Topics:Data Analysis, Online Dating online dating data analysis, online dating success

By Scott Valdez

It’s been proven: cocky and funny doesn’t work for everyone!

“Guys, the secret is: you gotta be cocky, and you gotta be funny.” How many times have you heard that before? How many dating e-books have been sold based on this single concept? Date coaches have built entire careers on the idea, coyly revealing this “secret” as if they’re bearing some coveted yogic wisdom.

And, why not? Girls tend to go for overly confident jerks, right? Especially the ones who are funny enough to get away with it. We’ve all seen guys who possess that perfect balance of wit and mild-aggression that sends tipsy barflies careening into their arms every Friday night. And we’ve all seen guys that screw it up one way or another and eventually come off as d-bags.

At Virtual Dating Assistants, we’re not in the personal development business, we’re in the scoring dates business. The real question we ask is: does the “cocky and funny” approach work for you? And more importantly, does this technique work for you in the unique world of online dating?

As fun as it may be to speculate, we at ViDA like to inform our online-dating strategies with solid proof. To this effect, we track 19 variables relating to each and every initial contact email we send on behalf of a client, including a variable that measures the approach or tone of the message. There are a number of different approach categories, but the two we want to compare here are nice/interested versus cocky/funny (aka C&F).

A C&F message is one that playfully teases the recipient, maybe throws her off her game a little, then capitalizes on that slight sense of uncertainty by making her laugh. By contrast, a nice/interested message is generally less daring in its approach. Now we obviously don’t craft messages that are submissive or overly complimentary (think niceness in the context of strength). In fact, there’s no reason a nice/interested message can’t be a little playful, a little challenging and a little funny, but the overall thrust is that the messenger is a genuine guy who is both nice and, obviously, interested.

Looking at the numbers we found that both approaches were certainly successful, but nice/interested was 7% more effective than C&F! So why might this be?

First off there is the possibility that C&F simply doesn’t work as well online as it does in the real world. This ain’t the bar scene. Girls are often going on these sites because they’re tired of all that. Internet interactions are also fraught with issues and concerns surrounding trust and privacy, adding the burden of having to “prove yourself” as normal when messaging people for the first time. This is made even more complex by the fact that the tone of an online message is very easily misinterpreted. Remember that when your C&F message pops up in her inbox, she can’t see your devilishly cute smile. In fact – she can’t see any body language at all! As a result, C&F techniques that work in the real world might come off as slightly creepy in the online arena.

But this isn’t the whole story. All of our dating agents can clearly recall C&F techniques that have proven successful over and over again; and C&F was by no means a poor method of eliciting positive replies. In fact, it fared much better than many of our other approaches. But when we delved deeper, we began to see that it worked better for some clients and WORSE for others; we began to see that it was really a matter of congruency.

Congruency is one of the most important (but often also one of the most overlooked) aspects of your online dating presence, and is a topic that really deserves an e-book chapter or two to itself (which, don’t you worry, we have covered in our new e-book, “Click Magnet: How to Master Online Dating and Meet More Women”)…but we’ll introduce it briefly here.

Simply put, congruency means making sure that every aspect of your online dating presence is consistent with the image you are trying to project of yourself.

Many of our clients are genuinely nice guys with personalities that just don’t fit with the C&F attitude. When we showed these clients the types of C&F messages we’d be crafting for them, they often approved the text. But when we started sending these messages out, the responses didn’t come back as we’d expect.

That’s because women – as you may have already figured out – are pretty darn perceptive. They read the message, and then check out the profile and photos. If the profile and photos are that of a nice guy and the message seems uncharacteristically C&F, they will begin to doubt whether this guy is really being sincere. And doubts about sincerity, especially online where women have to be sensitive about their safety before moving things offline, are killer.

So next time you try an all-out C&F approach on a girl whose profile you’ve been ogling all week, think to yourself: “is this really me?” Despite what other dating coaches say, the C&F approach is not a silver bullet. It can’t overpower a girl’s detection of sincerity. Although let’s be honest…few things can.

