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Mark Brooks took a stab at measuring the success of online dating. I’ve talked about this before.
He asked for comments so here they are:
The number is far north of 20 million online daters unless he is limiting his exercise to the US.
Include percentages as well as numbers.
Measurement less useful w/o breaking down goals (friendships, activity partners, casual, serious or sex).
Five million people who taking on phone does not = 5 million F2F encounters.
You have email at several million people and phone at 5 million which is backwards. You have to email before you can phone so that number would be higher.
90% of all people that meet for a date have sex? No way.
In the comments, Alexander is right, what about the divorce rate, would be interesting to hear what it is for Eharmony and Match and Yahoo.
Brian says success = I paid and I’m happy, which is more a customer satisfaction metric but still should be included.
Overall, the numbers show that online dating has a long way to to before it’s even remotely considered a success.
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Online Dating Success
* 13_to_25_years_old_persons (teenagers) not interested in serious dating; Fun Online Dating is the same as Social Networking == ENTERTAINMENT
“Fun Online Dating Success” is a high level of instant gratification; Big Databases full of profiles where any new member can find the persons he/she is looking for.
* 26_and_more_years_old_persons interested in serious dating; They need quality CONTACTS
“Quality Online Dating Success” same as “Offline Chains Dating Success”; any new member will be matched with compatible real persons.
More interesting than finding the person you want to date is IF that person_you_want_to_date really WANTS to also date you, AND IF after several dates you and your_prospective_mate begin to invest time and effort building a personal relationship with future in mind.
Kindest Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
“I paid” is not a consumer satisfaction measure.
I’ll take “I paid” as a measure of success in attracting paying customers, but you can increase that measure by throwing money (advertising, promotional pricing) at the issue, and in any case it says little to nothing about customer satisfaction.
You can count hits, which can represent anything from burning interest to morbid fascination, but hits per se say absolutely nothing about how many of those hits even represent paying customers. Good for selling advertising, I suppose, but as a measurement of customer satisfaction it says little to nothing.
So how to measure customer satisfaction? Renewal rates, maybe? Repeat business? Something like that, I suppose.
Renewal rates, maybe? Repeat business? Something like that, I suppose.”
Defining customer satisfaction
IF a Serious Online Dating Site delivering quality contacts is or will be Quality Norms ISO 9001:2000 certified/audited, it will always wants their customers to succeed in finding someone:
- the very satisfied customer who leaves the site because he/she succeeded most probably will recommend the site to 10 or more persons!!!
- dissatisfied customers leaving the site because they did not succeed in finding someone (compatible real person) surely will speak against the company to 100 or more persons!!!
I will recommend
T == total monthly paying subscribers == new_&_renewal monthly paying subscribers.
A == monthly paying subscribers leaving the site because they succeeded in finding someone.
B == monthly paying subscribers leaving the site because they did NOT succeed in finding someone.
customer satisfaction == (A - B) / T
Kindest Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
But how do you know why someone left a site?
The more I think about it and apply the lessons learned where I work, the more I realize that repeat business is an important measure of customer satisfaction. In the case of online dating sites, that would be reflected in renewal rates. And I would differentiate between automatic renewals and renewals where a period of unsubscribed time has occured, assigning a greater value to the latter.
In this scenario, it doesn’t matter why a person left a site; what matters is that the person thought enough of the site to return. That’s significant, in my opinion.
20+ million online daters (not including social networks) for 2006 leading to several million paid online dating users.
1. two people IMing/emailing online - several million daters make it this far
2. two people talking on the phone - 5+ million with at least one phone encounter
3. face to face meeting - 5 million meet face to face
4. active dating, 3 dates or more (sexual) - 4 million actively date one person or more
5. 3 months relationship - 750,000 make it into an ongoing relationship of 3+ months
6. 9 months - 250,000 make it to 9 months with at least one person
7. fiance/prolonged relationship/15 month - 100,000 have prolonged committed relationships
8. marriage - 50-75,000 marriages will result from online dating introductions this year
for 4. ’sexual’ is in brackets to imply the possibility of sex, not predominance.
Mark Brooks
editor, onlinepersonalswatch.com
I like where Fernando is going with (A-B) / T.
Fred, dating sites only know why someone leaves if they fill out an exit poll, which most major sites offer.
Hit’s are only one measurement, agree they don’t tell enough about the intention of the visitor.
Anita
Please call me soon before conference this month. (321) 751-6963 .
I need a CEO, show going on the air, It will change Online Dating.
Best regards,
Saul M. Detofsky