Online Personals Watch: News on the Dating Industry and Business

Valentine’s Day To Be ‘Starting Gun’ For Investment In Online Dating

PRESS RELEASE - Feb 14 - This year Valentine’s Day will mark the start of a business boom across the online dating world with more companies seeking to capitalise on the millions of people turning to online dating. Over February 13 & 14 in 2011 Global Personals.co.uk saw a rise ~30% in subscriptions across its sites. Global Personals expects these figures to rise again in 2012 by 150%. Global Personals operates its own dating sites including Singles365.com, DatingAgency.com and JustSingleParents.com, whilst its B2B service, WhiteLabelDating.com, offers a platform for brands and individuals to power their own dating sites.

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All 2012 Valentine's Day News

Real Radio Partners With WhiteLabelDating To Create Dating Site

THE DRUM - Feb 9 - Real Radio, part of GMG Radio, has partnered with WhiteLabelDating.com to create its branded online dating site, with the tagline ‘Real Good, Feel Good’.

See full article at The Drum

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WhiteLabelDating Celebrates 10 Million Members

WHITELABELDATING – Jan 20 – Award-winning WhiteLabelDating.com announced today that is has reached 10M members. Since launching in 2003, White Label Dating has offered a platform for any brand or individual to power their own online dating site, providing the software, payment processing, hosting, etc. while the site owner need only provide their brand, design and marketing. Operations Director Matthew Pitt comments that “with 10 million members, we have someone for everyone” across their numerous sites. There are more sites available now than ever before, many sites are tailored to specific interests, religions, hobbies, and more.

See full article at WhiteLabelDating

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Jazz FM Launches Dating Site With WhiteLabelDating

THEDRUM - Jan 11 - Users of Jazz FM Dates will be able to meet fellow music lovers through the site with the help of WhiteLabelDating, with site functions including instant messaging, status updates, member feeds, video dating and dating diaries.”

by Ishbel Macleod
See full article at TheDrum

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WhiteLabelDating.com Unveils Its Mobile Platform

WLD - Dec 28 - With the mobile market worth an estimated £152 Billion in 2011, the world of mobile is big business. Mobile traffic is plentiful and relatively cheap. cquisition cost is up to 50% lower through mobile than desktop channels and WLD has found that 16% of their traffic is already accessed through handheld devices, even without a dedicated mobile platform. The mobile platform features are:

• A multi-button dashboard
• Dynamic member profile view 
• Local member search - using the mobile device’s built in geo-location 
• Advanced search functionality
• The ability to upgrade to full membership to get the best experience from the mobile site
• Accepts all common debit/credit cards

See full article at WLD blog

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Global Personals: Ranked In The Sunday Times Virgin Fast Track 100

WLD - Dec 16 - Global Personals UK, the parent company of WhiteLabelDating.com, has been ranked 28th place in the prestigious Sunday Times Virgin Fast Track 100. The league table has become the definitive barometer of private company growth and features a host of well-known brands including Cath Kidston, Ella’s Kitchen, Jack Wills, Joules and Patisserie Valerie; plus many emerging companies in a range of industries.

See full article at WLD

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iDate INSIDE Series: Episode #3 - GlobalPersonals.co.uk

OPW - Nov 30 - iDate INSIDE are a series of videos covering the inner operations of internet dating companies. The video shows the offices and the culture. Here is the 3rd episode, a sneak peek into the Global Personals UK office.

Global Personals just celebrated its 8th birthday. Ross Williams and Steve Pammenter started the business in 2003 and it took them just 4 years to grow the business from nothing to £3M per year. Thanks to their White Label Dating partners, the company's annual revenue is now ~ £30M.

READ THE FULL INTERVIEW

 

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Jongleurs Comedy Launch Into Dating With WhiteLabelDating.com

WLD BLOG - Nov 30 - Popular comedy brand Jongleurs has launched into the world of online dating with site Jongleurs Dating, powered by WhiteLabelDating.com.

See full article at WLD Blog

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Top Tips For Your Dating Sites

WLD BLOG - Nov 24 - 
1. Use Social Media - The majority of users will not proactively type your website’s URL into their browser and arrive at your site via direct traffic. That is why reaching people where they virtually ‘hang out’ is essential.
2. Keep your audience in mind - post in the tone that people will associate with your site, engaging with your audience on a ‘human’ level.
3. Make your site sticky - The perfect way to make your site sticky is to link, link, link! Hook users and reel them in by creating links (where relevant) between blog posts, to allow users to move effortlessly around the site and more importantly, stay engaged with your brand.

