1. Date.com is displaying banner ads now for other dating sites.
2. Singlesnet.com is now displaying banner ads for other dating sites.
3. Singlesnet is now doing white labels.
4. Eharmony and true.com are flirting with ads as well, but not other dating sites.
5. Google is doing frequeny capping, if you aren’t in the beta beg… The difference is unbelievable.
Here is a question for everyone what are the best merchant accounts to use?
September 9, 2008 at 5:39 pm |
I’m curious about the merchant account also. It can be a pain dealing with some of these companies. I had my last one through Chase. They seemed alright, though provided no chargeback assistance. And what about gateways? Authorize.net? Verisign? PaymentTech? Any preference?
September 9, 2008 at 10:21 pm |
Look at the bank you use for your business, usually they have merchant accounts available and can provide good support for integration to your site.
Moneris has a decent system as well, if you are looking for low transactions I would recommend Google Checkout or PayPal Pro.
September 9, 2008 at 11:08 pm |
Best merchant accounts; not sure there is a straight answer to that. Has a lot to do with what requirements on your end are — volume & chargebacks (dating goes in the high risk category along with things like health products and adult.) There are a lot more details here, things that really aren’t discussed publicly. Seek out an expert or two.
September 10, 2008 at 2:12 pm |
Evenif you are high transactions – include PayPal and Google Checkout as an option. Costs you nothing to offer this, and many people prefer it.
September 11, 2008 at 9:09 pm |
Google swears this freq. capping beta does not exist.
It is enabled on your adwords account?
September 12, 2008 at 11:16 pm |
@Tob: He linked to a Google post talking about it.
September 13, 2008 at 3:29 pm |
[...] The Paradigm Shift says dating sites are undergoing Lots of Changes Lately. [...]
September 13, 2008 at 3:51 pm |
Try Litle – great rates, customer service, the whole nine yards.
September 13, 2008 at 4:35 pm |
@Simon: yes, google’s proposed new features. I’ve been asking my google rep for the beta, but no go “it doesn’t exist.. yet”.
September 13, 2008 at 6:06 pm |
Hey what happened to VC backed charter site Engage.com? From Quantcast I see it has been losing traffic for months, and have yet to charge a dime…. Last night the site closed down for good it seems…
September 14, 2008 at 6:59 am |
Markus — speaking of changes, are you ready for a challenge? A big paradigm shift that NO ONE in Internet Dating has every accomplished? Your site is the only one that even potentially comes close to accomplishing what I’m about to recommend, and I double-dog secret dare you to take this one. Ready? Here goes.
Make it possible to search for people based on advanced criteria so that the results themselves do a cross-check against the searcher’s characteristics, and thus do not show up in the search results. For example, let’s say you are 52, Jewish and 5′9″. You look at a list of women from 30-50, and might nor might not include other restrictions. Let’s say you only do the age and the Jewish. The normal results will be all women 30 to 50 of any height who are Jewish. But what if you could put a cross-check, so that any woman who had, say an age restriction of 31 to 51 would not show up in your list. A Catholic woman who only dates Catholics also will not show.
Of course, you can painfully find out the hard way when you attempt to write to someone, and THEN get the “Sorry this person doesn’t want to hear from you. Find someone else.” I don’t think these should be mandatory, just an opion — after all, some people think they are putting in guidelines, not making rules, although… they’re making rules!
Markus — I do not know of any dating sites that offer this service, which would save a TREMENDOUS amount of time. Why not be the first?
September 14, 2008 at 4:26 pm |
[...] The Paradigm Shift says dating sites are undergoing Lots of Changes Lately. [...]
September 15, 2008 at 8:49 am |
http://www.cardservice.com/ if I can recall correctly. i used this a couple of times. on any good merchant account provider, you can just send to the gateway using curl or whatever .net equivalent you like and get back a status code to work with. its easy to integrate for making your own stats, etc.
use paypal/google checkout as supplements and not total solutions. paypal can be pretty evil.
ach debit and “checking account” billing are ripe with fraud and will be more pain than pleasure.
txt message/sms billing might work for you too. if scammers can do it and make bank off of your site, why can’t you use it for “legit” purposes?
chargebacks will be low for you as most people won’t call up to complain about any kind of dating site/porn site/personals site charges because its often categorized as embarrassing. This holds true with a recurring billing model where many users could get billed over several years and hardly use the site/forget to cancel. The recurring model alone justifies most of the paid dating sites. its the bread and butter.
September 15, 2008 at 11:32 am |
How do i get into the adsense cap beta camp !?
September 15, 2008 at 3:21 pm |
Adsense frequency capping can be accomplished when you use Google Ad Manager.
September 15, 2008 at 3:22 pm |
[...] The Paradigm Shift says dating sites are undergoing Lots of Changes Lately. [...]
September 17, 2008 at 1:19 am |
Didn’t think Google where doing frequency capping?
September 17, 2008 at 10:05 am |
ahh im not using the ad manager..maybe i should migrate
October 5, 2008 at 9:19 am |
[...] The Paradigm Shift says dating sites are undergoing Lots of Changes Lately. [...]
October 24, 2008 at 3:23 am |
@Andrew:
1) POF makes $ because it’s visitors click adverts. Why do they click the ads? Because POF is not fulfilling their needs. After clicking through several pages of users and realizing the site sucks, users get sick of it and click an advert hoping to find a better site. So Markus makes $$ **because** POF is very simple/limited in features/functionality.
2) The more complex the query, the fewer your servers can make. Plus it’s better for POF if folks have to muddle through page after page of useless matches because it generates more page views. Markus likes to brag about page views..
October 28, 2008 at 5:15 pm |
Free Adult Friend Finder Gold Membership
http://free-aff-gold.blogspot.com/
November 14, 2008 at 9:38 am |
You was my inspirapions to build dating site
Now I created something new: http://www.usa-Furniture.com
December 4, 2008 at 9:07 am |
Evenif you are high transactions – include PayPal and Google Checkout as an option. Costs you nothing to offer this, and many people prefer it.
December 16, 2008 at 7:57 pm |
But what happened to VC backed chartermeble site Engage.com?
January 28, 2009 at 11:16 pm |
eHarmony: 1 billion served…
Sometime this morning (22 September), eHarmony is serving its one billionth match. eHarmony’s [ID=374]match ID[/ID] turns ten digits sometime between 12 midnight and 3 am PST today. That’s the number of pairings the system has made since …