Like a bullet, they came from virtually nowhere and now, after a little more than a year, SexSearch.com is the second-most trafficked adult dating program in the business.
Part of their early success can no doubt be attributed to the company’s aggressive marketing efforts. The SexSearch name has been so well established in trade magazines, banner ads, and through event sponsorships it almost seems as if they’ve been around for years.
Damian Cross, a veteran of the adult Web, started the company in Toronto with 30 employees. In the last year, SexSearch has also managed to establish itself in the warmer climes of Southern California, with a fourth-floor office overlooking Sunset Boulevard in the heart of Hollywood. Most indicative of SexSearch’s tremendous growth is the fact that the company now employs more than 100 people and will be adding more. In addition to that, they’re adding 15,000 new members to their site each day and paying out more than $1 million a month to affiliates. It’s all part of what they consider their touchstone—customer service.
“A lot of adult dating sites and affiliate programs offer very similar features. What sets us apart are our account managers and outstanding customer service. We make sure that all of our affiliates are happy and we’re always available to help affiliates make the most money possible from their traffic,” says chief marketing officer Adam Small.
It may be a common refrain from adult online companies, but consider that Alexa ranked SexSearch at 836 on June 13. Of course, there’s still a little way to go to catch the top dog in the space, AdultFriendFinder, which was at 48 on the same day.
But considering the SexSearch site launched in January 2004 and the affiliate program followed that April (while AdultFriendFinder has been at it since 1996) who knows what’s possible.
The one thing that is certain—SexSearch does have AFF in its sights.
“Our mission is to be the number one place where people meet for sex, and we are working around the clock in order to become that,” Cross says.
SexSearch currently has 3.5 million members, while AFF has more than 17 million. But then, AFF doesn’t have Jenna Jameson.
The current queen of porn has a partnership with SexSearch to be the company’s resident sexpert, answering questions for members about, yeah, sex. As an added bonus, anyone who has his or her question selected for Jameson’s column gets a free, signed copy of her book, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star.
Beyond promotions, it’s clear that the SexSearch crew is serious about their business. Small came to the company from Yahoo, where he ran marketing campaigns for companies like American Express, Coke, Sony, Microsoft, and Johnson & Johnson. Now, he’s making it his mission to make SexSearch the top-converting adult personals site on the Web.
“We pay very close attention to what all of our competition is doing. We constantly run tests by sending them traffic and comparing how much money an affiliate would make with their programs versus our program,” Small says. “We want to make sure that we are the best converting adult personals site that there is. We are constantly making improvements to our site so we’re sure that affiliates will make the most money possible with their traffic by sending it to us.”
Small attributes much of the company’s recent success to geo-targeting, which the company does based on the member’s home city. Earlier this year SexSearch introduced two different kinds of geo-targeted banners – one uses images that change dynamically based on a user’s IP address; the second uses customizable text pulled up in an i-frame – if you’re in Miami, you see an ad for local Miami singles.
“Our tests have shown that our geo-targeted banners generate approximately 30 percent more clicks and almost twice as many sign-ups,” Small says.
Although SexSearch hasn’t yet made a heavy push into nonEnglish-speaking countries, they are making a killing on North American and UK-based traffic.
“We really don’t allow surfers to do much without signing up for a free profile, and our free profile sign-up process is very simple, so affiliates are able to generate a ton of free profiles. We then use special features such as our daily automatch emails to help convert those profiles to paying members,” Small says. We’re white listed with Yahoo, AOL and Hotmail, which really helps conversions as well, because all of our message notifications get to our member’s inboxes.”
In the end though, it all goes back to traffic analysis and doing what both their affiliates and their members ask of them.
"Our world-class customer service for both our affiliates and our site's members is what sets us apart. Our affiliate managers are world-class marketers with years of Internet advertising experience. They have run thousands of online campaigns and they know what works and what doesn't. We assign every affiliate their own personal account manager in order to help them make the best of their traffic," says Ed Kunkel, SexSearch's chief operating officer.
