Internet Dating Affiliates

Now Date.com Is Dead On Commission Junction

OPW - Dec 12 - Date.com went down, along with other Avalanche Media products Gk2gk and Matchmaker.com a few weeks back now. Date.com now forwards to Matchmaker and Gk2gk is live again. The word on the grapevine is internal strife and a legal suit. Hopefully they can sort it out. Date.com and Matchmaker are hallmark dating sites. The company has suffered for not having a good mobile offering of late. Now Commission Junction is down, according to one of their affiliates. The following letter was sent out.

Subject: Commission Junction Advertiser Date.com (X) has been deactivated

Dear Valued Publisher,
Please be aware that Date.com, one of the advertisers you are joined to in the Commission Junction network, has been deactivated. While Date.com is deactivated, you will not receive commissions for traffic you drive via the advertiser's banners, text links, and/or other link types. Consequently, please replace these links as soon as possible with links from active advertisers. To view the links you are using that are generating traffic for Date.com but from which you are earning no revenue, go to the Invalid Links Generating Traffic Report.

During the advertiser's deactivation, you will still remain affiliated with Date.com if and when the advertiser reactivates its affiliate marketing program with Commission Junction. Once reactivated, Date.com will appear in My Advertisers in the Account Manager. You will receive another email from Commission Junction alerting you to the advertiser's reactivation.

To view all of your affiliated advertisers who have been deactivated from the Commission Junction network, go to the Deactivated Advertisers Report.

If you have further questions regarding the status of Date.com, please contact your Commission Junction account representative or Client Support.

Best regards,
Commission Junction

From affiliates perspective, this really sucks! Affiliates put a lot of work into getting SEO rank. The good ones (like the one who sent me the heads up on this) deserve to have more notice and more respect than 'oops, now we're not payin' ya.' I guess it comes with the territory, but still, we can surely do better by affiliates. No wonder they're running for the igaming hills.

This post also appears on OnlinePersonalsWatch.

Avalanche Centralizes Its Affiliate Programs

PR WEB - Avalanche, the company which owns and operates 18 niche and general online dating sites, including Date.com, Matchmaker.com, and Amor.com, among others, now offers one centralized portal - OnlineDatingCash.com. "We currently receive 40% of our website traffic from affiliates, and consider them to be our most important media buying channel," said Meir Strahlberg, CEO of Avalanche, LLC. Online Dating Cash offers multiple options for affiliates including: CPA, CPL, and Rev-Share programs.

The full article was originally published at Virtual Strategy, but is no longer available.

Avalanche Selects Google Ad Manager

PR NEWSWIRE -- Sep 15 -- Avalanche, owner of Date.com, Matchmaker.com and Amor.com, has transitioned to Google Ad Manager(TM) as their online advertising management platform. The company currently utilizes Google Ad Manager for 100% of its ad serving needs across its three sites. FULL ARTICLE @ THE EARTH TIMES

See all posts on Date.com
See all posts on Matchmaker.com

Interview With Kris Covino And Meir Strahlberg, Date.com

DATING AD NETWORK BLOG -- Sep 10 --
Q: How old is your web site?
A: Date.com was started in 1997. Matchmaker.com which is also owned by the same company is actually the oldest online dating site. It was started as a BBS (Bulletin board system) in 1986. We recently launched a 3rd site, Amor.com.

Q: There is a lot of buzz going about 'viral marketing'. Have you used it and do you think it can be used for promoting dating sites?
A: About 20% of the business that we receive comes from friends or family of those people who have been successful on our site.

Q: Could you please tell about your affiliate program: why is it different from the others, acceptance criteria, do you offer white-labeling, how to apply, etc
A: We offer 3 types of programs for affiliates.

The first program and the one that most of our affiliates are a part of is our CPA (cost-per-action) program. We pay the affiliate when a subscription is purchased. We pay between $40 (USD) to $60. The second program is a CPL (cost-per-lead) program. This program pays for free leads sent to us. We pay between $2-6 per lead. Our third program is a Rev-Share program.

Q: What are the most important attributes for success in online dating business? Could you please list these factors in order from most significant to less?
A: 1) First I would say that you should be prepared to work hard and make sure you are enjoying the work you do.
2) Keep your cost low.
3) Study the competition and the market and try to understand what is missing for the consumer, try to solve this problem.
4) Try to find something that differentiates you from the competition.

Q: Is it possible to start an online dating business from a scratch today? What minimal starting capital would be required and what advise can you give to beginners?
A: Be prepared to spend millions of dollars if you are going to build an online dating business from scratch.

Q: How much do you spend monthly on advertising? What are the other costs?
A: We spend millions of dollars a year in advertising.

Q: How do you manage to fight scammers, do you have an automated process?
A: We do simple things like checking IP ranges, but we have developed a much more complex and proprietary system for identifying scammers.

The full article was originally published at Dating Ad Network Blog, but is no longer available.