THE DRUM – Feb 9 – Real Radio, part of GMG Radio, has partnered with WhiteLabelDating.com to create its branded online dating site, with the tagline ‘Real Good, Feel Good’.
The full article was originally published at The Drum, but is no longer available.
WHITELABELDATING – Jan 20 – Award-winning WhiteLabelDating.com announced today that is has reached 10M members. Since launching in 2003, White Label Dating has offered a platform for any brand or individual to power their own online dating site, providing the software, payment processing, hosting, etc. while the site owner need only provide their brand, design and marketing. Operations Director Matthew Pitt comments that “with 10 million members, we have someone for everyone” across their numerous sites. There are more sites available now than ever before, many sites are tailored to specific interests, religions, hobbies, and more.
THEDRUM – Jan 11 – Users of Jazz FM Dates will be able to meet fellow music lovers through the site with the help of WhiteLabelDating, with site functions including instant messaging, status updates, member feeds, video dating and dating diaries.”
WLD – Dec 28 – With the mobile market worth an estimated £152 Billion in 2011, the world of mobile is big business. Mobile traffic is plentiful and relatively cheap. cquisition cost is up to 50% lower through mobile than desktop channels and WLD has found that 16% of their traffic is already accessed through handheld devices, even without a dedicated mobile platform. The mobile platform features are:
WLD – Dec 16 – Global Personals UK, the parent company of WhiteLabelDating.com, has been ranked 28th place in the prestigious Sunday Times Virgin Fast Track 100. The league table has become the definitive barometer of private company growth and features a host of well-known brands including Cath Kidston, Ella’s Kitchen, Jack Wills, Joules and Patisserie Valerie; plus many emerging companies in a range of industries.
OPW – Nov 30 – iDate INSIDE are a series of videos covering the inner operations of internet dating companies. The video shows the offices and the culture. Here is the 3rd episode, a sneak peek into the Global Personals UK office.
Global Personals just celebrated its 8th birthday. Ross Williams and Steve Pammenter started the business in 2003 and it took them just 4 years to grow the business from nothing to £3M per year. Thanks to their White Label Dating partners, the company's annual revenue is now ~ £30M.
WLD BLOG – Nov 30 - Popular comedy brand Jongleurs has launched into the world of online dating with site Jongleurs Dating, powered by WhiteLabelDating.com.
WLD BLOG – Nov 24 -
1. Use Social Media - The majority of users will not proactively type your website’s URL into their browser and arrive at your site via direct traffic. That is why reaching people where they virtually ‘hang out’ is essential.
2. Keep your audience in mind - post in the tone that people will associate with your site, engaging with your audience on a ‘human’ level.
3. Make your site sticky - The perfect way to make your site sticky is to link, link, link! Hook users and reel them in by creating links (where relevant) between blog posts, to allow users to move effortlessly around the site and more importantly, stay engaged with your brand.
PRESS RELEASE – Oct 31 – Growing Business has announced its top list of companies with founders aged 35 or under for 2011. Each year Young Guns recognizes the fastest-rising and most exciting young entrepreneurs running UK businesses. Ross Williams, co-founder and CEO of Global Personals, made the elite list of entrepreneurial talent. Launched in 2003, Global Personals owns and operates its own online dating sites including Singles365.com, DatingAgency.com and JustSingleParents.com, whilst its B2B service, WhiteLabelDating.com,
OPW – Oct 22 – WhiteLabelDating.com had their partner conference this Friday and Saturday for 80+ Gold and Silver partners. Last night was their black-tie awards ceremony. We’ll run the awards list on Online Personals Watch next week. Here’s my notes from the partner conference today, which is just finishing up now.
WhiteLabelDating.com (WLD) is now 90% partner brands and 10% own-brands such as Dating Agency and Singles365.com. The own-brands are used as learning and proving grounds for best-practices which are shared with partners at seminars and advisories and via partner managers.
WLD now has 6500 partner sites with 7 million members, with 3 million new members added in the last year. Revenue stands at GBP 23.5 million over the prior 12 months – up 43%. 20% of business is non-UK now. Countries served are UK, Ireland, Australia, S.Africa, USA, Canada and New Zealand. There’s 100 employees in Windsor. 30 of which are developers, up from 20 last year.
The run rate for revenues is 30 million GBP now which makes WLD the largest dedicated white label platform in the world. The biggest media partners are Bauer Media, Trinity Media, GMG Radio
Members are paying more now. This is largely due to dramatic improvements in the product, the introduction of true niching, and strong email marketing. WLD sends 9 million emails a day now which is more than eBay Europe
WLD is launching in the USA next year and have spent $2 million on a business with a portfolio of 600 geographically focused domains such as LAdating.com and PhoenixDating.com. The USA business will be rolled out and launched region by region next year and there’s an seeding marketing budget of 1 million GBP reserved.
There’s also a big push on mobile. WLD’s mobile dating platform launches before Christmas. Ross Williams, the CEO, said ‘mobile will be a 1/3 of our business in the future.’ New users from mobile sources are typically half the cost of new users from desktops.
WLD targets 45% revenue growth in the ensuing year, with 30% of revenues coming from non-UK markets, up from 20%.