Topics:Dating Sites, Online Dating, Uncategorized dating sites, online dating

By VictoriaNwosu-Hope

How to find online romance in all the right places (and avoid the wrong ones)…

Let’s say you’re a 60-year-old lawyer, nearing retirement and looking for that special someone. You imagine a partner with whom you can share your newfound freedom jetting to the South of France, sipping merlot and soaking up the breathtaking countryside. Chances are you won’t be looking for him/her in a downtown rock bar, frequented by excessively pierced 20-somethings, who’d far rather choose a keg over a bottle of smooth pinot! That would be ridiculous.

This lesson comes from Dating 101: When you’re looking for love, you take your search to the places a potential partner would spend time, based on age, interests, income etc. In short, you consider demographics. In this particular case, demographically speaking, up-market wine bars or the newest art exhibition would be sensible starting points.

In the world of online dating, the same principles apply. Here at Virtual Dating Assistants, we always take site demographics into account to ensure each of our clients is subscribed to the dating sites that will give them the most options possible, according to their situation and preferences.

And this is no stab in the dark. Our team of experts is very familiar with the clientele of the sites available, and for  them, choosing what would suit a certain ‘type’ of client (and the ‘type’ of date or relationship they are looking for) is almost second nature. We do, however, often engage in a systematic process we call ‘site analysis’ to help us determine the sites with the most potential (we’ll save this for another day). But for the average online dater, there is solid information out there to direct you to the right sites for you…

Thedatingjournal.com has compiled a comprehensive set of facts and figures outlining key online dating site demographics, to aid you in making your final decision about which to join.  Through their research of the major online dating sites, they have provided and summarized the following demographics of the membership bases of each*:

Gender Ratios

This is relatively self-explanatory, but an important statistic to take note of. It is essential to figure out the playing field before you start a game…

Online Dating Site Percent Female/Percent Male

Average Age Range

The age demographic of a dating site is incredibly important, and is likely to have considerable influence the success of your search. Some statistics to bear in mind:

Average Age Range of Dating Site Members

Of course, when looking at age demographics, there are a number of niche sites, such as SeniorFriendfinder.com, which caters specifically for the ‘Over 55 crowd’, and which may be useful options when honing your search. This age group is represented on the major sites in the following way:

Percentage of Dating Site Members Considered Seniors

In fact, the ‘Over 55’ group happens to be the fastest growing age category in the online dating world – with the following figures showing just how rapidly senior membership is increasing:

Dating Site with Fastest Growing Senior Membership (past two years)

Note that although Match.com is home to the highest percentage of online daters in the ‘Under 30s crowd’, ironically the site has also seen the fastest increase in its ‘Over 55’ membership, which has doubled over the last two years.

Fees and Finances

Although not necessarily the most important factor, the average income of a particular dating site’s demographic may be of interest to some – and even a deal-breaker to others. The members of eHarmony appear to have the highest average annual income range of the major sites (over $50k per year), though income data was not available from all of the sites researched.

Consequently, eHarmony also has the highest one-month subscription price, at $59.95. This table shows how this compares with other site fees…

Price for a One-Month Subscription (prices subject to change)

Demographically Compatible?

Thedatingjournal.com’s take on what the fees reveal is that “eHarmony seemed to be the site with the members most interested in long-term relationships, as well as the greatest number of professionals.” This site also claims to result in the greatest number of marriages (although this information is debatable), and requires prospective members to fill out detailed questionnaires and compatibility studies.

So, taking into account the financial commitment that a site demands of its members may allow you to gauge whether potential dates will be on the same level as you, in terms of casual versus more serious long-term goals. Also, an idea about the gender ratio should give you an idea about just how fierce the competition really is…

We’ll have more on site selection soon but, in the meantime, however you go about choosing the best dating site to suit your search, always remember that yes, there are plenty of fish in the sea, but if it’s a fresh-water species you’re hoping to catch, you could sail all seven seas and you’d just be wasting your time…

*Editor’s Note: Match.com recently acquired Yahoo! Personals, and according to this article, Match now has a much further reach and its demographics have therefore changed. The other statistics noted in this post are current and relevant.

Topics:Uncategorized online dating, online dating tips

By VictoriaNwosu-Hope

If You're Only Going After Women Like This, You're Probably Still Solo

In a recent blog post we talked about how only meeting people who fit your incredibly specific criteria can lead to your downfall.

Now we’ll tackle the second Principle of Pickiness:

The experience doesn’t live up to the expectations.

