Dating: Running Direct, White Label, CPS, Etc. Questions (49)

Figured I'd start a new thread for questions on running direct, white label, CPS, etc. with dating offers.

Currently running with Aff networks is my best option and i'll still continue to do so, as net 15 payouts make cashflow management more difficult plus the added protection of running with a good network is something I like to have. But I'm wanting to explore other options to see what I could be missing out on.

If anybody here has experience with running direct with Cupid or any other major dating offers feel free to chime in.

What models typically work best for you? Pay per sale? Lead? Percentage? I currently run a mix of both INTL and US offers and i'm considering what might be a better option.

With lead based do you notice higher conversion rates and less scrub?

I've run direct with Cupid and a few others. Biggest downside: Net 30 or worse. Biggest upside: higher payouts. Cupid (Be Naughty, etc.) pays out super high, like $80+ on international, and they have good conversion rates. I ran some old-school ones like Date.com that pay out $60 per paid user. I know Cupid offers different payout structures based on the quality of your traffic. If it converts free-to-paid above a certain percentage, you can opt for per-lead CPA or per sale plus a bonus per lead. If you have a lower % of paid signups, you can still make bank from their higher payouts even though you aren't getting paid for free signups. In my experience, some sites are much better than others at converting free signups to paid users. Cupid's autoresponders and upsells are damn persistent. Other sites are crappy and outdated and once people see the members they run away.

For white label, I'd say it's really important to get a good match between their user database and the demo you're targeting. If you're looking to break into less saturated international markets, there probably aren't many members there, and people aren't going to be enticed to pay or keep their membership for more than a month.

The beauty of white label sites is that you can run them on pretty much any traffic source. Facebook doesn't like BeNaughty...? Well how about using a white-label Cupid site that shares the same user database, and call it ReallyGoodSiteforFBUsers.com...? Or something like that

Another interesting idea with white label sites is that you can target a much more specific niche: for example, something like www.nysingledads.com. Dial in the demo targeting on POF and you should expect a lot of interest. Unfortunately, when they do member searches and see that 99% of the profiles are for people that don't live in NY and aren't single dads, they will be turned off. But the cost of putting a site together is $0, takes about 10 minutes, and you could test a whole bunch of niches quickly. I tried doing a divorced site and it was a flop.

I tried doing a site in 1 country and the free to paid conversion rate was like 2%. Tried a similar site in a different country and it was 8-10%. Hmmm.

great info.. One of the countries I have a hot campaign in right now doesn't have any good offers live at the moment and the payouts are just to low to make it work. So i'm looking at what i can get per sale and if enough people will actually convert to make it worth my while and the net 30 payment. A lot of that conversion to paid falls on the advertiser as opposed to me doing my own offer/site.

Yeah, that's something you really just have to test, because different campaigns with the same advertiser will convert wildly different on paid conversions, as I mentioned. And some advertisers are vastly better at upselling.

There are also some dating sites that don't do CPL at all, but since it's all CPS they don't care what country your traffic is from. So that opens up a lot of possibilities too.

I think my plan will be to run the different models for each camp and just split test them out. Can you do this on 1 account or do you need to have a separate account with a separate pay schedule?

Based on your traffic, I'm pretty sure they eventually switch you to whatever pays you the most but backs out for them. So you can start with any of them and they will likely optimize you. Just ask the program manager over there: Sergey Samusev, AIM: Samusevserg

thanks bro got a reply from one of the AM's there following up with him on details.

Cool. Keep us posted on your progress/success! Good luck.

Time to bump this topic.

In last days I have generated few hundred registrations to my websites built on whitelabeldating.com and Cupid plc white label platform. I started with one general and few niche websites. It was a mix of female and male traffic, 20-40 from US and UK, 100% from POF. Results to date?

