Business I need a Guru: After 7 years my gay hookup/dating site is only making about $50/day. What can I do?

[altmman]

Almost 7 years ago I started a gay microniche hookup site. Its free to join and if you want upgrades like videos, more messages, see big photos etc you buy a membership.
I've passed out cards at gay bars and bathhouses, took out ads in gay rags, advertised on fb and adwords.

I filmed a handful of very crappy cell phone videos of a guy sucking my cock and posted them on Xtube with my watermark and they threw me out for "Spamming". The tubes wont post my videos because I dont have a reseller program as my monthly price is so low.

Lately its earning me around $50 or so a day. At the height it was making me $100 and sometimes $150/day. I make an extra few hundred dollars a year from PPV theater and sex toy sales. But now its dying.

I thought being microniche would make the site more sticky but I'm so late in the game, most gay hookup sites were established years before mine and these days with Grindr & Growlr people are used to getting everything for free on their phone. And with tubes they REALLY don't expect to pay for anything. I'm lucky to be getting that $50 on it.
Im wondering if theres anything I can do or is this niche just too competitive and not enough money left to go around?
I'd really like to be making $200-300 a day.

Maybe someone works this business and has more experience. I dont mind switching niches I just want to keep working and make more money

[AdultKing]

[the Shemp]

more shattered dreams ...

[DVTimes]

Originally Posted by altmman

Almost 7 years ago I started a gay microniche hookup site. Its free to join and if you want upgrades like videos, more messages, see big photos etc you buy a membership.
I've passed out cards at gay bars and bathhouses, took out ads in gay rags, advertised on fb and adwords.

I filmed a handful of very crappy cell phone videos of a guy sucking my cock and posted them on Xtube with my watermark and they threw me out for "Spamming". The tubes wont post my videos because I dont have a reseller program as my monthly price is so low.

Lately its earning me around $50 or so a day. At the height it was making me $100 and sometimes $150/day. I make an extra few hundred dollars a year from PPV theater and sex toy sales. But now its dying.

I thought being microniche would make the site more sticky but I'm so late in the game, most gay hookup sites were established years before mine and these days with Grindr & Growlr people are used to getting everything for free on their phone. And with tubes they REALLY don't expect to pay for anything. I'm lucky to be getting that $50 on it.
Im wondering if theres anything I can do or is this niche just too competitive and not enough money left to go around?
I'd really like to be making $200-300 a day.

Maybe someone works this business and has more experience. I dont mind switching niches I just want to keep working and make more money

Upload your vids to file sharing sites.

Let others pass your vids around on the net.

Make full use of twitter, facebook and so on.

[epitome]

Grindr, Scruff and now Tinder already have that market on lockdown.

Don't expect it to go anywhere unless its mobile and offers something unique that the others do not.

Even the mighty Manhunt fell and fell hard.

[altmman]

Originally Posted by DVTimes

Upload your vids to file sharing sites.

Let others pass your vids around on the net.

Make full use of twitter, facebook and so on.

thats a good idea thanks. Anyone know the best filing share sites out there to post videos and photos?

[altmman]

Originally Posted by epitome

Even the mighty Manhunt fell and fell hard.

Did they really? I know both the founders but havent talked to them in a long time. They were making over 2 mil a month on that site. Huge staff too

[MassMarketing]

Do you email market to the members? If so, do it often to try and get them to pay for upgrades. Also, put up advertising to outside, non-competing offers. We have dick pills ;)

[VikingMan]

Find Mitt Romeys supporters and collect their email addresses. Then spam the shit out of that list with your gay hookup site. Sit back and make bank. Republicans love interracial and gay sites.

[altmman]

Originally Posted by MassMarketing

Do you email market to the members? If so, do it often to try and get them to pay for upgrades. Also, put up advertising to outside, non-competing offers. We have dick pills ;)

Not really, I send an email a few times a year to let them know if theres a sale on memberships or a sale on pills, sex toy sale, etc. It pulls in a few sales.

[ZeroHero]

sold it for 18250$ at once, or for promotional 15000$

[altmman]

Originally Posted by VikingMan

Find Mitt Romeys supporters and collect their email addresses. Then spam the shit out of that list with your gay hookup site. Sit back and make bank. Republicans love interracial and gay sites.

That's funny made me laugh

[Mr Pheer]

You're making $50 more per day than most other webmasters here.

[LazyBastard]

You're making enough to feed an entire village in Uganda, stop complaining.

[altmman]

Originally Posted by Mr Pheer

You're making $50 more per day than most other webmasters here.

i'd like to work harder and build it up and in a year start making $200 a day but dont know what else to do to build up. The idea to work FB more is a good one and to post my videos on all the file sharing sites too.

But epitome might be right, I might be too late. I will get like 5 signups a day at $5.95 a signup, and 3 will cancel a day, so not exactly making good money.

[ShowMe69]

Originally Posted by altmman

i'd like to work harder and build it up and in a year start making $200 a day but dont know what else to do to build up. The idea to work FB more is a good one and to post my videos on all the file sharing sites too.

But epitome might be right, I might be too late. I will get like 5 signups a day at $5.95 a signup, and 3 will cancel a day, so not exactly making good money.

Raise your price point, to $9.95, you aren't going to lose those 5 signups

[altmman]

Originally Posted by ShowMe69

Raise your price point, to $9.95, you aren't going to lose those 5 signups

Thanks for the advice, I'll experiment with price points. btw I see youre in tx too. I have another hookup site in the sissy/cd niche. Not sure if that complements your cuck niche but if you like to chat sometime hit me up. My skype info is in my profile & sig.