An online dater’s expectations are far higher and more specific than those of John Doe, standing at the bar and looking for love. Of course they are. John doesn’t have a search engine to filter out women with cats (he hates cats) or Protestants (his Catholic mother would never approve). What John does have is the means to instantly assess whether the girl he has his eye on can keep up with his playful banter, and has a sense of humor that actually makes him laugh. No, he doesn’t know her income, but her perfume smells expensive. It could have broken the bank, it could have been money to burn, it could have been a gift…he just can’t tell.

The differences between online and real-life first encounters are vast. So, in order to make the most of either, you must adapt your game to the field of play. You’ll only get satisfaction if your expectations are realistic. If finding Mr. or Mrs. Right online is proving difficult, there are two key ‘Principles of Pickiness’ to consider. Here is the first:

You’re setting your sights too high.

Just because, all of a sudden, you have access to model-esque women or millionaire entrepreneurs does not mean it is a good idea to restrict your searches to only include them. If they are out of your league in the real world, chances are they will be online, too. Sorry to be harsh, but it’s true.

Remember, these people receive hundreds of emails, and don’t even open half of them. At ViDA, our analysis has shown that your chances of receiving a response from someone (granted, subjectively) better looking than yourself are 9% lower than if they are of a similar level of attractiveness. If you’re interested in how we got this number, tune in next week for some “Hard Data on Going After Hot Chicks.”

By refining your search too much, you are drastically narrowing your window of opportunity. We’re not suggesting you throw your standards to the wind; but you may never meet the girl who has it all  just because she only works out 3-4 (instead of 5+) times a week,  You told yourself you would settle for nothing less than optimum physical fitness, but you’re no Lance Armstrong…

Topics:Data Analysis, Experiments in Online Dating online dating data analysis, online dating success

By Scott Valdez

How Her Last Login Date Affects The Probability of a Reply

You see it lurking there, next to her photo and age, hovering under her headline, but what does it mean? 1 week, 2 hours, more than a month…you know this information is important, you know you should take it into account, but how? We’re talking of course about the mysterious Last Login Date.

Online dating sites are practically overflowing with data. They bombard you with information, but don’t give you the tools to interpret it.

Here at Virtual Dating Assistants, we track 19+ variables related to each and every initial contact email we send on behalf of our clients. And given that we’ve already sent well over 10k messages during the past 12 months…that adds up to quite a significant pool of data.

For every initial contact email we compose, we record the Last Login of the recipient the moment before we send it. We use the following 5 categories to classify the data: 1) online now, 2) online within 24 hours, 3) online within 1 week, 4) online within 3 weeks, and 5) not online in over 3 weeks.

Recently, we decided to break down the data and do some analysis to discover how messaging recently active vs. inactive users can affect your positive response rate.

Like the experiment we conducted for our last “Breaking Down the Data” post, for simplicity’s sake we just analyzed the data from men emailing women. We knew that the longer a woman hadn’t been active, the less likely she’d be to respond…but we have to admit we were quite eager to break down the data and check out the numbers.

Our Results

We had an idea that the response rate would start to taper off after the 1 week mark, but even we were surprised at the extent of the results.

According to the data, if you email a woman who last logged in 1-3 weeks ago then your response rate will be 60% lower than if you message one that’s ‘online now’. And good luck getting responses from women who haven’t accessed their profile in over 3 weeks… here our response rate dropped off to 0%!

What can you, the everyday online dater glean from these results?

The last login date is extremely important so you should always have your search results ordered so that you start with the most active members — the ones that are ‘online now.’

And clearly you shouldn’t bother emailing women who haven’t been active within the past 3 weeks. It’s a huge waste of time!

So why is it that recently active users are so much more likely to reply to you than inactive ones?

It’s simple… the longer it has been since someone logged in, the more likely it is that they’ve met someone or stopped using the site without deleting or hiding their profile.

Some just plum forget they even set up a profile, and never delete it. So beware of anybody that hasn’t logged in for a while and has a sparsely completed profile. You could be messaging a profile from the realm of the living dead…an online dating zombie!

By the way, when was your Last Login?

Topics:Data Analysis, Miscellaneous, Online Dating, Uncategorized online dating, online dating data analysis

By Scott Valdez

Breaking It Down for Ya: Online Dating Statistics in a Nutshell

What are the odds?