WhiteLabelDating.com - 180 basic users registered at the end of March, 2 of them upgraded to premium (one upgrade for 12 months and another one for 2 months)
Cupid plc - 170 basic users registered in last few days, one upgrade - trial for 3 days (don't know if he will cancel before rebill because its still in trial period)

At this moment conversion rate is very bad on both platforms. I will send more traffic and maybe test more niches/websites but if CR will stay at this level I will be in a big red. I heard that new users usually upgrade in the first 7 days after registration and termination rate is around 60%-80% generally.

What do you think? Any info from people that has experience with these platforms will be great!

Anyone here still using whitelabeldating.com or Cupid plc?

I still have a site on the Cupid platform, but I haven't marketed it in at least 9 months. Oddly enough, after I stopped buying traffic to it, it continued getting a lot of signups, and was making me a few $K / month despite not doing a damn thing. But the strangest was that I was getting about 50% chargebacks and refunds. Insane. My account manager and I weren't able to figure out what was going on, and it's pretty much dwindled to zero at this point. Could be some sort of scam going on, but who knows...

Been running direct with Cupid PLC and yes I am very satisfied with them. Besides the high payout, they are paying me net7 too. Like Martin (mcgrunin) said before, if you want to be paid fast, you have to be their "assets", eg. Driving volume + quality leads.

I don't do white label dating sites so I can't give any comment on that, but yeah, running direct can be good too. Just make sure that you're running with a reputable dating company.

And Brian, I agree with you that cupid's upsell is damn good and their conversion rate has been really stable too.

Be2 is another excellent site to run direct with. The accounting team isn't the greatest for getting invoices paid on time, but the offers are top notch. Huge diversity of countries to choose from, as well as access to their C-Date offers...

They also offer bonuses for sales (in some countries), as well as lead payouts that trump any network. Definitely recommended.

I was running the Be2 offers through CJ, where you'll get an account manager direct at Be2. If you run enough volume, they'll be happy to invite you over to run directly with them.

Don't think there's anywhere to sign up directly though.

Originally Posted by Finch

Huge diversity of countries to choose from, as well as access to their C-Date offers...

Whether its a pet per lead or pay per sale at the end of the day the advertiser wants to back it into an effective
Acquisition cost per user. Ask whoever you are working with to get your individual traffic priced correctly based on your back end metrics. You may be surprised how much more payut is available

Originally Posted by lixor

can you tell me if they have romania too. thanks

Running revshare is not always the best option IMO, just beware that through these there is only 1 person winning: the dating merchant.

Originally Posted by Ryan Eagle

Running revshare is not always the best option IMO, just beware that through these there is only 1 person winning: the dating merchant.

Prob that ratio is not normal , but I know for sure that 25+ traffic converts much much better into sales.

Originally Posted by sqallpl

Do you mean whole revshare idea (white labels, lifetime revshare) or maybe only first time payment rev share like with Cupid affiliate network?

-----

Little update about my website based on whitelabeldating.com and one funny thing:
I have 78 males (18-35 year old) and only one of them upgraded to premium. On the same website I have only 4 males (36-40 year old) and 3 of them upgraded to premium. Looks like a fluke but I will target older audience in the next batch.

Do you think that this kind of difference in conversion rate (from basic to paid member) is typical when we compare 18-30 traffic vs 30+?

Originally Posted by brianb

I still have a site on the Cupid platform, but I haven't marketed it in at least 9 months. Oddly enough, after I stopped buying traffic to it, it continued getting a lot of signups, and was making me a few $K / month

^^^ No, that was the odd thing. The rate of chargebacks and refunds was alarmingly high from the beginning, so despite it begin slightly profitable when I was sending PPC traffic to it, I didn't want to keep pumping money into something that seemed fundamentally flawed and could possible cost me money down the road (the chargebacks/refunds can appear at any point in the future). It was only when I stopped spending any money on it that all the revenue became profit. Which I was happy to accept, but I wasn't going to invest in something totally unpredictable like that.

just signed up yesterday... been running dating for a few years.

I recently setup 4 sites on whitelabeldating.com with mixed success (UK, South Africa, AU, and US). It is a pain to track too.