See full article at WLD Blog

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Ross Williams Crowned ‘Young Gun 2011’

PRESS RELEASE - Oct 31 - Growing Business has announced its top list of companies with founders aged 35 or under for 2011. Each year Young Guns recognizes the fastest-rising and most exciting young entrepreneurs running UK businesses. Ross Williams, co-founder and CEO of Global Personals, made the elite list of entrepreneurial talent. Launched in 2003, Global Personals owns and operates its own online dating sites including Singles365.com, DatingAgency.com and JustSingleParents.com, whilst its B2B service, WhiteLabelDating.com, offers a platform for brands and individuals to power their own dating sites.

See full article at GlobalPersonals website

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WhiteLabelDating.com Partners Conference Summary

OPW - Oct 22 - WhiteLabelDating.com had their partner conference this Friday and Saturday for 80+ Gold and Silver partners. Last night was their black-tie awards ceremony.  We’ll run the awards list on Online Personals Watch next week. Here’s my notes from the partner conference today, which is just finishing up now.

WhiteLabelDating.com (WLD) is now 90% partner brands and 10% own-brands such as Dating Agency and Singles365.com. The own-brands are used as learning and proving grounds for best-practices which are shared with partners at seminars and advisories and via partner managers.

WLD now has 6500 partner sites with 7 million members, with 3 million new members added in the last year. Revenue stands at GBP 23.5 million over the prior 12 months – up 43%. 20% of business is non-UK now. Countries served are UK, Ireland, Australia, S.Africa, USA, Canada and New Zealand. There’s 100 employees in Windsor. 30 of which are developers, up from 20 last year.

The run rate for revenues is 30 million GBP now which makes WLD the largest dedicated white label platform in the world. The biggest media partners are Bauer Media, Trinity Media, GMG Radio

Members are paying more now. This is largely due to dramatic improvements in the product, the introduction of true niching, and strong email marketing. WLD sends 9 million emails a day now which is more than eBay Europe

WLD is launching in the USA next year and have spent $2 million on a business with a portfolio of 600 geographically focused domains such as LAdating.com and PhoenixDating.com. The USA business will be rolled out and launched region by region next year and there’s an seeding marketing budget of 1 million GBP reserved.

There’s also a big push on mobile. WLD’s mobile dating platform launches before Christmas. Ross Williams, the CEO, said ‘mobile will be a 1/3 of our business in the future.’ New users from mobile sources are typically half the cost of new users from desktops.

WLD targets 45% revenue growth in the ensuing year, with 30% of revenues coming from non-UK markets, up from 20%.

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CEO Interview: Ross Williams, Founder and CEO of WhiteLabelDating

OPW INTERVIEW - Sep 22 - WhiteLabelDating is celebrating it's 8th year anniversary. Here's our interview with the CEO/co-founder Ross Williams. (FD: WLD is a client of Courtland Brooks) - Mark Brooks

The Futures Company came out with a white paper titled; ‘Is happiness your business?” There are 21,000 books on Amazon on “happiness”. Does this relate to your business?
We have members of the sites that we want to make happy. We’ve also got partners that run the sites. A lot of them have given up their full time job to run their dating site which means they can work where and when they want. In online dating we hope we sell the dream of happiness, we sell the promise. If I asked a single man what would you pay to meet the woman of his dreams he would say ‘anything’. We aim for happiness for consumers, partners and our staff.

I understand recently you had a run rate of about £30 million in revenue a year?  What proportion of that is from your partners/white labels?
Around 85-90%. It’s where we focus most of our time.

How many partners do you have at this stage?
It grows each day. There’s 1,000’s in the system. A couple of hundred partners generate decent revenue for us.  It’s a long term business. We have partners who are generating tens of thousands of pounds in revenue a month, who weren’t doing anything last year.

You’ve grown considerably. Is it true that the bigger you get the more difficult it is to introduce innovations?
It is.  You don’t want to innovate at the expense of existing business. We have over 6,000 sites on our book now and we have to test/check they all work well. We are about to see some exciting developments at our partner conference in October. We spend £1.5 million a year on development.  Two thirds of this goes on new features.

You're 8 years old now, right?
We turned 8 last week. In the first 4 years we grew from £0 - £3 million a year, and from 2007 to 2011 we grew to £30 million a year. Exponential growth.

Would you have guessed you would be at this stage 8 years ago, was that your goal?
Yes, we were very confident. We didn’t really come out {with our numbers} until about 4 years ago but that was our intention. You don’t want to shout too loud until you are in a position to manage the growth you’ve got. We’ve gone from UK-only to International. 

In what year will you generate £100 million?
I would think by 2013 or 2014 but there are lots of things that could happen before then. There are great opportunities in mobile, social and international.

Match.com is at about £280 million revenue.
We matched Match.com in the UK about 9 months ago. We are a lot larger than them in the UK.

