Ross & Steve, WhiteLabelDating.com - OPW Interview

OPW INTERVIEW -- July 12, 2007 -- I talked with Ross Williams and Steve Pammenter the co-founders of White Label Dating. I’ll be interviewing more executives of white label services shortly. Meanwhile, email me at [email protected] if you’d like a copy of my preliminary overview of white labels services. - Mark Brooks
 
Ross, what’s your founding story?
White Label Dating actually originated from a web development company I started back in the mid-90’s. In 1998 I founded a digital media company called Rawnet Limited that developed websites and web-based applications for a range of clients. Like a lot of web design companies at the time, we had done a few dating sites here and there, but I felt the market really wasn’t being utilized in the most effective ways. Everyone was focusing on their own brand dating site but all these sites that we developed they had their own database, they had their own technology. So the concept was to develop an application that anyone with a brand, anyone who could do design, any web master could use to launch their own online dating site in a few minutes and then get access to a shared database of members and both shared payment technology and shared support and hosting. That original idea is what evolved into Whitelabeldating.com.

What are both of your backgrounds?
Ross: I’ve been an Internet entrepreneur and the owner of  a web development company since we established it in 1998. Since then we’ve set up Whitelabeldating.com as well as a couple of other web orientated businesses. 

Steve: My background is actually remarkably non-technical. In fact, my previous career was almost entirely based in sales. That experience has been invaluable in helping us in acquiring partners. So I tend to concentrate on the acquisition side of the business.

What kind of partners are you targeting?
Right now, a lot of our focus is on the targeting of offline partners. Typically, we are talking about magazine publishers who have an existing website but no dating channel. We have obviously targeted the existing online communities who are looking to monetize their existing databases by adding a free, fully populated dating channel onto their database.

What kind of money can they earn?
Depending on what partner does with what we give them, they can do quite well. Some of our partners earn thousands of pounds and up per month. Last month, our top earning partner earned 175,000 pounds.

Ross, what do you regard as your biggest differentiators over other co-brand dating service providers?
First and foremost, we are a really strong community. We have integrated instant messaging that works without any plug-ins that members can use across the network. Say for example,  members from site A find someone in the database that interests them who happens to be a member of site B. Through our integrated chatting instant messaging system, the customers from each site can talk to each other. We also have dating diaries which are very popular feature. It’s surprising how many people amongst the customer base will actually create a diary of their dating experience. These diaries can be viewed and shared across the network to all members.

We also have articles; real content that is distributed through the site that gives a compelling reason for people to join, for people to pay for our partners to make money.

And moreover what is a critical differentiator for me is the ease of use for our partners. It is incredibly easy to set up sites. Someone can go to WhiteLabelDating.com, click on the new site button and have their own co-branded site up within a minute or two. That’s the biggest differentiator I feel.

What are your goals gentlemen for 2007 through 2008?
Steve: I think the first goal is really to become the number one White Label provider throughout the world, obviously. Really, to show we are working with some of the largest brands at the moment and that we are attracting some of the real big names.

Ross: I think also to follow on that, we recognize what our skill is in; we have a technology platform that works. People pay, our partners earn a lot of money but we’re not the marketing experts and we don’t have the brand.

So we want to attract partners in the US and Europe and in Asia and China, India, places like that who know their local market and know how to market to these people and just want a platform to make money on. And that’s where we want folks to be for the next year.

Comments

[Affiliate Dating Sites]

Always interesting to read interviews by White Label and affiliate dating sites, however there is 1 BIG question here:
"Last month, our top earning partner earned 175,000 pounds" - ??!!

The sums:
------------
- All Affiliates earn 50%
- This affiliate generate 350,000 pounds monthly.
- White Label Dating has 260,000 members
- Assumption: This is a LARGE affiliate and has generated HALF those members - 130,000 (This is highly unlikely!)
- Assumption: Average monthly membership £10
- White Label dating brings in 500 daily profiles; therefore this affiliate has 250 daily new members. (50%)
- To have 130,000 members they must have been running for 520 days (approx 1 and a half years)
- To generate 350,000 pounds they must have 35,000 paying members.
- so to have 35,000 paying members they must have a conversion rate of 27% and a retention rate of over 1 and a half years - i.e all their paying members have remained paying members....

