How Much Does a Photo Improve Your Chances?

by David Evans on May 27, 2009 in Profiles

I’m trying to find an authoritative source for the often-mentioned statistic that dating profiles with photos have a 15x increase in responses. Does anyone know where this stat came from? A url link would be helpful, thanks.

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1 casualencounters.com/blog/ May 27, 2009 at 9:08 pm: I’ve seen Markus from POF state 10X, I think on his blog. Based on his own statistics. And you know what a stats-junkie he is.

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2 Ross Felix May 28, 2009 at 8:28 am: I believe that Jdate used to post a statistic in the hopes of getting people to add a photo (if they didn’t have one).

As for the actual percentages — I hate to say it, but it’ll also depend on how good the photo is (or how (un)attractive the member actually is). Not to mention — there are those people who use someone else’s photos. Do those count?

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3 Tom May 28, 2009 at 12:49 pm: I had actually wonder about this not too long ago as I saw on a dating site upload page state it was 15x greater chance to be contacted with a photo. To be honest I have seen 10x from as far back as I have been dealing with dating sites (2002). Everyone from Match to Date put this on their photo upload page as I am sure you know.

I bet this stat is higher for the adult dating sites than general dating sites. I would be interested in what WhiteLableDating has to say about this since he can pull data from multiple types of dating sites.

Tom

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4 David Evans May 28, 2009 at 1:28 pm: Thanks everyone.

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5 Matt Savage May 28, 2009 at 1:38 pm: I seem to recall seeing the 10x number at a few sites as well, though never seen any data or reliable source to back that up.

I had one user from PlentyofFish once tell me that he actually got more responses when he got rid of his profile pictures, which is quite a unique experience in my opinion.

It’s probably something that could be easily tested, perhaps if I have some spare time this weekend I’ll hit the dating sites and test the theory out. Or, it’d be much easier for some dating site executive to provide a reliable number.

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6 Markus May 28, 2009 at 2:30 pm: Factors such as age, gender and location skew that statistic in many directions.

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7 Ross Williams - WhiteLabelDating.com June 4, 2009 at 10:25 am: How many people have you contacted that didn’t have a photo vs those that did?

It varies by niche, demographic etc but 10 to 20 times is about right.

R

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