Ugh, I feel fat and I’m crashing from my tryptophan high. I’ve got a lot of posts queued up for the next several days. Enjoy the weekend and drive/travel safe.

What are Bone Fish’s up-coming plans?

Bone Fish has very recently expanded its entire team so that it can ensure a smoother running of the entire service and affiliate program. At this moment in time, it is actually finishing off the final touches to its brand new members’ area, and hopes that this development will help to retain and capture existing and new members alike. In the same manner, it has revamped all its member communications and emails, and has taken a more hands-on approach with regard to member promotions and the like. Ultimately, Bone Fish aims to maintain as much direct contact as possible with all of its members and to increase its conversion rates as the months go by.

And it’s doubtful that it will stop there. In the coming year Bone Fish hopes to extend its platform further with a new (and much more comprehensive) admin centre, additional segmented niche networks and a ton of other new features that it can’t yet unveil to the public.

What are your main obstacles and pitfalls? How could Bone Fish perform better? What are its main problems and how is it addressing them?

I would be wrong in saying that everything works 100% of the time and never goes wrong. But having said this, at Bone Fish we have never really experienced any great problems either. But if I had to highlight two areas that occasionally cause stumbling blocks, it would have to be “hacking” and “scammers and spammers”.

Hackers- When someone attempts to hack into our system we have to temporarily restrict access to the admin centre to protect ourselves and our service. And yes, there have been times when this has severely affected our affiliates. With this in mind, back in June we installed a Cisco Firewall Module and employed tighter security measures to ensure that our system would efficiently filter these specific attacks and therefore lessen the blow to the service as a whole. And although this may not be enough in the long run, for the time being this coupled with the extreme tightening of security measures is signifying a less volatile existence of the Admin Centre, a relatively improved speed of service and less downtime. However, this issue is very much on-going so – as with many companies of this kind – it seems that we’re going to have to constantly keep looking for new ways to combat attacks on our system. To a certain extent I think that it’s always going to be an ongoing battle.

2.Scammers and Spammers – on a daily basis scammers and spammers are tracked as fast as possible and about 98% are caught and removed. However, this is not an easy feat and due to the fact that this affects our reputation with banks, members and affiliates, (the latter of which are being hit by chargebacks on a weekly basis), this issue has become our number one priority with us being forced to employ stricter and stricter measures time after time.

In an attempt to combat these issues, Bone Fish has now brought on-board a full-time Risk Manager that dedicates her time 100% to protecting members and affiliates alike. For obvious reasons we cannot specify the procedure that she undertakes, but we can tell you that since her inception the scamming rate has gone down by 80%. However, as with the issue of hacking, this is probably always going to be a constant battle.

Each company has a sweet-spot, what’s yours?

Bone Fish is renowned for its exemplary affiliate account management. It does not believe in automated email responses or even email-ONLY contact, but instead likes to get-to-know each and every affiliate and to have as much personalized 1-on-1 contact as possible. As such, Bone Fish not only assigns new affiliates a dedicated account manager that’s available nearly 24-7, but it also takes the time to phone them, send them through tips and tricks of the trade, and keep them updated via newsletters, the blog, corporate communications and the like.

What’s more, Bone Fish really does go out of its way to interact with its partners and always encourages (and of course, respects) client feedback. For example, as we mentioned before, the affiliate team has recently asked for affiliates to step forward and test out the new Bone Fish member’s area. Why, you may ask. Because Bone Fish considers its affiliates to be part of its team and because it understands that for the program to be successful, all elements of it must work 100%. And who better to test it than those that will be the harshest critiques of all?

Aside from this, Bone Fish Ltd also has a fantastic bonus scheme that has affiliates earning up to 100% commission on new sales. This is generally unheard of in the white label game but is something which really makes Bone Fish stand at the forefront of the online dating industry.

And finally, without a doubt Bone Fish has one of the most sophisticated email campaign management solutions in the world. Accredited by various white listing providers and ISPs, it serves over 6 million messages a month. As such, these member communications generate high return rates of members, which in turn convert into sales. No other management solution is quite like ours – it really is unparalleled.

Related posts:

1. Bonefish White Label Dating Platform
2. Bonefish Interviews
3. Bone Fish To Offer SpectrumX Personality Tests

Online Dating Insider sponsor Bonefish has sent over some details about their service that I requested as I continue to learn about the differences between white label dating providers. There is a lot of information, which I’ll break into several posts.