Ever seen a knockout girl in the street and immediately thought: “Is there a chance I’ll spend the rest of my life with this person? What are the odds?” Crazy? Maybe, but in the online world, there’s no reason you shouldn’t know your chances of success.

Online dating is a bigger industry than porn (yeah, that big!), and every tiny piece of data is recorded and analyzed. So if you’re looking for love online and want to know how long it’ll take to land that first date, the likelihood of hearing wedding bells at the end of the road, or quite simply whether you’ll find yourself between the sheets with your internet encounter, we have the stats to give you the scoop.

Numbers games

Here at Virtual Dating Assistants, we stumbled upon this set of stats below, gathered by ‘Online Schools’, a website that trawls the internet for all kinds of trends. The image pretty nicely sums up a variety of the key facts and figures of our field. Based mainly on information provided by Match.com and eHarmony, it addresses sex and marriage… as well as lies and scams. Juicy.

Juicy AND misleading; because as with all stats – especially those surrounding the obscure subject of love – lies, scams, inaccuracies and questionable validity inevitably play a part.

Flaws in the figures

A big mistake straight up, there’s a sentence under point number 9 that says, “1 of 10 users LEAVE [online dating sites] within the first 3 months”. According to a study by Jupiter Research, only 1 of 10 STAY beyond the first 3 months… that’s right, NINE out of ten new online daters throw in the towel within 90 days! The main reason: dissatisfaction primarily stemming from lack of results (… and that’s where we come in )

Solid Stats or False Facts?

The marriage stats are sketchy, at best. Both eHarmony and Match.com are keeping quiet about how they found out how many of their customers tied the knot. As a result they have been accused of releasing these figures solely to attract new clients and advertisers.

Even as recently as last month, OKCupid.com, PlentyOfFish.com and Match.com have been publicly brawling over the validity of statistics. We will have more of our own input on these competitors’ recent fights in an upcoming post.

Lies and damn statistics

Or statistics about damn lies…  It’s interesting to see that the march of equality hasn’t made it as far as the realm of lies and untruths. Sure, both sexes lie when dating online, but about different things. For guys, age is the big problem, followed by height and income. But for girls, age is just a number, far more important are vital stats (are you trying to say we’re shallow, girls?), so the fairer sex prefer to shave a few pounds off here and there and throw in a ’slim’ where maybe a ‘curvy’ would be more appropriate. In the long run you’re always going to get caught out, so our advice is… just be honest from the start!

Practice safe online dating!

Four out of five used no protection on their first night of passion? Come on guys, it’s 2010 for god’s sake!

VIDA’s Final Thoughts

So what have we learned from our voyage through the sea of online statistics? That Americans spend billions of dollars on online dating but the vast majority quit within three months; that guys online aren’t as young as they seem and girls are always a little bigger in the flesh; that it might not be as successful at securing marriages as some of the dating sites want you to think; and that guys really need to rubber up!

Thanks to the stats, you can now spend 10% of your time being wary of sex offenders, and know that you’re taking part in an industry that is bigger than porn. That’s big.

Online Dating: Bigger than Porn

Topics:Dating Sites, General, Miscellaneous, Online Dating online dating success

By Scott Valdez

Response to OKCupid’s “Why You Should Never Pay For Online Dating”

So according to Christian Rudder, co-founder of OKCupid, pay sites are dead. Great! We can all put our credit cards away and use free dating services to live happily ever after, right?

Not by our calculations.

Here at ViDA we feel we can offer you an impartial view. We have no vested interest; our only aim is to find the best dates possible for our clients. We don’t have agreements with dating sites; Match and eHarmony are not paying us to spring to their defense. We just use whatever works. So hopefully our thoughts on the matter are a little more objective.

The Verdict is In: Pay Sites Are Worth the Cash

Here are a few of our arguments to bear in mind along with the ‘grain of salt’ Mr. Rudder asks us to take with his findings.

1. We get better response rates from pay sites

We ran a preliminary analysis on our figures over this past year to get a breakdown in the differences between our results on free and pay sites. We would like to collect more data before we try to draw a concrete conclusion (stay tuned for a blog on this in the future) on this matter, but our early findings are still pretty interesting:
•    Messages sent to pay sites were 46.9% more likely to get a response than those sent to free sites
•    Of the successful messages, those sent to pay sites were 44% more likely to end in a date.

