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Much ado about Alexa rankings lately. It’s time to take a hard look at developing an industry standard for ranking dating sites. This is a first pass, hopefully it can be refined over time with feedback and turn out to be something helpful to the industry, advertisers and consumers.
The dating industry, and one could argue that website in general, need a ranking system that is resilient enough to react to changing traffic inflation tactics like spyware, toolbars, link farms and other more uncommon methods on the horizon.
One that takes into consideration the myriad sites out there, paid, free, inexpensive, credit-based, subscription based. Long duration members vs. short, high value vs. low. Getting nookie vs. getting married.
A question to you then. What are the metrics you would use to develop a ranking system that fairly and accurately represents the entire online dating industry?
Some example metrics:
# visitors
# members
# paying members (customers)
% conversion rate
membership duration
customer satisfaction
customer success
Before deciding on the metrics, we need to think about the overall goals of a ranking system. Why is a dating site’s Alexa, Comscore or Hitwise rank so important?
An Excel spreadsheet from your CFO and another from the membership director can give you a good look into how your company is doing. Does it really matter if a competitor has N number more profiles than you do?
As long as you’re making money and growing your business and delivering what the customer expects, what’s the big deal? Consumers most certainly don’t judge their decision solely on traffic ranking. They don’t say, “this site is free, but it’s large and I like the ads, so I’m going to join it.” They watch tv, listen to radio ads, surf the Interweb and ask their friends for advice.
If the industry is infatuated with traffic rank, to what ends?
Pre-money valuation?
Preparing to sell your membership list?
Advertising?
Marketing?
Sale of company?
More eyeballs = more ad dollars. However, more members does not necessarily mean better customer experience.
Small niche site with high-value members = more ad dollars.
How would Userplane’s ad network value different sites? If I understand correctly, at the moment it’s a run-of-network deal, in the future it will be more targeted, at least one would hope.
As an advertiser, things are shifting. I used to think I wanted 50,000 eyeballs. What I really want are the 500 that matter most, that are ready to buy. The high-value eyeballs.
Free sites are made up of relatively low-value members. They are not so serious about dating, mostly giving it a try. Arguable point, yes. Let’s have at it. Free dating sites rely on advertising, it’s all about the eyeballs. Free sites like Plentyoffish and WebDate make decent money off of advertising, at least that is what I am led to believe.
What about geographic ranking? 500,000 members. Whatever. How many are in my aggregated zip code area? Dating sites would never publish this kind of information, it’s too transparent. Consumers would love it. The old “N number of people online” is only useful if you have chat, otherwise who cares if/when people are visiting the site?
Mid-priced subscription-based sites are geared more towards serious daters, although a good portion are casual daters.
Some subscription-based sites try to undercut the competition on price. This hardly ever works. They end up with low-value members. A certain slice of the online dating demographic use price as a filter. Not enough sites leverage this. Price point is a metric as well. Value-per-dollar would be an interesting way to measure a site, but too much trouble to figure out.
If Site A charges $9.95 per month and has 500,000 member and Site B charges $24.95 and has 34,000, which site should be ranked higher? It’s a quality vs. quantity argument.
How do you define satisfaction or success? Success for the dating site company is rarely aligned with the goals of it’s members. Customer satisfaction is not something we hear about often enough in the industry.
If you’re a top 10 site, your popularity is based on the total amount of active profiles and paying members and customer satisfaction. [Insert discussion about definition of active profiles.]
More members tends to attract more members.
High quality members bring additional high-quality members.
Define high-quality members. 450,000 free members means absolutely nothing to an advertiser, it’s just a number, and they have no way of judging it past what you tell them about your membership demographics. You’re never honest with them anyway, because you would never get their money if you were, and they know that.
Is a dating site “better” because people vote with their wallets and stick around longer?
“I’ve been on this dating site for 6 months and I can’t find anyone decent.”
You have extended the lifetime of the customer, yet have failed to satisfy their objective. The promise has been broken, unwritten or not. And your site gets the reward of getting ranked higher than a site that does it’s job faster and more efficiently.
Is a higher-percentage of long term customers a good or a bad thing?
One would think from a consumer perspective that high churn rate is a good thing.
Do you think people actually enjoy the online dating experience? That number is probably a lot lower that we would like to think.
How can a dating site improve the experience for members and extend the duration of the membership? What metrics can we use to gauge how effective a dating site is? Relying on # of marriages is one way to look at it, but not the only way.
There’s a lot more to this discussion, like I said, this is a starting point. I’m interested to hear your thoughts. Maybe I’m way off on this, maybe all the industry need is Alexa and Hitwise, why air the dirty laundry or bother self-policing or becoming more transparent when things are going along just fine as they are?
Technorati Tags: alexa
{ 5 comments }
Reach Rank… THis number represents unique visitors with a spyware/popup filter applied. If you look at your traffic you can find out what kind of multipul is being used. ie Alexa number *multipul = unique visitors per day.
The second number pageviews per users represents pageviews per unique visitor. A very low number here would suggest a ton of advertising and the members never stay around. You could even argue the lower the number the less money the site makes. I would suspect an alexa ranking of lower then 4-5 means the dating site is unprofitable.
Ranking.websearch.com does the exact same thing, and both alexa.com and ranking.websearch combine pageviews per user and unique visitors a day to get a accurate rank.