Q: How do you differ from your two main competitors, World Dating Partners and White Label Dating? Aside from Bone Fish offering site set-up in under 24 hours and having a large database of members, what else differentiates it from the other white label dating providers out there?

A: Most of the white label models on the market today are actually very similar to our own – not only in what they have to offer, but also in how they work. However, the Bone Fish program does have aspects that make it stand out from the rest:

1) No Sales/VAT Tax – For UK and European affiliates, all commissions and bonuses are exempt of VAT/Sales Tax – no other white label dating provider can offer this benefit to its affiliates.

2) An Active and varied database – Bone Fish has an extremely large database of REAL and ACTIVE members. In fact, our membership base is under the 4 million mark and boasts individuals from all corners of the world. As such, we don’t just offer our affiliates UK and European-based sites, but also American, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and other English speaking country-sites from around the world.

3) Affiliate Centric – At Bone Fish we are very much affiliate-orientated. We pride ourselves on our constant attention to detail and don’t just provide affiliates with automated emails, but instead give them 1-to-1 comprehensive communication. We pick up the phone and talk to them on a regular basis and are actually available to assist them as and when they need it. We don’t just exist via a screen and online admin centre, but always do our best to offer advice “in person” on how to move forward and how to best to tackle obstacles. As a result, Bone Fish currently boasts an outstanding 90% referral rate – a percentage that none of our competitors even come close to.

4) Defined Niches – The Bone Fish program is different to that of its competitors in that it offers multiple and very specific niches that are actually real and very much defined. Without naming providers, this is not always the case with some of our competitors. Many often claim that they have more niche networks than they actually have, and as such are not honest with their affiliates from the outset. Here at Bone Fish we are very upfront and honest at all times, and can truly say that we have 28 clearly defined networks with very real people on them.

5) Customization tools – With Bone Fish affiliates can benefit from a comprehensive range of customization tools. Each and every site can be fully branded to suit an affiliate’s needs, and upon performing a site integration (where an affiliate integrates a dating site into their existing site), without a doubt we ALWAYS adhere 100% to brand and identity requirements.

Of course, there may be some other marginal differences between the Bone Fish program and those run by other white label providers, but those above are perhaps the most notable. However, I would like to point out that both Ross (from White Label Dating) and Robert (from World Dating Partners) also operate particularly excellent companies and programs, and I believe that ultimately each of us has our own uniqueness that helps us to meet the demands of our affiliates.

On your website you state that your “clients are part of your team”. Explain.

Many programs out there are simply interested in signing up new affiliates and watching the wads roll in. But this is not the case with us. We firmly believe in affiliate retention and do our best to not only keep our affiliates happy, but to also ensure that they have all the necessary tools to make the best out of their businesses.

However to be able to do this, we need feedback – albeit positive or negative. As such, on a regular basis we break down the psychological barriers that exist between the affiliates and the white label provider, and listen to their opinions and suggestions on how we can rectify and tweak elements of the service to help them benefit.

An example of this is our new members’ area. Over the past year Bone Fish has been developing a new members’ area that will undoubtedly improve the overall service. However, to ensure that we have covered all eventualities, we have asked our affiliates to come forward and test the new area so that they can feel satisfied that what they’re offering their members is unparalleled. And this we do regularly – because we want our affiliates to have some input and to feel like they are part of our team. Because they ARE part of our team and their opinion DOES count!

Does Bone Fish offer extra bonuses or similar?

Yes. Aside from offering a minimum of 50% TAX FREE recurring commission from the very first month, Bone Fish organizes regular promotions and bonus schemes to help affiliates take home that bit more. An example of this is the 100% commission scheme. Affiliates that take part in this scheme are given an individual (and very attainable) target based on their previous sales history – and if they smash their target, they get 100% commission over and above their target. This figure only changes when an affiliate has reached it, at which point he/she is assigned a new one that is of a slightly greater value than the last. As such, we ensure that all monthly targets are very achievable and very enticing.

In this manner, Bone Fish benefits too. Because by analyzing the progress of its partners, it can continually strive to find ways in which to keep its affiliates interested in driving traffic to their sites.

Related posts:

1. Bonefish Interview Part 2
2. Bonefish Interviews
3. White Label Dating Platform Conversion Rates