So, according to our figures, you’re twice as likely to set up a date if you take a proactive approach on a pay site. *

* Note: These figures apply to paid dating sites with free-roaming capabilities such as Match and Yahoo! Personals… not relationship sites like Chemistry and eHarmony that deliver matches to you and have a guided communication process.

2. Payers aren’t players

It stands to reason that if you’ve shelled out your hard-earned dollars for something, you’re going to take it more seriously than if you got it for free. Free sites are perfect for playing around, people with nothing better to do can set up joke profiles to amuse themselves, or just set one up to see what the online dating rage is all about and then forget about it.

If, on the other hand, every time you open your credit card statement there’s a little sum going to Match or eHarmony, it’s another nudge to push you back to the computer and make sure you’re getting enough bang for your buck.

3. Don’t kill yourself over dead profiles

One of the big points Mr. Rudder makes in his argument is that the user stats given out by Match and eHarmony don’t take into account profiles people don’t use anymore, or users who haven’t paid and so can’t receive messages. So what?

Free sites have the same problem – probably to an even worse degree. And, if you’re a savvy online dater, there are ways you can get round it. The vast majority of the unpaid users on these paid online dating sites are not active. And since most sites have a search feature that allows you to order the results by last login date, it’s not hard to weed the duds right out of the picture. Just use your common sense. If the profile is half-assed and incomplete, you shouldn’t be surprised when you don’t get a response. Just as if it’s completely filled out and they’ve been online recently you should presume they’ve shown Match the money. Who goes through the painstaking process of completely filling out a profile and then makes the effort to log in every day when they can’t even communicate with other members?

4. You’re 12.4 times more likely to find ‘the one’ offline? Come on!

In the blog, Mr. Rudder claims that: “You are 12.4 times more likely to get married this year if you don’t subscribe to Match.com.” There are so many problems with this statistic that it’s hard to know where to begin. One important consideration that he fails to take into account is that online daters are a different breed. They have made a choice to find someone in a different way; they’ve decided against hanging out at a bar until two pairs of drunken eyes meet and stumble home together to live unhappily ever after. Plenty of people do this and if it works for them, sure… But generally speaking, the people that are on online dating sites are tired of that old approach.

So if you’re selective and you want someone who is as crazy on 18th Century French literature as you are, are you 12.4 times more likely to stumble upon them in a bar than on a site where you can search for people with the same passions as you? Our guess is no. The stat does not take the number of Match members each year who get married outside of Match into account either. Maybe they’ve honed their skills online and then started emailing that guy/girl in the office they’ve always dug.

5. Pay sites want you to fail? Hmm…

You should always feel worried when one business attacks another because, surprise surprise, they are trying to make money out of their customers!

Rudd uses a flow chart to show that it is far more beneficial for pay sites if you email non-paying users… that way your email may help persuade them to sign up as a paid member. He’s right. We do wish paid dating sites would tell us who is subscribed and who is not… it certainly seems like an evil marketing tactic that wastes the time of these sites’ subscribers. Luckily though, if you know what you are doing, this is not a huge issue. As explained above, dead or non-paying profiles are not boosted to the top of your search results if you have them sorted by last login date (caveat: never join a paid site that doesn’t have this capability).

In defense of pay sites, most of them do try to find the balance between new client conversions and giving their paid members the best experience possible. Like any subscription-based business, they do count on revenue that is generated by renewals and referrals from satisfied customers.

And it seems a little hypocritical for OKCupid to complain about pay sites making money through more site activity since they benefit from clients having to click through dead profiles in the exact same way as pay sites. Reactivating idle members means more traffic to their site and more clicks on the advertisements that keep their pockets fat.

But don’t take this post the wrong way… we use free sites as well as pay ones and they can and do work. In fact, you should use them… once you build what I sometimes refer to as a “wink-worthy profile” then it can really pay to maximize your exposure by setting up accounts on multiple sites and keeping them active. The main point, though, is when it comes to online dating, as with so much in life, you often get what you pay for!

Topics:Online Dating online dating advice, online dating secrets, online dating success

By VictoriaNwosu-Hope

Online dating is faster, easier, and better than pounding the streets to find ‘the one’, right? Not necessarily. In fact, many find online dating doesn’t live up to its billing. Instead of success they get unexpected trials, tribulations and ultimately frustration. So what’s the problem?

