Industry leader DatingGold recently launched TextNDate, its first foray into the uncharted world of mobile dating. In combining mobile texting with the opportunity to hook up with someone for real, the company is embracing some of the hottest trends out there. For affiliates, it offers an opportunity for them to make money literally on the fly. AVN caught up with AK from DatingGold to get the skinny on their new baby.
What is TextNDate?
TextNDate is a premium SMS-based chat service that allows you to connect with a profile on the site. You simply select the profile you want to chat with and enter in your mobile number, after which you receive a text message to opt in and then you are connected with your selection. It’s a fun and entertaining service. One thing we know about people is they love to text, and we want to offer a service that lets them pick their fantasy girl and start texting with that personality. From a marketing standpoint, we provide affiliates with another arsenal that they can promote and maximize their traffic. So for affiliates, if they have dating traffic, webcam traffic and mobile dating traffic, they can optimize their earning with DatingGold.
How long has it been live?
TextNDate has been live for around eight weeks now. It has been in development for over seven months.
How is it related to Dating Gold? Are the people shown on the site pulled from the other Dating Gold websites?
TextNDate is part of the DatingGold network of sites. Yes, our profiles are used from our other dating resources.
Where are you getting your traffic for TextNDate?
We’re getting TextNDate traffic from selected affiliates and Google campaigns. For highly targeted traffic, we are seeing phenomenal conversion ratios below 1 in 10.
How does it work with affiliates? Do they sign up separately for TextNDate? What are the payouts? What sort of promo tools do you have for affiliates?
All DatingGold affiliates have the ability to promote TextNDate without signing up again. We currently have two types of payouts for the site—$1 per mobile number and 50 percent revshare. We also have a big assortment of banners for the site, along with form-based banners, SWF-based banners and six different landing pages.
Do you plan niche versions of TextNDate, similar to your niched dating sites?
Yes we plan on building up the site to accommodate many different types of niches.
Is the site available for all mobile devices? Will it be optimized for the iPad, too? Android?
The mobile version of TextNDate has been tested on various mobile phones, including iPhone, Droid and Blackberry. Yes, we plan on making many improvements on the mobile platform itself, but right now we have designed the mobile site to scale on many different screen sizes common to the phones used today.
This article originally ran in AVN magazine’s April 2010 Online supplement.