I promote the UK one and it does convert at around 8-10% from free signup to actual sale on facebook traffic (users age 40+). POF traffic is tougher for me on this site - the free signups are cake but they are not backing out. Lifetime value is $50 for a paid member (so $100 since WLD keeps 50%)

The told me to talk to them once I do around $20k a month in revenue for a possible bump.

I also know their in house niche sites convert very well (they told me justsingleparents.com converts 15%+ free to paid).

Anyone have experience with whitelabeldating.com? Anyone negotiate a higher rev share? Anyone talk to them at that dating conference in Spain last month? Anyone want to discuss their platform more?

@newjersey

At the end of March I have collected about 200 leads to my UK website on whitelabeldating.com. All traffic from POF. At this moment my free to paid ratio is 2.50%. It's a general dating website (no niche branding inside) but I was gathering my leads with angled ads and niche landers. It was probably the biggest mistake but I wanted to do something like general initial test. Next time I will create specific niche sites with 'niche branding'. Another big mistake that I have made was targeting too young audience. Most of my leads are from 18-30 traffic when most of paid users are 35+. I don't have a lot of data so its not too accurate (78 male leads from ages 18-30 and only 1 upgrade, 4 male leads from ages 36+ and 3 upgrades).

Originally Posted by sqallpl

Nice CR. Is your ROI positive with this one? CPL is not that cheap with this age on FB probably?

Can you tell me what is your CR from free to paid with POF traffic please? I'm very curious.

I was sure that most of the users would choose one month subscription but its spitted between all of the plans in my case. Can you tell me how it looks with your traffic?

More info - ugh - Recently (last week) I sent 100 male leads from POF and not one of them has converted. All males aged 55-66 in the UK. Maybe i should have filtered out low income and tweaked the landing page to not say FREE anywhere (it said "FREE to signup" or something like that)? After 100 leads i paused the campaign.

I am repeating now with female leads age 55-66 to see how it works.

@newjersey

Thanks a lot!

Do you see a lot of conversions to paid from younger traffic like -30? Or maybe you didn't have too much leads in this age bracket?

I'm achieving like 25% CR (sign-ups) on my landers with POF traffic. I achieved 30%+ with some of Cupid whitelabel landers. Can you tell me something about your sign up rates/CR on landers?

I don't do any traffic under 40 at the moment to WLD sites. How do you compare WLD to cupid with regard to free to paid conversions? I talked to them at ASW but the sales guy smelled like bad cologne and was creepy.

Yes i see members converting after 7 days but the majority seem to be within 1-5 days.

Sent in about 20 free female signups from POF (UK females age 55-66) and 1 converted so far. If another converts it will be a positive ROI campaign.

Here is an example of pain in the ass tracking.. i am trying to use WLDs campaign tracking which seemed to work fine, however, about half the leads aren't being attributed to the POF campaign itself, they just show up with no campaign ID. Other than maybe 5 leads coming from organic traffic, somehow about 50 leads out of 100 were not attributed to the POF campaign.

Additionally, WLD is unable to fire a conversion pixel when there is a sale, only a free signup. This makes tracking a pain.

Hey brian and newjersey! Thanks for the share. Did you guys use pre-designed templates or customized?

Originally Posted by newjersey

Here is an example of pain in the ass tracking.. i am trying to use WLDs campaign tracking which seemed to work fine, however, about half the leads aren't being attributed to the POF campaign itself, they just show up with no campaign ID. Other than maybe 5 leads coming from organic traffic, somehow about 50 leads out of 100 were not attributed to the POF campaign.

Additionally, WLD is unable to fire a conversion pixel when there is a sale, only a free signup. This makes tracking a pain.

yourwebsite.com/?utm_source=pof&utm_campaign=campaign1&utm_term=lander1

i think i have it setup correctly, as it tracked half the leads. Oh well.

Do you use 202 along with their tracking? I setup google analytics ecommerce tracking and use the WLD tracking (and pof conversion tracking), but not 202 at this time, as it seemed like overkill.

I really need to scale this thing up and get the higher rev share, then try to take on affiliates on a CPA basis.