We have one word for you: picky. People tend to be pickier when online dating, and we are going to discuss one of the “Principle of Pickiness”:

Online dating is for scouring, not sampling. You need to meet for that…

Predicting what people are like from their online profiles is like trying to guess what a packaged meal tastes like by looking at the ingredients and nutritional information. That’s according to Dan Ariely, professor at Duke University, head of the eRationality research group at the MIT Media Lab. and author of “Predictably Irrational” (2009) and “The Upside of Irrationality” (2010). You might get an idea of what it will taste like, but only by trying it will you know for sure. Just as only by meeting your matches will you really know what kind of chemistry you have.

Sometimes You Need to Think Outside the Box

Ariely has researched the concept of “people as experience goods” and isn’t surprised that people are left disappointed by their experiences on the net. He says: “Online dating frequently fails to meet user expectations because people, unlike many commodities available for purchase online, are products which must be sampled: Daters wish to screen potential romantic partners by experiential attributes – such as sense of humor or rapport.” Unlike religion, income and marital status, these aren’t just boxes to be ticked. Someone who is funny to some people may be a complete bore to others.

Online dating sets up meetings that otherwise may never have happened, almost lending fate a hand. The frustration comes from the difference between the amount of time spent on screening online and the number of ‘sampling’ opportunities (dates) which come out of it. A study by Ariely’s research team found that online daters spend an average of 5.2 hours per week searching through profiles (using the searchable attributes available such as age, income, and education) and another 6.7 hours writing and responding to e-mails. And the payoff? Just 1.8 hours of offline interaction. That’s a ratio of nearly 7 to 1; hardly seems worth it for the amount of time you put in.

So how can you shift the balance?

One answer is to re-evaluate the weight you are placing on the minor details of your search. So the girl doesn’t have a dog, but you’d really like it if she did…she COULD still be a great date…but you won’t know unless you get in touch and arrange to meet. Don’t linger too long on the particulars; it is not time well spent. Breezing through online screening may sound erratic, but being overly picky only results in fewer dates. Ultimately, these are your ‘sampling’ opportunities, and they should constitute the real selection process, which is far more enjoyable than sitting in front of your computer screen.

Another way to shift the balance: have someone else do some of this tedious online work for you. Simply hire a team of experts like those here at Virtual Dating Assistants to handle the searching and manage the interactions for you

Keep your eye out for the next part of this blog where we’ll look at the second ‘Principle of Pickiness’.

Topics:Data Analysis, Experiments in Online Dating online dating data analysis, online dating success

By Scott Valdez

Increase Your Response Rate by Focusing on Women That Notice You First

Is She Looking At Me?

Was she looking at me? Was it accidental? Should I go talk to her?

A guy can drive himself crazy trying to interpret a woman’s sidelong glance or a brush on the leg. The same is true in the online world. Although the rules of interaction are more constrained, there is still plenty of room for misinterpretation and confusion.

While we can’t tell you if that cute babe that looked at your profile last week is really into you, or if that hot chick that sent you a wink isn’t just jerking you around, we can tell you the next best thing: your odds of success.

Aside from sending you a direct email, there are a few signs that suggest a girl is interested in you – the most blatant being the wink function found on most online dating sites. Many sites also have a number of other less direct tools (i.e. Match.com’s Daily 5) that allow you to give a hint that you’re interested, but they’re not as clear as a wink. Finally, most sites will also record who’s viewed your profile.

Here at Virtual Dating Assistants, we track no less than 19 variables relating to each and every initial contact email we send on behalf of a client.

A few weeks ago, we decided it was time to dig into the data and see just how these signs of interest affected our positive response rate.

For each of the 12,400 emails we’ve sent on behalf of male clients since June of last year, we’ve recorded whether the recipient had:

a) shown no prior interest, b) winked at our client, c) viewed his profile, d) shown some other kind of interest. (We did this for our female clients too but we’ve had more male clients so we’ll focus on the guys for now; sorry ladies).

While we’re not scientists, we are online dating and marketing experts, and we couldn’t resist a little hypothesis. We predicted that any sign of interest, whatsoever, would have a clear, measurable effect on our response rate.