What would be your top 3 pieces of advice that you would give to someone new to the industry, to be successful with WhiteLabelDating?
Marketing, marketing, marketing. You just can’t start a dating site without brand marketing. 

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JustAussies.com Launches

PRESS RELEASE - Aug 17 - JustAussies.com focuses on Australian singles and launches today. Its powered by White Label Dating and includes chat, dating diaries, and video profiles. Also, a “mature site” for members 40+ (www.JustAussies.com/Mature).

See full article at PR-Inside

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What Members Want from Online Dating

WLD - July 28 -  Online dating platform provider WhiteLabelDating.com releases member survey results. The results provide a snapshot of today’s dating market and what members would like to get out of the experience. Here are some highlights:

79% of members are looking for a serious relationship

37% consider profile description as the most important factor when deciding whether they should contact someone

52% of people prefer messages over winks

See the infographics

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iDate Interview: Ross Williams, CEO White Label Dating & Max McGuire, CEO RedHotPie

OPW - July 18 - I caught Ross and Max for a few minutes at iDate after we saw a presentation on background checks legislation. Here's what they had to say on the topic of background checks. - Mark Brooks

Listen to the interview

Mark: We have Ross Williams here from White Label Dating and Max who runs Red Hot Pie out of Australia. Gentlemen, we just saw a session on background checks. What is your opinion on how the industry should proceed with background checks?

Ross: The thing that absolutely spooks me is that there is no international body for online dating. The people who make the legislation have no one to talk to. There is no lobbying group. These people will make the legislation regardless.

So if we want to make sure the legislation works with the industry rather than against the industry there needs to be an association that can help lobby in the best interests of the industry and the best long-term interests of consumers.

Max: Even though the background checks are trying to be protective they lead people into a false sense of security. I think that's the real danger. I’m a big believer that people need to take responsibility of their own actions and their own safety and security.

Mark: In April, Match.com said within 90 days they were going to launch sex offender checks. So they are going to check against the National Sex Offender Registry. What do you think will be the effect on the industry when they do that?

Ross: There is no guarantee to the consumer of the safety of their database. It is a positive step, in certain ways.  But actually I think [background checks] even give a false sense of security, as Max says, because people lie. If I was in the Sex Offender Registry and I knew that Match checked that, would I use my details? Probably not. Would I use fake details with a prepaid MasterCard?  Probably yes.

So all it does is put people into hiding. I think the route we must all take within this industry is the education of consumers and providing a safe environment and good customer care and support. In the UK we offer a free phone support for our customers and so if they have questions they can speak to someone.

Mark: If Match is offering sex offender checks do you think sex offenders are going to drift to other dating sites?

Ross: They will go; anyone will go where there is the greatest opportunity. So it is far better to give people the education and teach them how to date in a safe way.

Mark: Max, you specialize in the sexy side of internet dating. What would your members in Australia feel about this?

Max: We haven’t had a criminal offense or an assault or sexual related charge. It's not an issue on our site.

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Australia Is WhiteLabelDating.com's Fastest Growing Market

OPW - June 24 - Currently, Australia is WhiteLabelDating.com’s fastest growing network for both new members and revenue. Over the last 3 months, basic members were up by 86%, with revenue increasing by 158%. Australia is currently a healthy market with good levels of online spending from consumers and online dating being a popular resource. According to IBISWordl the online dating industry in Australia made earnings of ~$100M in 2010.

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Kerrang! Radio Launches Dating Site on WhiteLabelDating.com Platform

WLD - June 21 - Kerrang! Radio has launched into the world of online dating with KerrangDating.co.uk, powered by WhiteLabelDating.com. KerrangDating.co.uk aims to provide their listeners with the perfect place to meet like-minded singles. Kerrang! has won many awards in its time, from Media Brand Of The Year to Station Of The Year, taking away 21 awards in its launch year alone.

See full article at WhiteLabelDating.com

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YouvePulled.com Launch Funny TV Campaign

WLD BLOG - June 10 - YouvePulled.com, UK dating site, has released their very first TV and viral ad campaign following central character Dave who tries to chat up a string of ladies in his local pub with varying levels of comic failure.

See full article at WLD Blog

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PlentyMoreFish.com Launch New TV Campaign

WLD - June 2 - WhiteLabelDating.com partner site PlentyMoreFish.com have continued their TV campaign, made by Nick Forshaw. This new campaign will be unleashed across a selection of Sky and comedy channels over the next two weeks.

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White Label Dating Partners With Vitality Publishing Ltd.

WLD BLOG - May 12 - Vitality Publishing has officially partnered with White Label Dating to provide online dating services to its readership. Vitality Publishing sells over 1 million magazines per month, while their websites receive over 1 million unique visitors per month. (Full Disclosure: WLD is a client of Courtland Brooks)

See full article at WLD Blog

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