WALL STREET REPORTER — Mar 31 — Some summary facts about FriendFinder; 25 million active members, 90 million signups since 1996, 80-90,000 registrations a day, 20 dating verticals including adultfriendfinder, alt, asiafriendfinder, amigos etc. 180 Palo Alto employees, 80 abroad in customer service and photo reviewing, 250 all in. Friendfinder just acquired Cams.com (and hired Legendary Lars). In the future FriendFinder will become more of a personal agent for online daters. They are in acquisition mode and more amenable and interested in going public than in the past.
Mark Brooks: Employee numbers would include FriendFinder's marketing spinoff Medley. Dr Conru got it right in 1996, and is now enjoying the rewards of some very early, very smart decisions. He actually started webpersonals.com in 1994 and sold it off while he was at Stanford Uni. Webpersonals ended up with Lavalife. At the beginning of 2004 Dr Conru was quoted as expecting FriendFinder to make $75-$100 million revenue in 2004. I'm sure they aced those numbers. An Alexa rank of 53 for AdultFriendFinder, no less. There are two very clear strands in society emerging that are being reflected in the online dating arena. (The uncommitted and the comitted). On the one hand, casual/sex dating sites are doing very well, on the other, relationship sites such as eHarmony, True and PerfectMatch are ruling the roost.
They have a handful of affiliates doing more then $100,000 a month via AFF and they are making a huge profit. Does anyone actually think that eharmony or true.com etc even come close in terms of profitability?
Adult is still more profitable, but along with the margins come more competition. It’s getting more competitive. Iwantu.com is getting it’s act togethr, eroticy is far stronger than in the past and sexsearch is gunning for adultfriendfinder aggressively.
It’s tough to do PG ad spends that make good money. It a lot easier to do profitable ad spends for more risque online dating properties.
Mark Brooks
Man these adult companies are gold mines..
Assuming 20% growth in the last year AFF is doing ~110,000 signups per day.
Typical conversion rates are 20% or so, that is 22,000 paid signups a day. And my former affiliate manager said they are around $180 lifetime value.
22,000 * $180 = $3,960,000 Revenue PER DAY.
22,000 * 120 day turn over (using match.com’s turn over) = 2.8 million monthly subscribers.
Because the $180 isn’t earned up front they are probably only doing 60-75% of that number.
365 * $3,960,000 *.6% =$867,240,000
So AFF will pass a billion dollars in revenue/year by next year. That is insane.
Now eharmony on the other hand…
10,000-20,000 signups a day at 30% conversion according to that comscore slide from a few years ago.
3,000 paid signups a day probably also at $180 life time value. $540,000/day in revenue.
3,000 * 120 days = 360,000 subscribers
year earnings 540,000 * 365* 60% = $118,260,000/year
“Man these adult companies are gold mines.. ”
It will be interesting to check their corporate tax declarations!!!
Kindest Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
As a friendfinder member since 1996 and famouse online tenant there. I dispute all these figures, as in 1996 when hardly anyone had online PC’s there were up to 60 people in the main chatroom on a saturday night, nowdays with much more online, often the main room it totally empty but falsified by names left in the members box whom are no longer in the rooms, and compounded by a recent hitler style delete frenzy even deleting paid members for no reason and no warning but why? ready for a resale? as all the hundreds deleted were all forced to sign up a new name, hence artificially falsify new member signup uptakes to “POSSIBLY” falsify a prospectus, and the more profitable adultfriendfinder had many rooms cut so cramming over 200 persons into just a couple of rooms making conversation impossible as it scrolls too fast. And why destroy a business so openly? keep your eyes out, at the moment I am calling for the saking of negligent abuse team staff whom deleted almost the last remaining members, most whom did no wrong and done via personal relationships after hours with members.
BEWARE OF ALL THESE BIG LOOKING FF FIGURES.