To see how flawed ranking by visitors alone is you need only look at ranking of mate1.com, webdate.com, tickle and true.com etc on hitwise. Hitwise ranks sites based ONLY on visitors per day. Sites like webdate generate 10’s of thousands of hits a day via spyware. These users never use the site, and most likely just close the window out of annoyance. Webdate got nailed by a spam filter and went from #5 to #20. Yet other sites use similar tatics but because its more “traditional” advertising its ok.
If hitwise were to include average time spent on site, pageviews and visitors then sites like mate1.com wouldn’t even qualify for the top 50 let alone the top 15.
WOW ! you raised SO many interesteing questions;
why do people think that more is better [ ref.. more profiles, hence better} - well.I guess people are like sheep.. looking for a moses : we have two mindsets going on:
A. If u are so smart, why arent you rich [ translation: those who dont have gazillions of members must be loosers] - dont even ask..
B. That cosy comfort feeling : that says : U did the right thing Joe, Jack and Maria are using the same… as u r ..[tranlation: testimonials]
Why do companies resort to free this and free that.. undercutting - competing on price : well.. afterall they are operating in an area where barriers to entry and of exit are low, where there is no asset specificty. Hold up costs are also low [ sorry for bringing MBA jargon in a cotton n candy - laced -lounge topic] - the only thing that can diffrentiate them from the rest of the pack: ! u guessed it : a tag line that says ” millions have put their trust in us.. ”
The truth is : dating sites have gone too far .. they are all the same,. no matter what they claim..
its time for innovation.. well..innovation in the DATING industry !~ sounds like a cartoon from dilbert !
You are really nailing the issues :)
all this stuf about video chatting etc.. well.. this mad scramble to get the latest bells and whistles : is it really gonna make the customer experience better?? Dont know.. but I wonder how many people would say :
“Hey Jack.. its time to dress up.. I got a video chat in my schedule ” I would guess.. most people would prefer to be in their PJs :) Remember AT&T and their costly ” video phone ” - that never took off..
its time for Value innovation ; cutting costs to the consumer — well.. is only the minus side of the euqation - the other part of the value creation.. how about the top : the B part : the benefit ie..?? Its time someone comes up with a better B [ B = benefit, Value created = B - C; C=costs incurred to obtain the Utility]
Unless these dating companies create value, unless they have a real competitive advantage ; I think, customers will keep on swtiching from one provider to the other - hoping against hope..
my 2 cents
ajay
PS: I really am enjoying reading your - I guess they are called blogs - while enjoying the onset of monsoons in India ! I have a cartoon.. can I send it to you?? well I have a bunch of them. that I created.. :)
well, ever heard of MBA rankings, its a bigger business than most people on the main street would know of..
well, drum rolls, HBS - your friendly neighborhood Harvard b school dave , guess what its ranking is in the, hold your breath dave, respected WSJ? try it … and be prepared to SCROLL !
ajay
ps: ever tried ranking consultants :) or bankers? Mike, forgot his name, that side kick of papaya kissed honeyscukle dipped marha, was in jail, last I heard? or did he get a bail? well.. do we factor is AFTER SALES data or metric [ dont flame me dave, YOUR point, if you look deeper than the words ] in those highly held rankings?
dave asks: what metrics should be used to make rating s OF web sites more effective - especially in the context of dating..
How about the following two questions:
A. Can there b a JD power and associates equivalent of the datinG SITES
B. would they work? free or paid [ remember even when free, there is time involved, some dont have a lot of it]
the second one is easier, as it is analytical, the first one smells, prescriptive or is predictive apropos given the context?
First the second one?
Ever thought of checking the consumer reports for wheat? how about bulbs? lets try checking for the ratings of a newspaper or cement? hmmm.. bizaare you would say.. and well, thats precisely the point.. its bizarre to check for ratings for products or services where one or more of the following exist:
1. low or minimal trial costs
2. low stwiching costs
3. no network externality { i cant believe you didnt choose laffarge cement in your basement]
4. low ticket item
there are more.. but the list does it.. for now..
so there goes the case out of the window..
well how about the first one: CAN there exist an objective rating system for dating sites.. hmmm…. interresting thought, but lets see, as dave also says and I think he does [ well, he says he does] check with the customers about their sucess rates, after he gets their money.. no different than what rating companies do when they rate bschools.. dont they?
I dont think, it can, at least not the way most people know of marekting surveys and stats..
if not for anything else, at least the bschool students after an MBA can state their ’success’ in somewhat quantifiable manner, salary, professors time, student prof ratio.. and yes there is always a point of VALUE for money..
imagine the dating companies doing the survey:
and the questions are like:
1. On a scale of 1 -10, 10 being the best, how would u rate your sucess in dating using site A?
well, one could argue that after a 2 minute pause and some soul searching you would eventually get the response.. now go to the next one:
2. Where your objectives met? DOnt be surpised [ given what you guys, the industry observers, say about lie, lies and damn lies] if the person responds.. well, they were diferent for different profiles - does anyone need explanation.{ remember that ad, that killed volksvagon, different volks for different folks]
3. how would u say, the UI was : ?
how about touchy feely and useless !
my 2 cents
ajay
3. how about this? did your objectives change with respect to time? — hmmmmm..
special attention is being paid to point number 3 .. as there are netwrok externalities when there IS a network, dating land tr
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