Free Dating Service As Business Model
Have a look at the stats below.
Yes, everyone’s talking (and not only those who are in the dating niche) about Plenty of Fish and how Markus Frind makes tons of money with his free dating website. But he is not the only one using FREE as business model with dating. In the below list of some top internet properties we see some dating services that employ the same model (True, Mate1, MillionaireMate - partly):
|
Top 25 Companies by Sponsored Link Impressions, May 2008 |
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|
Company |
Sponsored Link Impressions, May 2008 (M) |
Sponsored Link Impressions, April 2008 (M) |
Change From Previous Month (%) |
|
eBay |
926.8 |
1,046.1 |
-11.4 |
|
InterActiveCorp |
687.2 |
755.0 |
-9.0 |
|
Internet Made Simple |
666.9 |
601.1 |
10.9 |
|
True |
616.6 |
1,790.3 |
-0.28 |
|
Yahoo |
561.8 |
1,124.1 |
-50.0 |
|
Pickamortgage |
442.8 |
614.7 |
-28.0 |
|
Wu Yi Source |
438.4 |
1,540.3 |
-71.5 |
|
Amazon.com |
388.2 |
467.0 |
-16.9 |
|
Target Corp. |
354.0 |
335.9 |
5.4 |
|
Experian Group Ltd. |
341.9 |
496.7 |
-31.2 |
|
driverTV |
337.6 |
0.0 |
N/A |
|
Fidelity Investments |
336.3 |
15.6 |
2,054.9 |
|
MillionaireMate.com |
326.3 |
1.4 |
23,291.6 |
|
Zencon Technologies LLC |
323.8 |
466.3 |
-30.6 |
|
Mate1.com |
318.8 |
116.6 |
173.4 |
|
NexTag Inc. |
300.8 |
431.5 |
-30.3 |
|
BizRate |
293.5 |
286.2 |
2.6 |
|
Shopzilla Inc. |
284.3 |
322.3 |
-11.8 |
|
Gigmasters.com Inc. |
275.6 |
16.6 |
1,563.9 |
|
Google |
251.3 |
275.4 |
-8.7 |
|
Smarter.com |
245.4 |
177.6 |
38.2 |
|
Time Warner |
231.2 |
809.0 |
-71.4 |
|
Money And Markets |
229.5 |
361.1 |
-36.4 |
|
FUZZ |
227.5 |
67.7 |
236.0 |
|
Esurance |
213.4 |
33.8 |
531.5 |
It is hard for me to say how those numbers are calculated and why we do not see the above mentioned Plenty of Fish if it is one of the most trafficked dating sites, but the stats source is reliable
Unlike Plenty of Fish, Mate1 and True.com run affiliate programs paying for each free subscriber that websites refer them. And they run their affiliate programs via a few affiliate networks – CJ, Azoogle, etc.
I remember Plenty of Fish attempt to test this source of attracting new users – their affiliate program was live with Azoogle for a few days and they promised to pay $1.00 for each new member referred, but then the program was suspended due to unknown reasons – probably the traffic quality was poor or something else - we can learn that only from Markus.
Also all mentioned dating services – Mate1, True, Plenty of Fish – heavily advertisee their services with top PPC engines. And it is not a cheap marketing channel (according to another reliable source):
|
Average Search CPC by Category, April and May, 2008 |
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|
Category |
CPC May ($) |
CPC April ($) |
Change (%) |
|
|
|
|
Total finance |
2.96 |
2.85 |
4 |
|
|
|
|
Mortgage |
3.15 |
2.86 |
10 |
|
|
|
|
Auto finance |
1.93 |
1.79 |
8 |
|
|
|
|
Insurance |
10.63 |
9.49 |
12 |
|
|
|
|
Travel |
0.74 |
0.76 |
-3 |
|
|
|
|
Automotive |
0.49 |
0.49 |
0 |
|
|
|
|
Retail |
0.45 |
0.40 |
12 |
|
|
|
|
Dating |
0.40 |
0.38 |
5 |
|
|
|
If free dating services can afford paying for free subscribers for years now it means that they do well collecting advertising dollars from someone else besides their members. Another question – is there any more space for new free dating services eager to enter the game? The story by OKCupid shows that it is likely not…