Junction	$899	2567	35c
#2	SexSearch	In House	$1,580	4690	34c
#3	TRUE	Commission Junction*	$1,459	5626	26c
#4	AdultFriendFinder	In House	$1,523	6144	25c
#5	Yahoo Personals	Commission Junction	$1,595	6780	24c
#6	eHarmony	Commission Junction	$502	3536	14.2c
#7	American Singles	Commission Junction	$285	3591	7.9c
#8	Match	Link Share**	$503	4887	7.7c
#9	Cupid	Direct Track	$210	3334	5c
#10	Joint: Webdate and Love Access	Both In House	$0	2923/1916	0c

  * I switched out to TRUE under Primaryads.com and they are paying out a little better.
** I've not had a good experience with LinkShare.

All the sites pay out slightly differently.  Where I had an option, I opted to be paid by % of revenue generated. I've focused on Dollars per Unique for this comparison.  If you want the full spreadsheet, email me at mark@onlinepersonalswatch.com and I'll send you the stats including the number of registrants, paying members, revenue and additional ratios. Your comments please…

The Demise of Prostitution?

SEXBYTES BLOG -- Dec 8 -- Ya know, I just don’t know what to make of this article - Sex Bites; Free Net Nookie Hits Pros, By Landrigan John...
Internet dating sites - and the free nooky on offer - are slowly killing the country's sex industry. "Everyone is screaming out for work," says one parlour veteran. "It is so easy to meet for sex through internet dating sites. It doesn't matter if it's good or bad when it's free."  And the worrying decilne is confirmed by Prostitutes Collective national co-ordinator Catherine Healy, who says a reduction in the use of hookers is partly blamed on online liaisons. "Brothel owners are certainly feeling it," she says. FULL ARTICLE

Mark Brooks: SexSearch is leading the way in the demise of the sex industry. Is this a good thing? Your comments please.

Profits Don't Always Woo Investors

MERCURY NEWS -- Nov 1 -- In Palo Alto, Andrew Conru looks like a typical Silicon Valley entrepreneur. The bespectacled, sandy-haired 38-year-old Stanford Ph.D. runs one of the best-known but least discussed Web destinations, Adultfriendfinder.com (25 million users, #58 on Alexa). In comparison, Facebook (9.5 million users, #56 on Alexa) is for sale for ~$1 billion. Most investors can't do anything about Various other than watch it expand. Many firms have "sin clauses'' with their financial backers that outline the types of companies they are strongly discouraged from backing, such as adult entertainment outfits. An IPO is an option, but stocks of publicly held adult content companies get discounted heavily because so many investors, like mutual fund managers, can't buy the shares. There also aren't many potential purchasers and Conru says his company is worth more than they can afford. There's no easy way to "exit'' Various. He employs 300 people, including 100 programmers. According to one former employee of Various who asked not to be named and his company has been making money since 1996, mostly through Adultfriendfinder.com and Alt.com. Conru owns 90% and is worth $100 million+ (The other 10% is owned by Lars Mapstead, whose start-up, Cams.com, was acquired by the company last year.) FULL ARTICLE @ MERCURY NEWS

Mark Brooks: I worked for Andrew in 2003 as his PR manager, amongst other things. Tough role, great guy. After working with Friendster I realised I needed to work for a real company and learn the ropes.  Whenever I advise my clients I often ask myself, "what would Andrew do." I heard Various will bring in $400 million this year. I'm sure AdultFriendFrinder will contribute well in excess of $100 million to that revenue number. In 2003 the official, but very rarely mentioned revenue number was $75 million. That number was, if anything, conservative.  Here's what Matt Marshall of VentureBeat had to say...

Owner of Adultfriendfinder Raking in "$100s of millions"

We're left with some questions. We're not sure why Conru needs the cash if the company is profitable and raking in so much revenue. The article says Adultfriendfinder is the 58th most popular site on the web, just behind Facebook, citing Alexa web-measurement data. Alexa data is notoriously unreliable — especially when it is used to compare something against Facebook. Alexa can be seriously gamed, because it relies on software downloaded by relatively small number of people to track traffic patterns.  Perhaps there's no one else willing to track this area? ;) FULL ARTICLE @ VENTURE BEAT

Mark Brooks: He doesn't need the cash. But, he'd like to take a break. But, there's noone he can trust (besides Lars and Charlyn) to run the company. It's no small entity. Andrew knows every single corner, facet and feature and is master of his kingdom. The real problem is, he's a genius. Which makes his job of replacing himself rather tough. The thorn in Andrew's side, of late, is the sexier, sleeker, rising star SexSearch.com which is slowly but surely, using every means possible, stealing away adult/casual dating market share.

