Approaching nearly a decade in the online dating game, the amount of knowledge, savvy and hard knocks experience DatingGold can offer is … well, worth its weight in gold.
Founder and CEO allan Henning took the plunge in 2001 into what was at the time a fledgling market to start his own mainstream-dating site called amateur-Match. a bold move in those days when online dating was still considered a last resort for the socially challenged.
We could not have achieved and maintained our growth, if it weren’t for the efforts of our entire company.
But despite the fact that the move resulted in only a modest amount of sales, Henning’s brainchild set the foundation of what was to become a mini-empire in the adult dating game.
Henning’s plan was well thought out. He realized that there was segment of the dating market that wasn’t completely satisfied with vanilla mainstream websites and wanted to spice things up.
He tapped his company’s brain trust and dove into researching everything he could about the adult industry in an effort to find out what made the business tick and more importantly, what was profitable.
‘We started off in mainstream dating but quickly adapted our sites to meet the needs of our customers seeking something more risqué. We branched out into other niches such as affairs and indiscretion because market analysis showed that a percentage of our customers were seeking this,” Henning says.
With advice and opinions from fellow CEOs, affiliate networks, others in the industry, and even some of his own employees, Henning successfully comprised a group of sites that he felt appealed to all different demographics, including, mature, hardcore, Asian, ethnic, BBW, infidelity, and more. The intelligence, coupled with his faithful team brought the executive to the realization that adult was the payoff he was seeking.
But like most entrepreneurs and visionary CEOs, Henning didn’t stop there. Shortly after AmateurMatch was born he realized there was another element in the dating market that was being overlooked — webcams.
Henning felt in his gut that the relationship of dating and webcam sites had great potential for success. And he made it his business to make the company one of the first dating platforms to establish its own webcam site, WebCamClub, with its own multiple whitelabel cam sites.
“We knew from our previous partnerships with third-party webcam companies that cams were a very good upsell for our dating members. We eventually decided that we could better integrate the webcams if it was on our own platform. We also wanted to diversify our products and revenue,” he recalls.
And diversify it did. Today, DatingGold, the XBIZ 2012 Dating Affiliate Program of the Year Award winning company, boasts a lineup of sites that includes AmateurMatch.com, DateMatch.com, TextN Match.com, XXXDating.com, SpiceOrNice.com, Untrue.com, LocalCheaters.com, WebCam-Club.com and more.
The company also stretched its wings and captured the Affiliate Program of the Year award at the first Adult Entertainment Virtual Convention held in February, addressing the topic of how social media is affecting the adult industry.
More niche sites are also on Henning’s radar. Infidelity, BBW and Asian sites have proven to do well in the dating arena along with the company’s gay entry, Man List that offers all the matchmaking features of its mainstream sites, but features all male profiles. Using free premium membership trials, Man List is quickly becoming one of DatingGold’s fastest growing properties.
Closing in on its 10th anniversary, DatingGold promises to deliver a host of new products and opportunities for users and affiliates alike.
Higher payouts, more mobile products and more niche sites are all in the wings.
The company is even considering offering “a record breaking PPL rate,” that it’s not ready to announce, but expects it to set a precedent within the industry.
DatingGold says it will have a special summer event for its employees to celebrate a decade; it’s planning on doing something special for valued affiliates at one of the major trade events.
“We could not have achieved and maintained our growth, if it weren’t for the efforts of our entire company. We greatly value our employees and feel that our great team has attributed to our success over the years,” Henning says.
