Australia

Dating can feel like a spin of the roulette wheel. You could wind up a winner or go home a loser, and either way, your fate is in the fickle hands of Lady Luck. Run into a particularly bad string of dates and you might even think your odds are better in Vegas.

Online dating can't take luck out of the equation entirely, but matching algorithms attempt to add science into the mix. Much has been said about how data is used to help online daters meet their match, but what about the dating sites themselves?

Lynsey Tomkinson, senior marketing manager at eHarmony, spoke to CMO about how an audience segmentation project opened up a whole new world of possibilities for eHarmony. Tasked with increasing the effectiveness of the company's marketing programs, Tomkinson's team relied on data to find ways to better understand and interact with prospects and customers.

The team's investigation began with eHarmony's testimonials. In an age that's widely accepting of online dating, testimonials are no longer needed to persuade new prospects to try it for the first time. Instead, it's about persuading them to switch to eHarmony.

eHarmony also decided to dial down on its marriage-based messaging. Although the company built a strong reputation as a marriage-minded site, that motif becomes increasingly less relevant in the modern world. The company will now showcase that it's a relationship-oriented site without focusing on marriage specifically.

eHarmony launched an audience segmentation project late in 2014 to delve deeper into audience insights. The goal was to find better ways to target individuals using messages carefully tailored to their needs, interests and lifestyles. eHarmony drew on data from its 2.6 million Australian members and analyzed more than 70 million data points – the largest bespoke audience segmentation project in the company's eight-year history in Australia.

Ten unique audiences were identified based on profitability, volume and opportunity. Tomkinson's team emphasized the top three, most commercially viable segments. As a result, customer subscriptions and engagement rates leapt by double digits, while eHarmony improved the cost of its registration-to-subscription rate by 53 percent.

After the success of these data-driven experiments, the next step is to boost data analytics capability in-house. “This provides the business the case to get these systems running internally for us,” Tomkinson told CMO. eHarmony is now taking steps to build its infrastructure. Tomkinson hopes the company can produce more data-driven initiatives internally by this time next year.

“This work has set up a good foundation for us that hopefully will work well internally in the future,” she says.

For more information on this dating service please read our review of eHarmony.com.

Dating apps like Tinder have taken the dating world by storm – and some argue have rendered traditional online dating a thing of the past. While sites like Match.com and eHarmony offer matches based on preferences and compatibility, Tinder offers the ability to look at a photo and instantly decide whether or not you’re interested.

In a recent article in Business Insider, eHarmony’s Vice President of Brand Marketing Grant Langston looked at Tinder’s success as a boost to his business. For instance, he’s seen a surge of new subscriptions since Tinder launched in Australia – 2.5 million members, up from 2 million the same time last year.

“The press [Tinder is] receiving is bringing lots of people to the online dating world, including people that find Tinder isn’t the right choice for them,” Langston told Business Insider. “Globally, this trend has helped us tap into new markets and led to an increase in our membership numbers.”

But why are more people choosing eHarmony when Tinder seems to be taking off? For one thing, Langston argues that people who would have never joined an online dating site before find it a little easier to start when they use a dating app. It’s made online dating in general lose its stigma.

Langston also attributes the surge in subscriptions to the high quality matchmaking that is eHarmony’s business model, compared to Tinder’s superficial match-making process. With Tinder, choosing a match is entirely dependent on photos and a couple of sentences, which aren’t much better odds for finding love than meeting someone at a bar. There isn’t necessarily any kind of compatibility – aside from that initial physical attraction.

People who are matched on eHarmony however, are compatible in specific ways. Matches aren’t made via liking the same music or TV shows or someone’s photo, but based on similar dispositions and compatible personalities – which is a bit more complex and relational. Langston says that eHarmony’s matching creates a foundation for a relationship to start, where Tinder is more fleeting, intended for a hook-up. So when people are disappointed with the matches they are meeting through Tinder, they look to other more serious online dating options, which is when they gravitate to eHarmony.

Langston also noted that eHarmony’s growth in the past year has been due to young professionals ages 23-33 flocking to the site, looking for people who are more compatible whether or not they are looking to marry.