Scientific Reasons for Having Sex

THE REGISTER -- Oct 9 -- Sex helps boost the immune system, boosts longevity and helps ward off cancer according to Dr Carl Charnetski of Wilkes University. Sex results in a more youthful appearance according to a study by Dr David Weeks of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, and co-author of Superyoung (1999). Sex helps reduce stress by lowering anxiety levels, boosting relaxation, and aiding sleeping. Sex helps fight depression according to a study by Dr Gordon Gallup of SUNY Albany. Sex is good exercise and helps circulation, lowers cholesterol, and releasing helpful endorphins and sex helps in losing weight, a little. FULL ARTICLE @ THE REGISTER

Mark Brooks: Over the next couple of years internet dating sites will extend beyond personality profiling and offer more sexual matchmaking options. SexSearch and AdultFriendFinder deal with sexuality and casual dating head on. TRUE offers a (relatively tame) test called Sexploration. Other sites get into fetish matching and Alt, takes things to the extreme. 

SexSearch Affiliate Promotion: Island Gathering

PRESS RELEASE -- Sep 28 -- SexSearch has the very LAST room (Oct 12th-16th) available for the Island Gathering (150 attendees, $1900 each).  Affiliates get one chance to win for every SexSearch user sign up today through Sunday!  SexSearch is sponsoring this event complete with ATV island tour, sailing, luxury dinner, a poker tournament. SexSearch has grown to over 10 million registered members and signs up 15,000 members a day; growing primarily through affiliate marketing. New affiliates that sign up get a $100 bonus, just for signing up!

Mark Brooks: SexSearch is super aggressive with affiliate marketing and is now the #2 player in the casual dating space. I'd call it a niche, but it's hardly a niche these days, it's so huge. 

OPW Experiment - Changing Credit Cards

OPW -- Sep 21 -- I signed up for eHarmony, Sexsearch, TRUE, Yahoo Personals, American Singles and Match in November 2005. I ran an experiment starting in July 2006. What would happen if I cancelled the card instead of cancelling with the service? Would they cancel the service automatically, email me for my new card number, or transfer the charges to the new card. Here's the results three months later.

American Singles - cancelled, no more charges
eHarmony - cancelled, no more charges
Match - cancelled, no more charges
Sexsearch - cancelled, no more charges
TRUE - cancelled, no more charges
Yahoo Personals - carried on charging the new card
(Yahoo also continued charging for Overture. Google Adwords cancelled out)

I called in to Yahoo Personals to see how lenient their refund policy was. They cancelled the membership but were rigid on their refund policy, despite the card number change. August and September charges were not refunded. Interesting. So, how lenient should your membership refund policy be?

Membership to my little Silicon Valley social club, Ace Club, is $19.95 a month with a 90 day no quibble money back guarantee. 1 in 200 takes me up on refund within the 90 day period. Short refund policies and long refund policies work best. So, 3 to 7 day trials and 90 day money back guarantees. The people who request refunds within the 90 day period should provide you with good feedback/service improvement information for your service. If they're not happy, you need to know why. A 90 day money back guarantee will open up that feedback channel. Listen intently. The keys to the future profitability of your internet dating service are within that feedback. 

I've heard some internet dating services have considered going free. No need. Just try a 90 day refund policy. Your conversion numbers will be favorable. Your long term return rates will be favorable. Just find a way to track them. See what happens ;-) Your comments please.  - Mark Brooks

FriendFinder Celebrates Ten Years and 130 Million Registrations

MARKET WIRE -- Sep 14 -- FriendFinder was founded in 1996 by Andrew Conru. Passion.com is for those interested in "spicy" romantic liaisons. AdultFriendFinder.com, the most popular site of all with more than 1 million new registrations a month, caters to people interested in finding a more intimate but not necessarily romantic partner. Other communitires include OutPersonals, Senior FriendFinder, Bigchurch, Amigos and AsiaFriendFinder.  "On some of our sites, more than 40% of all those who have registered remain on our active file," said Dr. Conru. "We are rapidly moving into the mobile phone arena, upgrading payment systems to make it easier for people to purchase our premium products directly through their mobile phone carriers, and we are launching more sites that meet the needs of specific groups."

