Tips to date with confidence
Thousands of men and women enjoy the services of an online dating provider. Thankfully many end up in the “Happily Ever After” category, some the “No way“, and unfortunately, some in the “Tragic mistakes“. It is no secret that there are identity thief’s and sexual predators lurking on the Internet. Well, let them lurk. I’m going to give you some pointers on how NOT to become any body’s victim.
I first mentioned the Identity thief, why is this so important? Glad you ask. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released a report last year that stated in 2005, over 8.3 million Americans had their identity stolen. All it takes is your name, your Social Security Number, or date of birth for them to make your life miserable. Often the thief will sell your information to the highest bidder now many perpetrators can make your life miserable. Therefore, in your dating profile, do not put your real name (make up a catchy nickname) do not include any personal information such as your date of birth (including your “Sign“). Leave out your address (the state is O.K) or where you work. Beware of innocent leading questions such as, “I really want to know your birthday so I can send you a card or flowers.” Your personal information is no body’s business. Most (if not all ) of the dating provider web sites has a place to report abuse. Contact them if your feel you are being pressured to give out personal information.
If you decide to meet someone that you have been communicating with, arrange to meet him (or her) in a public place that you feel comfortable and safe being in. Always provide your own transportation to the date site. This puts you in charge of when you leave, and if this date is falling on the “NO WAY” category, this is a good thing. It goes without saying, do not get into this person’s vehicle or agree to go to their home until after you have gotten to know this person very well.
Tell a family member or a friend of the date arrangements (date, time, place). Ask them to call your cell (or send a text) 45 minuets to an hour after you are to meet this person. This is not only for safety reasons but can give you an excuse to end the date early if you so choose.
Getting a “pre-date” background check done before the date, just to make sure this person is not a criminal or a sexual predator, maybe a good idea. You can find dozens of “information vendor” sites on the Internet, but you must be careful, there are laws that apply to what you can and cannot access when checking into someones background. To avoid the tables being turned against you, I suggest using a licensed private investigator or a licensed background screening company. I will leave it to you to decide what techniques you use to get the information you need to do a “pre-date” check, but being honest is probably the best.
Gentlemen, while your guys probably will not fall victim to a sexual predator, you can have your identity stolen very easly if you are not careful. When ever possible use cash when paying for dinner or drinks( and no it is not a good idea for your to flash a wad of bills around to impress your date) If you must use a credit card, you hand it to the waiter, you sign the receipt, and you accept the approved copy for your records..don’t leave this priceless bit of information laying around for just anybody to copy. Remember a identity thief only needs one of the following: your date of birth, your name, or your social security number and your identity belongs to someone else.
Searching the internet to find someone who you can enjoy a relationship with is fun and exciting, and if you follow these easy steps and use your good common sence, you will have lots of excitement.
About the author:
Sandy is a retired police detective from the Metro-Atlanta area. She is not a licensed private investigator and owns her own agency that specializes in background checks for many occasions.
Dating Service Demographics Research
Who visits those dating sites? Who buys their services? I used to ask these questions browsing through thousands of profiles. It is not that easy to draw some common dating service persona profile.
But once you are a member of a few popular online dating services – you can give a try. Well, at that point I guess one does not need any research for an average online dating service visitor/ client profile. Or need it?
A rough sketch of an average dating service customer:
FEMALE AGED 30-45
MALE AGED 30-45
Female vs. male ratio: 60% vs. 40%.
There are some nice online tools that will help us to check it if I am right or wrong. Certainly, these are not 100% exact research results, but much better than nothing.
One can get idea who visits general dating services and who frequents religious or gay/ lesbian services. We will apply Quantcast & MSN AdLab Demographic Prediction tool. It is god to compare data that we will get from these tools – will they be similar? Let’s see.