I'm using CPVLab (not for conversions in this case, just splitting the landers), standard google analytics and WLD tracking. If you lost about 50% of your leads in WLD tracking there must be something to improve.

Originally Posted by newjersey

More info - ugh - Recently (last week) I sent 100 male leads from POF and not one of them has converted. All males aged 55-66 in the UK.

Originally Posted by newjersey

Additionally, WLD is unable to fire a conversion pixel when there is a sale, only a free signup. This makes tracking a pain.

Originally Posted by newjersey

Initial sales data
55% 1 month
16% 3 months
20% 6 months
7% 1 year
2% something else, like a promo signup for 1 pound

Originally Posted by Finch

I was running the Be2 offers through CJ,

^^^

Originally Posted by pokersensei

Hey brian and newjersey! Thanks for the share. Did you guys use pre-designed templates or customized?

why that age group? i focus on 40+ only at the moment because it is the fastest growing demographic for getting online, and they have the most money.

Not concerned with shaving, they offer alternative ways to track ecommerce using google analytics. I assume there is no demand from their larger partners to implement an additional method.

I don't have the rebill stats readily available, just lifetime value.

Also, for a WLD site, there are no pre-designed templates available, you have to provide it (except for the mobile lander which you can use their landing page, or create your own)

Does anyone know where to get a hold of some dating offers that actually pay you a percentage of the Recurring amount for the lifetime of their subscriber? Do any of these white label options offer such a program? (Cupid PLC, Whitelabeldating); Are there any more dating related services that have the option to whitelabel their service?
Thanks,

Perhaps this should be its own post but I feel it is directly related to the subject of whitelabeling.

Originally Posted by bangkokbaby

Is this a rebill offer? If so, do you have the stats of how many months people stay on average, eg the guys signing up for a month, how long do they stay on?

I'm not running dating whitelabel, but always interested in rebill stats for benchmarking..

Originally Posted by rockstar john

Does anyone know where to get a hold of some dating offers that actually pay you a percentage of the Recurring amount for the lifetime of their subscriber? Do any of these white label options offer such a program? (Cupid PLC, Whitelabeldating); Are there any more dating related services that have the option to whitelabel their service?

I am running direct with Anastasia Affiliate. Any thoughts on them?

Originally Posted by sqallpl

termination rate for UK non-adult was about 25% at the end of 2011

Originally Posted by bangkokbaby

Meaning they lost a quarter of their members, I'm assuming per month?

Not sure if many of you are running whitelabeldating.com sites, but i just received this interesting information from my account manager:

"We are currently actively advising partners to remove FB connect from landing pages as we have seen that members who registers via FB connect convert at 50% lower than users who registered via the expandable registration form."

They did not offer any way for partners to report where the signup came from, so i had no idea this could have been the cause of my terrible conversion rate over the last 30 days.

Any other dating landing pages use FB connect to signup members with 1 click?

Originally Posted by newjersey

Any other dating landing pages use FB connect to signup members with 1 click?

I removed my FB connect signup from the page and am testing with another 100 male and 100 female leads.. been throwing alot of non converting POF traffic at my site with abysmal results.

Here is an interesting thing i found - if you do a bing search for WLD's ip, you can see their 22k dating sites - http://www.bing.com/search?q=ip%3A94.236.59.22 - its interesting to see the wide variety of sites they host, and i know alot of people are throwing up big numbers with these sites, but most are probably crap.

Awesome thread. Any updates?

I took a look at this, datingfactory, got the income figures from them, i was specifically interested in value per registration, which is not very high, maybe around $4 and way worse for the less competitive countries. So yeah nice big reg fee for those that register but if your value per registration average is $4 then your obviously better off promoting higher cpa offer, unless your want to build an asset or something.

Originally Posted by jarad12

I took a look at this, datingfactory, got the income figures from them, i was specifically interested in value per registration, which is not very high, maybe around $4 and way worse for the less competitive countries. So yeah nice big reg fee for those that register but if your value per registration average is $4 then your obviously better off promoting higher cpa offer, unless your want to build an asset or something.