Popular adult personals site SexyAds this week celebrated its 10th year in business with a new incentive program for existing and prospective affiliates.
Dubbed Decade Deals, the initiative lets webmasters who send 60 or more paid sign-ups between now and March 31 qualify to earn up to 70-percent commission. Additionally, they will receive 50 percent on all recurring billings.
“We wanted to give our valid affiliates the chance to share in the celebrations,” said SexyAds’ affiliate manager, Leanne Lucas. “So, we’ve developed these terrific SexyAds Decades Deals that can allow them to enjoy a bigger piece of the pie.”
The site originally was launched by the team of John Shaw and Maureen Richardson—a couple who’d met in 1996 through another personals site two years prior—under a different name. According to Maureen, “John created a small dating site as a surprise for me. It was just a cute thing; it was G-rated and earned nothing.”
The couple ran the site as a tame dating domain until FriendFinder owner Andrew Conru took it off their hands. The sale gave the couple an idea, Maureen recalled: “Later, John said, ‘Hmmmm, I wonder if there was a buck in all those ads we tossed out for being explicit.’”
The couple decided to launch a new adult-oriented, membership-based site, calling it SexyAds. “Our plan was to run it for six months and hope it would pay half the rent,” Maureen told AVNOnline.com. “It paid all the rent in the first 10 minutes.”
Realizing they were on to something, the couple—who were living in different countries at the time (Maureen was in Australia; John in Orlando, Fla.)—kept the site going, eventually turning it into the giant it is today. Featuring not only tons of member-submitted profiles and personals, but also articles, blogs, message forums, and additional content, SexyAds has blossomed into a behemoth of a site that brings people from all walks of life together in search for love, sex, and companionship. Maureen, who since has adopted John’s last name and relocated to Australia, claims the site supports 1.5 million members.
“We have real people [as members], and all of us are committed to helping them find someone special,” she said, maintaining that she and Shaw developed reputations for being matchmaking nurturers. “For a long time, John and I were known in the chat rooms as Mom and Dad. He wasn’t too impressed with it, but I knew it meant we were doing something right.”
The site—which, Maureen maintained, “has always been on the cusp of adult while maintaining a classy, sexy atmosphere”—has indeed been successful for many of its members, including those closest to its founders. “My daughter found her husband on SexyAds six years ago,” Maureen revealed. “He’s now our website attorney. Our housekeeper found her partner on SexyAds, as well. And, one of our writers found her partner on the site—and they both write for us now.”
SexyAds has also been a hit among its affiliates, said affiliate manager Lucas. “I think one of our core strengths is our customer service. We’re always available to our affiliates and no matter whether they are one of our largest affiliates or smallest, we’re there to lend a hand. We have all the marketing and promo tools that the bigger affiliate programs offer—just with a ‘family business’ feel.”
“The ‘personal touch’ is what sets us apart from other dating sites,” Maureen concurred. “It’s a serious business that we are committed to. It’s not just tits and ass—we recognize that everyone has a sexual side and they’re not all 22 and gorgeous. Every day, John and I answer some of the support queries so we know what’s going on, and I visit the forum and chat on a regular basis and I comment on blogs I like.”
As far as turning 10 goes, Lucas said that SexyAds’ longevity shows “that being honest, reliable, and offering great service is what’s important to our members.”
“We know that rewards come from doing a good job, and we’ve never wanted to take the quick way to make a buck,” Maureen added. “We knew we were in for the long haul.”
Hinting that there are big plans around the corner, Maureen said, “We’re getting ready to change how the site works. We looked at the popularity of sites like MySpace and decided that SexyAds was more of an adult community than just a personal ad search site. I don’t want to give too much away, but we’re anxious to see how our members react.”
If history is any indication, those members should be happy. “Our members have told us that they can go elsewhere for phone chat or video chat and porn galleries, so it’s probably what we don’t have that makes us unique. Our members want us to kick out spammers and continue to approve their ads and photos within eight hours, keep the site running fast, and basically spend our efforts on their success in finding a partner.
“We have always felt that if we put our members’ success first, the money would follow,” Maureen added. And, fortunately for them, she said, “it always has.”
For more information on the Decade Deals promotion, click here.
