home | singles and dating news | personals news | archive | Online Personals: Seeking An Attractive (Revenue) Model
Online Personals: Seeking An Attractive (Revenue) Model
No longer viewed as the last resort for nerdy, forlorn technophiles, the
market for online personals has shed its stigma and burst into the mainstream—generating
multi-million dollar revenues along the way.
According to a recent report from the Online Publishers Association (OPA) and comScore Networks, US consumer spending for online content in the Personals/Dating category soared to $214.3 million in the first half of 2003. Accounting for nearly 30% of the total $748 million that was spent for online content, Personals/Dating earned the top spot as the largest paid content category. As mainstream acceptance of online personals has grown, the industry has also seen impressive growth in revenue. Compared to the $121.5 million that was spent in the first half of 2002, the category shot up significantly this year by 76%.
Although an estimated 40 million people in the US access online personals sites each month, only a fraction of those pay for personals content. Most dating sites offer both free and paid services. For example, Match.com, the Internet personals behemoth, claims to have more than 18 million members -- yet only 857,000 are paid subscribers.
Those who pay for online personals are not just shopping for love. The OPA/comScore Networks report claims that individuals who pay for personals content are likely to spend both more time and more money online. Whereas the average Internet user spent 6,143 minutes online and $83 in e-commerce purchases during the first quarter of 2003, the average personals content purchaser racked up 13,895 minutes and $238.72 online. Given a higher propensity to spend money online, personals content purchasers are an ideal target market for online advertising. As a result, many personals sites sell advertising space, but few are wholly dependent on advertisers.
Full credit for story goes to: BizReport, Denmark