I will check a number of services reviewed at this website and you can go on if you find this research interesting and, most importantly, useful:
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Dating Service |
Quantcast |
MSN AdLab Demographic Prediction |
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US traffic: 651.5K Males: 55% Females: 45% Popular Age Group: 35-49 |
Males: 56% Females: 44% Popular Age Group: 35-49 |
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US traffic: 7.8M Males: 57% Females: 43% Popular Age Group: 35-49 |
Males: 47% Females: 53% Popular Age Group: 35-49 |
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US traffic: 302.9K Males: 43% Females: 57% Popular Age Group: 35-49 |
Males: 40% Females: 60% Popular Age Group: 35-49 |
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US traffic: 657.2K Males: 47% Females: 53% Popular Age Group: 35-49 |
Males: 43% Females: 57% Popular Age Group: 35-49 |
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US traffic: 550.0K Males: 41% Females: 59% Popular Age Group: 35-49 |
Males: 35% Females: 65% Popular Age Group: 35-49 |
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US traffic: 7.5M Males: 45% Females: 55% Popular Age Group: 35-49 |
Males: 44% Females: 56% Popular Age Group: 35-49 |
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US traffic: 998.0K Males: 82% Females: 18% Popular Age Group: 35-49 |
Males: 86% Females: 14% Popular Age Group: 35-49 |
Well, I was quite right about age, but mistaken about male vs. female ratio in certain cases. And it is a surprise that some dating services (see AmericanSingles) can boast of large male customer bases (I do not speak of Gay.com)
Another surprise – most data that come from two tools are nearly identical – and we can accept this as a sign that these tools are reliable sources for research and competitive intelligence.
You can certainly use these tools for much deeper research – for examining dating services or other sites. Quantcast provides heaps of valuable data to analyze:
- Traffic
- Demographic
- Business
- Lifestyle
- Geographic
Nice charts, cool interface and all FREE. I really enjoy this service and I think you will find it useful also.
Most Generous Dating Affiliate Programs
In the recent post we listed online techniques dating services can and do apply to drive traffic to their sites.
We discussed PPC advertising in detail. To be exact, we have tried to spy on the budgets top dating services spend for AdWords pay-per-click engine. Certainly, not 100% exact, but good enough to get some competitive intelligence.
If you go through the list of the online marketing techniques popular with matchmaking services you will run into affiliate programs. No doubt it is a powerful way to get traffic to your dating service. I am not sure what traffic % comes through affiliates, but I am sure that it is a considerable % of the total traffic top dating services get. Make some online research for competitive dating keywords and see lists of sites that are signed with lots of dating services.
Another proof that dating services benefit greatly from affiliate programs is a great number of those affiliate programs. One dating service can run it in-house and at the same time recruit affiliates through 3-10 affiliate networks offering slightly different terms through each network.
Dating services have a few affiliate program types for paying their affiliates:
- payment for each free subscriber (in the range of $1-5.00 for each free registration)
- payment for each paid client (in the range of $10-100.00 for each paid subscriber)
What are the most generous dating services paying highest fees to their affiliates? It is hard to say – most top performing affiliates get private deals with the services and their rates can go up to 30% .
Nevertheless, we will look through the payout structure for a number of a few dating services to get a better idea why dating industry is so competitive not just for dating services, but also for their affiliates:
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Dating Service |
Affiliate Commission Payout |
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Up to $120 per sale $0.25 for every lead |
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$3.75 for every lead |
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Up to $50 per sale |
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Up to $188.50 per sale |
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Up to $100 per sale |
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Up to $102 per sale |
I have copied the above numbers from my affiliate account – we are signed with ALL reviewed services on this website. Impressed with the payout size? And it is just the tip of an iceberg.
It is not easy to get paid customers now – with that amount of free dating services and social networks, it was easier a few years back: browse lots of dating sites (dating tips, dating services reviews, etc) out there - they are no more updated for 1-2 years, I assure you that this is due to the decrease of paid subscribers.
But you see those numbers and they help just to grasp the scale of online dating industry and the money that circulate out there.
It also becomes evident that it is hard for new players to enter online dating industry – even for free services with creative thinking. Those top dating services have an enormous team of affiliates who push their sites to get some commission driving traffic, referring free and paid subscribers, building dating service brand awareness.