According to Langston, eHarmony owes much of its recent success to the fact that Tinder isn’t producing many serious relationships. Then again, it seems that despite the appeal of Tinder, people are looking for something deeper.

Bad news for Cupid Media and more than 200,000 of its Australian users: the online dating company has been found in breach of privacy laws.

Cupid operates more than 35 niche dating websites, including ChristianCupid, MilitaryCupid, SingleParentLove and other sites based on ethnicity, religion and location. Australian Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim found Cupid Media breached the Privacy Act by failing to take reasonable steps to secure data held on its websites. As a result of Cupid’s lax approach to security, hackers gained access to the company’s webservers in January of last year and stole the personal information of about 245,000 users. The information included full name, date of birth, email addresses and passwords.

At the root of the security breach is Cupid’s failure to have a password encryption process in place. "Password encryption is a basic security strategy that may prevent unauthorised access to user accounts," said Commissioner Pilgrim. "Cupid insecurely stored passwords in plain text, and I found that to be a failure to take reasonable security steps as required under the Privacy Act."

The commissioner added that the Cupid Media fiasco illustrates the importance of correctly handling personal information that is no longer needed, either by securely destroying or de-identifying it. “Holding onto old personal information that is no longer needed does not comply with the Privacy Act and needlessly places individuals at risk," he explained. "Legally, organisations must identify out-of-date or unrequired personal information and have a system in place for securely disposing with it.”

While online dating companies certainly do need to fiercely protect the massive amounts of personal data they gather, it’s also up to the daters themselves to take the most secure approach possible to dating online. Anyone using an online dating site should regularly update their privacy settings and change their password. It’s also important to remain vigilant about limiting the personal information you share. Only the bare minimums required should be posted online, or you risk becoming the victim of identity theft or a scam.

Commissioner Pilgrim noted that, on the plus side, "Cupid's vulnerability-testing processes did allow it to identify the hack and respond quickly." The company has addressed the security concerns and the investigation is now closed, but the commissioner warns against future attacks: “Hacks are a continuing threat these days, and businesses need to account for that threat when considering their obligation to keep personal information secure."

Usually when we talk about online dating and hook-ups, it’s to discuss what everybody’s using Tinder for. Today, it’s about a $90 million merger agreement between Fairfax Media’s RSVP dating website and Ten Network Holdings-backed Oasis Active. The two are teaming up amid growing overseas competition in the online dating market.

Prior to the merger, RSVP was wholly owned by Fairfax, while Ten controlled about 40% of Oasis and shared the registry with other investors including co-founders David Heysen and Daniel Haigh, former Star City, Engin and Solution 6 boss Neil Gamble. Although the companies have been rivals at each other’s throats for some time, they’re now putting aside their differences for a marriage of convenience (but plan to keep their maiden names and their respective management teams).

Following the transaction (which will be conducted in a combination of cash and RSVP shares), Fairfax will have a 58% stake, Ten will hold 17%, and Heysen and Haigh will hold 14% of the company. Their combined business will be managed collectively by the RSVP and Oasis executive teams.

The merger is part of a larger trend for Fairfax over the past two years. Fairfax, the publisher of Business Day, has sold a number of digital assets in that time, including online accommodation business Stayz to United States rental operator HomeAway for $220 million and New Zealand auction website Trade Me in late 2012. Fairfax purchased RSVP, Australia’s largest dating website, in 2005.

Oasis launched in 2008 and is now one of Australia's largest free online dating sites. It has an overseas presence in countries including Colombia, Chile and Mexico, but that’s not enough to take on huge international rivals like eHarmony and Tinder. RSVP and Oasis hope that, by combining forces, they can reach new markets neither company could touch individually.

"Oasis has always admired the RSVP brand in Australia and we look forward to working with a business that has been one of the major players in the Australian market for more than 15 years," Mr Heysen says. “Together we can ensure that we continue to develop our products to cater for a wider range of the Australian singles market as well as collectively develop ways to best leverage rapidly changing technology.”

