As the peak internet dating season approaches, Plentyoffish continues to trounce the free dating site competition. In the international arena, 7.2 million people in the UK visited the worlds largest free dating site in October, as opposed to 4.3 million and 2.1 million for Meetic and Match, respectively.
The press release I received states that a the main difference in how Plentyoffish markets itself is word-of-mouth marketing rather than heavy online ad spending. I find this statement difficult to swallow. I’ve heard from various industry sources that PoF spends quite a bit on online advertising. Do you really think people are talking about PoF enough to drive seven million monthly visitors in the UK?
PlentyofFish is about traffic. Buying traffic and making money of advertising revenue and affiliate marketing. If it sells, the acquiring company is most likely interested in the traffic and the eyeballs more than the fact that the majority of the audience are casual daters.
I keep receiving my weekly “new people on PoF” emails and try as I might, when I compare the quality of the people with Match, PoF doesn’t come close. That is not a dig towards the people on PoF, it’s my personal observation after belonging to hundreds of dating sites over the past 5 years.
Marketers salivate over PoF traffic, that’s a lot of inventory to sell advertising. Let’s take a look who’s on the site today.
Naughty-or-Nice.com. right on the home page when you are not logged in. This is a classic bait-and-switch. Initial ad looks like a True.com rip-off, clicking through you arrive at a site which is one page, a signup form asking you to create a login and showing how many singles match your criteria. Submitting the form redirects you to True.com and complains about my password. This kind of marketing pisses me off to no end. The one truth about True is that it continues to be disrespectful of potential and existing members. Enough about them, I could rant about True for hours, a rich vein of discontent in the online dating industry to say the least.
Reloading home page, we are greeted with an American Singles ad. The same American Singles that has been hemorrhaging users for years not as Spark Networks focuses marketing spend on more lucrative sites like JDate.
Next ad, after logging in, is K&N automotive filters (which I use and do get an extra 5 horsepower with). Just how targeted is this ad? Do women see it?
Google ads at top of page look like this:
Free dating sites chat rooms and affaire sites. Yuk.
Reloading page, it’s an ad for eHarmony. As I’ve said for ages, PoF reels people in, then sends them on their way to other sites, picking up anywhere from a few pennies to $50 every time someone exits the site via advertising. Nothing wrong with that at all. It’s the misperception
Next up, an ad for Microsoft Office. Yeah, I want to go read about Excel when I’m on a dating site.
Ok, you get the picture?
I’m the first to admit that these days I am totally biased towards larger sites like Match. Show me a site with a better variety of members from all walks of life, who are serious about finding someone, that’s as easy to use, has better profiles and search, and I’ll sign up today.
I’m in a major city, a serious online dater, and admittedly difficult to please when it comes to the type of women I find appealing. Larger sites seem to work better for me. If I was in my mid-twenties and into indie rock, there are many niche sites I could join, but at 39 I find the whole niche dating experience less than satisfactory. Believe me, if I found a niche that worked, I would work it and be writing about it.
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Speaking of quality members, check out my 100% free online dating site EuropeanKiss.org
EuropeanKiss is aimed at single europeans looking for true relationships. Our member base is growing at a rapid pace and they are quality members.
Its always good to see sites rise up, congradulations to POF.
Moonlight has tried a few times to get some form of dating site up and running, wasted a good bit of time and money.
We recently signed up with a program under World Dating Partners, the benifts and programing that not only do you get, but your clients as well is top shelf. ~The payout structure is a big +~
I know what you mean by the niche market, and I think I just came up with the perfect niche for people just like you…
waggles brows and goes to be creative
Did you check this new dating site called Ourlikes.com? These guys did a pretty decent job with this site. As there is a famous saying that “A picture tells a thousand words”, they are trying to capitalize on that by matching interests visually through images.
You’ve hit it perfectly Dave.
PoF gets lots of traffic.
But in terms of making money – which is what most people are doing this for – it’s pretty average.
People who genuinely want to find someone have to trawl through so much trash on there simply because it’s free and anyone can join it.
Good to see putting PoF traffic in perspective.
visit this site for dating it’s very use full to people.
it’s a wonderfull site for dating.
ourlikes should be renamed ourconfusing^%$#’ingwebsite.com
If you want to seek a bbw or bbw admirer, you can try pluscupid.com.
I agree absolutely with the comment above.
I personally find major dating sites offer a better chance to find real people interested in meeting others.
Free sites have their place, but they soon become a pain in the arse. They don’t have procedures in place for age & identity verification so they end up with lots of fake profiles and scammers trying to get your money.
They don’t have support, they don’t monitor chat rooms to keep the idiots out. They don’t have many advanced features and other services that make the user experience quick, easy, fun & effective.
When I’m seriously looking to find someone , I’d rather pay a few shillings and actually meet someone!., than join a free site and waste my time!.