My perception is that many of the folks who earn commissions from online dating affiliate programs are using techniques that I wouldn't use (for example, spamming, misleading and deceptive advertisements, pop-ups and pop-unders, and exit redirects).

Of course, there are ethical sites that can profit from dating affiliate programs, but generally these are high-traffic sites because the clickthrough rates AND conversion rates are extremely low.

I promote dating sites almost exclusively as a full time affiliate marketer. I don't use pop-unders, exit redirects, deceptive advertising or any other form of spam.

And if you think the conversion rates of dating sites are low, then you just don't know how to promote them. I use the methods of promoting merchants that everyone else does, (ppc, my own site, etc.) and do extremely well, and I do not have even remotely 'high traffic'. But actually, I don't mind if you prefer to stay away! :)

Anyway, this is a welcome thread, as there don't seem to be any places to chat specifically about dating affiliate programs. I am currently working on a dating affiliate information site, and I'll be sure to put up a forum there.

Check out this thread
[webmasterworld.com...]

I bet the people putting up those ubiquitous citynamedating.com lawn signs are doing okay.

Jeremy Palmer, one of Commission Junction's highest earning affiliates in their entire network works exclusively with dating affiliate programs. He makes well over $1 million per year.

Jeremy didn't used to do exclusively dating, maybe he does now.

I do a ton, no spam, just regular online marketing tactics, no fake myspace profiles of anything like that.

I make most of my living by promoting dating sites. All white hat organic SEO techniques too! It's very hard to promote plain-vanilla dating sites anymore due to the massive competition, but if you can "find your niche" and combine that with a great affiliate program, it's still entirely possible to really do well.

I promoted a niche dating site on a related website of mine, getting paid every time someone did a free signup (more money for women joining than men). It was going along okay at first, and then when payout time came based on the amount I selected, the dating company said that they wouldn't pay me yet. There was some visit-to-signup ratio that supposedly had to be met, and even though my stats showed that I had met it, the company claimed otherwise. After a few back and forth emails, I pulled all of their ads and wrote off the money that I had earned as a loss.

Markus Frind is an affiliate that pulls in $5-10 Million a year at his dating site PlentyofFish. I think most of his income is from Adsense but I believe he also does affiliate marketing. His success has been widely published with stories about him in the Wall Street Journal and other places so you can search to find out more.

Rosalind Gardner author of Super Affiliate Handbook earned $436,797 in 2002, primarily from dating affiliate programs. She still runs a well known dating site filled with affiliate programs but now I'm sure earns more than that and has diversified a lot since then. But dating is where she got her start.

I don't work much in the dating space, most of my clients are more on the retail product side of things. However my sense is that the people that made huge money in dating did it couple years ago. Not that you couldn't make good money now, I think it's just a lot harder. These days I would think the key would be to find a hot largely untapped dating niche.

Tough market! One of my sites is dating but only does so-so. I just think
I don't have a real feel for it, consequently its just a below average earner.
As stated above you probably need to find a good niche and be real creative.

...KF

craigslist is another source of traffic.... bizarre stories for social media... it is about traffic... an insightful blog

Used to do well with mainstream dating, now it's niche or bust. Seems like niche still converts well. I don't focus much on it but have the occasional $800 day.

Every time I think about getting further into dating, I sort of forget about it, but there is definitely money to be made.

>> citynamedating.com lawn signs are doing okay.

I have about 50 of them in my garage. Take them down whenever I see them in my area. Whoever owns them can sticky me and I'll bring them to pubcon... ;)

I can handle spam in my SE, spam in my email, but spam my neighborhood and it kind of pisses me off.