“Oasis and RSVP are two of the strongest brands in the online dating market in Australia, and together they will be even stronger,” adds Ten Network’s Chief Digital Officer, Rebekah Horne. “The partnership of Ten Network, Fairfax, Oasis and RSVP will create a powerful business with myriad growth opportunities, here and overseas.”

While POF has garnered a lot of attention over the years for its free online dating service and hook-up potential, its founder wants to get back to basics and is focused on the goal – finding people matches for the long-term.

POF does have an advantage over other dating sites: namely, its user base. With 70 million registered users all over the world, it can rightly call itself the largest online dating site. Three and a half million people log on to the site every day to look for matches and communicate with others. The company also estimates that over one million relationships a year begin on its website.

What does this mean for daters? For one thing, the sheer numbers POF draws from memberships means the company can determine how people date from country to country, including their cultural preferences and overall approach to dating. They’ve found that while daters in the U.K. largely embrace online dating, the rest of Europe is a bit behind. They can focus on areas of growth and potential.

POF began in Canada, but the U.S. is by far its biggest market, followed by the United Kingdom, Canada, Brazil and Australia.

“People in the United Kingdom will wear turtlenecks in the photos they send,” POF founder Markus Frind told The Provence, commenting on the cultural differences of dating he’s witnessed through the POF user base. “Women are way more aggressive in Brazil. They initiate as much as men.”

POF was started in 2003 when Frind was working for another technology company, and created the dating site in his spare time. He ran the company out of his apartment for five years until it reached ten million in annual revenue. Today he employs about 75 people in a large office space in Vancouver, and since POF remains a free service for daters, most of the revenue generated is from advertising.

Though Frind won’t disclose how much revenue his private company makes, he has put aside $30 million for acquisitions and intends to keep growing. In September of last year, he bought speed dating company Fast Life, hoping to add value to his online dating service by getting into singles events.

And as for success stories? Frind met his own partner through work, not over an online dating site. But he has gathered some success stories resulting from POF matches, including a young married couple who met each other five years ago on the site.

With its popularity unwavering, POF is focusing its efforts on technology and growth. The goal according to Frind is still to help people find long-term relationships.

It seems Australians have gotten over the stigma that used to come with online dating. The majority of singles (51%) said they have either tried online dating or are willing to give it a shot. It seems more and more are looking outside their own networks of friends, colleagues and family to pursue a romantic relationship.

So if you're a resident, you might be wondering: who would I be meeting through an online dating site?

Two of the country's most popular online dating sites, eHarmony and RSVP, have pulled research from their membership to reveal the typical Australian online dater. So in case you were wondering, now's your chance to find out before you sign up.

According to eHarmony, which has a user base of about two million in the country, the average Australian online dater has never been married, is in her (or his) early to mid-thirties and works as a teacher. The next most popular professions for females are nursing and retail, and for men - truck driving. It makes sense that singles in such isolated professions, some with shifting schedules, would look for love online.

"Plenty of research exists showing that many people meet their partner at work," eHarmony spokeswoman Sarah Mason told the Sydney Morning Herald. "However, a large number work in an environment which is not conducive to developing meaningful romantic relationships. Others may be too time-poor, or just shirk at the thought of making small talk in a noisy bar after a long day at work."

The research from dating site RSVP differed a bit from eHarmony, however. According to them, the most popular age group is between 25-34, followed by 35-44 year-olds. For these members, the most popular occupation is in healthcare, followed by education and science.

Not surprisingly, most of the women on RSVP want men who are a few inches taller. Both sexes prefer people with green eyes. Also, vegetarians have a 37% higher success rate with other vegetarians on the site.

RSVP has about two million members as well.

While this research paints a picture of the typical online dater in Australia, especially in terms of professions they hold, it doesn't reference all of the diversity found online. Let's face it: people have all different backgrounds, preferences, and reasons for joining a dating site. Variety of choice is more important to online dating than knowing the "types" of people you might see online when you join. People connect based on chemistry, not on profession, height preference, or even the type of food you enjoy. So date with an open mind.