An alternative is they have a retention rate closer to 6 months and a conversion rate of over 80%!!!

This obviously does not stack up, based on these White Label dating does not generate close to 350,000 pounds a month either.

Even with an average membership of £15 and conversion rate of 20% they would need to have a retention rate of 8 months to make this sort of money. This would also suggest that the free membership rate has not grown in the last 8 months...

There is no system we have heard of which has this sort of average pricing level AND conversion rates AND retentions rates.

Perhaps this figure was misquoted – but to what is the most important question here it does need to be scrutinized.

[Ross Williams]

Hi there,

Thanks for the comment - yup this figure is correct but is our largest partner by a significant margin and one of the main players in the UK. They also charge a lot more than your assumption - closer to £20/month.

I see from your site that you're pushing some of the other competing white label providers that don't have as good conversion or retention as our network offers.

If you're genuinely interested in this, you'll appreciate that we don't disclose everything publicly but I would encourage you to speak with us directly (contact us via http://www.whitelabeldating.com) and we can talk you through the figures and demonstrate the conversions that we enjoy (we use Google Adwords as an impartial third-party to confirm the conversion and retention rates).

Alternatively, come and meet us at iDate, AdTech or any of the other industry events that we're now attending on a regular basis after becoming public property at Internet World this year :o)

Best wishes,

Ross Williams
Chairman, http://www.whitelabeldating.com

[Cliff Hanson]

Hi, it seems interesting that you are unwilling to share with us who this big partner is but i guess that is your prerogative.

I have had the pleasure of looking at your site, while you say that you can create a co-branded sites in a minuet or two, I believe that you have got your terminology wrong. Firstly, what you are talking about is a template site. Secondly, co-branded sites are not just dating sites like all of your sites, as you seem to suggest, but are determined by being able to filter criteria in your database for the benefit of your members. With your system this is not possible and certainly not in a minuet or two. Although I understand your reasoning to leave this out of your program as you do not have enough members to make this a viable option for yourselves or your members.

As a final note to your last post you say your top partner is earning 175,000!!! a year. I suggest that anyone who is willing to believe that should consider going to Companies House and getting their financial records themselves. I think your find WhiteLabelDating as a whole do not earn close to that amount.

Perhaps WhiteLabelDating could explain their reasoning for this exaggeration?

[Ross Williams]

Hi Cliff,

Where did you get the idea that we can't filter the database?

We offer a co-branded site in two ways:

1. Complete Template Flexibility - a successful partner can have their own template set, giving total flexibility to layout. Completely bespoke.

2. Unique networks for each site - we can filter the database to give a unique network for those partners with enough members to warrant this.

We don't offer 1. to everyone who signs up as quite simply it does take a few hours of our time which we won't do until partners have proven they can earn revenue.

Our general template that new partners get is also proven to work well and before they start changing the layout, etc, it's best for them to know what works.

And regarding your comment about income - as you may know, companies do not need to update their accounts at Companies House each month :o) Our financial year ends in August and we'll be getting our latest accounts to companies house before the end of the year.

Cliff, it does appear from your post that you're keen to make a point but it's not fair for you to do that unless you have all the information.

I've given an interview to OPW due to my success and that of my company - if you'd like to know more I'd be very happy to meet you at Adtech, iDate or any of the other events we'll be at.

Alternatively if you'd like to join us a partner (it appears that you have not, despite your comments) we can help you enjoy some of the success that our other partners do.

Many thanks,

Ross

[eCinderella.com]

That is not true Ross! You don't offer any template period! You might have an affiliate deal yourself with designing companies or employ designers yourself since there is no way an affiliate who joined WLD can in any way have access to pre-made templates, but rather find that a custom header and footer (which is itself the whole design of the site) is required to get approved! I understand why and truly respect that (you're perhaps trying to keep the quality of sites under the label at the highest level possible), but deceiving people who're working on seeing that dream of theirs come alive is just wrong! The front page of WLD shall clearly state that a little knowledge is required which WILL benefit WLD in a big way getting rid of all that unexperienced newbies.

[Web Design Los Angeles]

I think this is a good idea! It will open the database to a much wider scale, which would be helpful for people looking for the dating services.

-kelly
itchair.com

[CADD classes los angeles]

sounds like a good merger!! Good luck!