The Dating Game
By: Alexandra Wharton
Making a match can lead to big bucks if you know the rules of affiliate courtship.
Although Blake Killian is a Christian and believes there are benefits to Christian dating, he is forthright that the motivation behind his two websites, ChristianDatesOnline.com and Christian-dating.com, was purely financial.
It was the serendipitous result of some research of online dating keywords he was doing for his day job as an Internet marketer at Voodoo Ventures. Killian noticed that the search volumes for Christian dating keywords were really high but the bids were affordable. So, in March 2005, after committing himself to stop if he was losing money, he put together a website that reviews online dating sites and includes affiliate links on it. Initially he spent 20 to 30 hours per week. Now, a year later, he works on his sites about five to 10 hours a week and the monthly net profit is only $100 short of paying his entire mortgage payment every month.
"I knew there was money to be made. It has taken a lot of hard work since March but now the site is rolling. I love my job," the 24-year-old New Orleans resident says. Is he experiencing beginner's luck or is there still money to be made in online dating?
Super-affiliate-turned-author Rosalind Gardner, who famously made $436,797 in one year as an affiliate for online dating services (Sage-Hearts.com), started back in 1999 and continues to do extremely well. She says that although the current environment for starting an online dating site is "pretty complex," nearly anyone can be making money today if you're using Google AdWords. "There are still keywords and keyword phrases out there that people haven't picked up on yet," she says.
Even though online dating is vast - according to Publishers Association/comScore Networks, it represents the second- largest category of paid content online after music and video downloads - the boom years appear to be over.
In a JupiterResearch 2006 survey of 2,000 consumers online, the percentage of online users who visited dating sites in the last 12 months grew slightly from 2005 to 2006, while the percentage that posted online personal ads and subscribed to dating sites fell marginally during the same period.
A 2005 JupiterResearch report predicted that the industry would grow 9 percent to $516 million in 2005, down from 19 percent growth in 2004 and 77 percent in 2003. According to eMarketer, the overall market is often pegged at over $1 billion if ad revenue for the free portion of online dating sites is included.
Most experts agree that this decrease is just the beginning of a cooling of the market as opposed to precipitating a larger drop. Nate Elliott, an analyst for JupiterResearch, says, "We see continued growth for the next five years but it is plateauing - the rate at which consumers are subscribing to dating services online is flat. As a result the revenue growth is not going to be as high as it was." James Belcher, an analyst for eMarketer, says, "I don't see things shrinking in aggregate."
Most experts agree the market is mature and headed for consolidation.
"I think there will be fewer sites. There will be some consolidation - you won't have 15 versions of JDate.com. I think some of them will merge or fade away," Belcher says.
"The market is saturated; you have all of the online dating sites you're ever going to need," notes Elliott.
One area that is thriving is "adult" dating sites - such as AdultFriendFinder, IWantU.com and SexSearch.com. According to Nielsen//NetRatings, traffic to AdultFriendFinder, the most visited adult dating site, rose 67 percent in January from a year earlier. Prices for these sites are comparable to traditional dating sites - most are in the $20 to $30 range.
Options for Increasing Revenue
For years, online dating sites relied upon significant growth in unique visitors to drive revenue. Nowadays, JupiterResearch's Elliott believes that revenue growth is being driven by higher monthly rates rather than increased membership. Due to the slowdown in unique visitors, dating sites are faced with either improving their conversion rates or increasing the value of each customer.
Sites need to convert more visitors to paid subscribers to keep revenue growing. A 2006 JupiterResearch report found that only one-third of those who go to dating sites sign up for membership. This is the first time JupiterResearch has seen a drop in conversion rates since it began tracking the space in 2003.
Another way for sites to develop revenue is to increase the value of each member - sites are charging higher monthly subscription costs and are encouraging subscribers to maintain their memberships for long periods of time. Yahoo! Personals recently raised its one-month subscription price by 25 percent, and its six-month subscription price by 50 percent. Many of the more expensive sites justify their price by offering advanced services such as privacy enhancements, personality tests and security checks.
Increased prices, however, even those for premium features, seem to be backfiring. "Rising prices have kept a large number of users from converting to paid subscribers … 37 percent of visitors who don't convert say dating sites cost too much, making it their leading complaint," explains the 2006 JupiterResearch report.
Another challenge the online industry is facing is a high level of dissatisfaction among users. Thirty-five percent of online daters were somewhat dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the sites and only 29 percent were somewhat satisfied or very satisfied, according to a 2005 JupiterResearch report.
A 2005 Keynote Customer Experience benchmarking study found that the most common frustration reported by customers stemmed from a lack of trust or comfort in other members. Sixty-one percent of customers are concerned that other members are misrepresenting themselves and as many as one in three express a lack of trust in other members.
Looking for Love
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are 33 million U.S. adult singles that are online and open to pursuing a relationship. Dave Evans, who blogs about the online dating industry at Online Dating Insider, says he believes the number is close to two in five online singles who have tried online dating.
Not everyone is so bullish.
"Everyone who has wanted to do online dating has tried it," eMarketer's Belcher says.
However, JupiterResearch reports that only 5 percent of consumers online currently pay for an online dating service - down from 6 percent in 2004.
More than 34 million people visited the top five online dating sites in December 2005 alone. Evans claims the 80/20 rule applies. "The top five sites get 80 percent of the traffic. The remaining 20 percent is split up among the thousands of dating sites out there," he says.
A January 2006 study by comScore MediaMetrix found the top five online dating sites were: Yahoo! Personals, Match.com sites (including Chemistry), Spark Networks (which owns AmericanSingles, JDate, ChristianMingle, etc.), True and Mate1. Continued on Page 2...
Tags:
dating, match, social networking, love,
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