[Therealwini]

Originally Posted by altmman

Almost 7 years ago I started a gay microniche hookup site. Its free to join and if you want upgrades like videos, more messages, see big photos etc you buy a membership.
I've passed out cards at gay bars and bathhouses, took out ads in gay rags, advertised on fb and adwords.

I filmed a handful of very crappy cell phone videos of a guy sucking my cock and posted them on Xtube with my watermark and they threw me out for "Spamming". The tubes wont post my videos because I dont have a reseller program as my monthly price is so low.

Lately its earning me around $50 or so a day. At the height it was making me $100 and sometimes $150/day. I make an extra few hundred dollars a year from PPV theater and sex toy sales. But now its dying.

I thought being microniche would make the site more sticky but I'm so late in the game, most gay hookup sites were established years before mine and these days with Grindr & Growlr people are used to getting everything for free on their phone. And with tubes they REALLY don't expect to pay for anything. I'm lucky to be getting that $50 on it.
Im wondering if theres anything I can do or is this niche just too competitive and not enough money left to go around?
I'd really like to be making $200-300 a day.

Maybe someone works this business and has more experience. I dont mind switching niches I just want to keep working and make more money

Hey altman,

Have you ever thought of doing a co-reg, on one side you keep your data, and on the others you monetize with another dating platform, hit me up and let's try to make some cash together ;)

[gnawledge]

Yeah $50.00 is pretty good these days. I'm doing shitty and deleting my sites because I'm going to downgrade from a dedicated server to a vps because I'm not gonna fork out shit from a non profiting business right now.

Keep up the hard work. People pay for gay.

[SpaceDoc]

that is pretty good these days man, but seven years is an awesome time period, you should get much bigger cashouts

[MassMarketing]

Originally Posted by altmman

Not really, I send an email a few times a year to let them know if theres a sale on memberships or a sale on pills, sex toy sale, etc. It pulls in a few sales.

I would send them something at least weekly. Specials, etc.

[annajamey]

You are right. The gay and lesbian commuinty have a great population for running the dating sites. However, many popular or high-authority sites gets the most of traffic from Google or other media. I suggest you run a much small niche topic to accumulate your users.

[fuzebox]

Your price point is definitely too low. I'd test higher than 9.95 as well (and higher priced multi month).

The gay market is impossible to convert on dating thanks to grindr etc... Like suggested above I'd be more aggressive with email and upsells, and the coreg isn't a bad idea.

Do you have a traffic source that isn't cards at bathhouses? Honestly $50/day is not bad with where you're at.

[ZTT]

Thread's more than half a decade old, bumped by a sig spammer.

[nikki99]

Originally Posted by AdultKing

[AdsEmpire]

Originally Posted by altmman

Almost 7 years ago I started a gay microniche hookup site. Its free to join and if you want upgrades like videos, more messages, see big photos etc you buy a membership.
I've passed out cards at gay bars and bathhouses, took out ads in gay rags, advertised on fb and adwords.

I filmed a handful of very crappy cell phone videos of a guy sucking my cock and posted them on Xtube with my watermark and they threw me out for "Spamming". The tubes wont post my videos because I dont have a reseller program as my monthly price is so low.

Lately its earning me around $50 or so a day. At the height it was making me $100 and sometimes $150/day. I make an extra few hundred dollars a year from PPV theater and sex toy sales. But now its dying.

I thought being microniche would make the site more sticky but I'm so late in the game, most gay hookup sites were established years before mine and these days with Grindr & Growlr people are used to getting everything for free on their phone. And with tubes they REALLY don't expect to pay for anything. I'm lucky to be getting that $50 on it.
Im wondering if theres anything I can do or is this niche just too competitive and not enough money left to go around?
I'd really like to be making $200-300 a day.

Maybe someone works this business and has more experience. I dont mind switching niches I just want to keep working and make more money

Кеу Insights and Тірs About the Dating Vertical

Let's get down to business right away and look into the essential aspects of running dating ad campaigns.

Insight #1. Тор GEOs are not always the most profitable.

Insight #2. Always focus on scaling. It is not the best approach to settle for stable but average perfor m a nc e. It is imperative that you test new GEOs, offers, and approaches.

Insight #З. The re can Ье no scaling without tracking. Regular tracking and analysis can deliver actionable data and insights - and that's your key to success.

Insight #4. Choose offers that will match your traffic sources. Every offer has а specific set of targeting restrictions and limits.

Insight #5. Working with non-English GEOs can ensure better results. However, you need to keep in mind that high-quality translation is the main requirement in this case.

[ALLBIZMARK]

Originally Posted by Mr Pheer

You're making $50 more per day than most other webmasters here.

hahaha

[sarettah]

Originally Posted by annajamey

You are right. The gay and lesbian commuinty have a great population for running the dating sites. However, many popular or high-authority sites gets the most of traffic from Google or other media. I suggest you run a much small niche topic to accumulate your users.

Why are you bumping 6 year old threads?

.

[j3rkules]

Originally Posted by sarettah

Why are you bumping 6 year old threads?

.

I guess he is a spammer.

[fuzebox]

Originally Posted by ZTT

Thread's more than half a decade old, bumped by a sig spammer.

Goddammit. Didn't even notice

[OneHungLo]

Originally Posted by annajamey

You are right. The gay and lesbian commuinty have a great population for running the dating sites. However, many popular or high-authority sites gets the most of traffic from Google or other media. I suggest you run a much small niche topic to accumulate your users.