Mark Brooks: Sexsearch (7 million registrants since 2003) is FriendFinder's top competitor and is biting at AdultFriendFinder, Passion.com's and Outpersonals heels. It's newer, glossier, and more straight to the point. It's amazing how large this adult dating 'niche' is, and how rarely it gets covered in the press...because it's still viewed as porn by most of the press and analysts. Yes, it's risque, but it's still internet dating: the antithesis of eHarmony. I noticed that Hitwise is now including AdultFriendFinder in their Australian rankings.

Monogamy or Monotony?

THE VILLAGE VOICE -- Aug 30 -- "I prefer to cheat with other married people because they have as much to lose as me typically" says a 35-year-old executive at a large corporation in midtown Manhattan. Married for seven years, he and his wife have sex twice a week. He cheated for the first time with another married woman he met through the Ashley Madison Agency. He's one of over a million members of Ashley Madison, which—like Married Secrets, Affair Match, Discreet Adventures and International House of Wives—caters to cheaters. The company's founder, Darren Morgenstern wanted to offer a service where folks could be up-front about their marital status.  Membership costs $240 for three months. Sites like Ashley Madison tap into a very profitable niche within the online personals arena by bringing honesty to the dishonest practice of cheating. Statistics show that 12% to 25% of women and 22% to 60% of men cheat. FULL ARTICLE @ VILLAGEVOICE

Mark Brooks: Sexsearch is into threesomes. AdultFriendFinder markets to swingers. Polymatchmaker also.  In some ways Ashley Madison, and others are providing a service to the dating industry by soaking up the marrieds that would otherwise venture onto mainstream dating sites and give them a bad reputation. By their mere existence they also encourage infidelity.  Do these services provide a useful public service? For or against? Your comments please.

FriendFinder Introduces Mobile Direct Billing

MARKET WIRE -- Aug 17 -- FriendFinder.com launched a new payment system that permits its members to be billed directly by their cell phone operators. The system uses the Premium Short Message Service (PSMS) protocol. It was recently rolled out in the U.K. for all FriendFinder.com programs. It will be introduced over the next few weeks in Australia, Germany, Austria, France, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Korea, Taiwan and China. In the U.S. it will be available for FriendFinder.com and Passion.com members only, starting in September. Members can handle the entire membership transaction simply by entering their mobile phone number in a box on the billing page. The PSMS payment option is provided by Vidicom.co.uk. A billing confirmation message is sent to the member's mobile phone. When the member replies to the confirmation alert, the cost of the service they requested is charged to their telecommunications provider, providing a convenient alternative for people who do not wish to use a credit card.

Mark Brooks: This will increase FriendFinder conversions, especially on it's casual/adult dating properties.  AdultFriendFinder is the top adult personals site, followed by the newer, sexier SexSearch.com.

OnlineBootyCall, Only a Single Marriage

SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE -- Aug 3 --  OnlineBootyCall.com, a division of Mobeze, is proud to announce that they have received only one confirmed report of marriage since their Web site's inception three years ago. "Reaching the one million member mark with only a single reported marriage is a tremendous accomplishment," Moses Brown, Founder and CEO said.  While most dating sites focus on lengthy profiles and complex matching systems, OnlineBootyCall.com prefers a simpler approach; the sign-up process can be accomplished in less than one minute.  OBC makes 30,000 connections each day; that equals one marriage per 32,850,000 booty-call connections. "Nobody else can boast that kind of success," Brown said. The OBC membership base has grown through a very generous referral system: $100,000 in cash prizes to members. Every member who refers at least five people during the course of one month is placed in a random drawing for $1,000; five winners are picked each month.  he Booty Call Ten Commandments guides members towards success. The first commandment is "Thou shall get out before the sun rises." FULL ARTICLE @ SEND2PRESS.COM

Mark Brooks: Casual dating sites (Sexsearch.com, AdultFriendFinder) are doing very well, alongside the personality profiling 'serious dating' sites (eHarmony, PerfectMatch, LoveHappens).