So far we’ve had clients whose ages ranged from mid-20s to early-50s. Individually they varied a lot in terms of their attractiveness level, but taken as a whole were pretty much average-looking guys. And importantly, almost all of these clients were looking for girls a little bit younger, and a little bit better looking than themselves. We didn’t just send out messages to every woman that viewed their profiles. Each woman who showed a sign of interest first had to meet our clients’ (at times stringent) standards.

Our Results

Note: We did not analyze less frequent signs of interest (Daily 5s, HotListed, Favorited, etc) as they weren’t used frequently enough to warrant a full study.

When compared to messages sent to women who had not previously showed any sign of interest…

•    Messages to women who simply viewed a client’s profile were 78% more likely to receive a response.
•    Messages that were sent in response to a wink were 392% more likely to receive a reply!

So, the data we have so far indicates that responding to these signs of interest will on average result in a similarly high 300+% increase in positive response rate.

Marketers often talk of cold leads and warm leads, and how it’s much easier to convert a warm lead (a person who has at least some familiarity/potential interest in the product being sold). It doesn’t even have to be all that warm to make it worth the seller’s time because marketing, in essence, is a numbers game. This knowledge is not lost on astute online daters.

In future posts we’ll talk more about writing what we call a “wink-worthy profile,” but in the meantime, think about what you can do to get more people to at least click on yours.

How’s your primary profile picture? When’s the last time you logged in? Is your headline funny? Is your first paragraph captivating? Remember, these are the things people look at before clicking on your profile - and sometimes it’s even less.

Think about how long it takes for you to decide not to click on a profile. You might have less than a second to make your first impression – so you better make it stand out!

Topics:Data Analysis, Experiments in Online Dating, Uncategorized online dating data analysis, online dating secrets

By Scott Valdez

One of the main purposes of the ViDA blog is to publish the results of ongoing field experiments that test our hypotheses about what strategies, approaches and tactics help and hurt your chances of succeeding on internet dating sites… and to determine their relative importance. Relying on real data to help our clients, as opposed to anecdotal advice, is what makes our service so effective.

Determining the Variables

Crunching The Online Dating Numbers

Here at ViDA, we are constantly researching the factors and variables that can significantly impact the IOI’s (Indicators of Interest – i.e. ‘winks’ and emails) that you will receive:

So for example, just how effective is placing a ‘CTA’ (Call To Action – i.e: “If you have read to this point then you probably have something interesting to say so don’t be shy… send me a message!”?) at the end of your profile? If so, by what percentage can such a statement increase or decrease the number of IOI’s which come your way?

Or, to what extent can you manipulate your chances of success by choosing to pursue online daters of a certain level of attractiveness in relation to your own? And furthermore, does it really make any difference to pay attention to their ‘Last Login Date’?

There are many aspects of online dating, both your profile creation and interaction with potential candidates, that play a large role in your success. At ViDA, we keep track of these tiny details that make a big difference.

But You’re Experts – Don’t You Already Know It All?

As experts in the rules of seduction, many of our readers may wonder why we need to run experiments to test these – seemingly futile – variables. We’re professionals, we know all the ways to woo, and we should have all the answers, right?

WRONG! Anyone who thinks this does not understand one of the most fundamental principles of science… The ultimate test of all knowledge is experimentation. It is the sole judge of scientific truth.

Experimentation helps to generate new laws to be tested by providing hints of greater knowledge that arouse human imagination. As long as the world we live in is dynamic and ever-changing, experimentation will continue to be one of the most important tools of the most advanced professionals.

While everyone seems to have their list of online dating tips and blunders, there is not one dating ‘expert’ that has systematically tested their online dating advice through controlled experiments or data analysis… until now. Before us, so-called “experts” could really tell you anything and get away with it; but in fact we have tested a number email strategies that “top” dating coaches in the world have advocated… only to discover that they are extremely ineffective.

How can they get away with this so easily? Well, think about it… if it doesn’t work then they can just say… “Hey, it must be your profile photos.” They know they will not be held accountable for their advice so they just stick to their instinct and tell you what they think ought to work. But the problem is that what works online (and in the real world), especially when it comes to meeting members of the opposite sex, can be very counter-intuitive.

That is why, in addition to tracking over ten variables on every email we send for analysis purposes, we are engaging in systematic experimentation on a number of online dating sites to test hypotheses, advance our knowledge, inspire our imagination and, ultimately, develop revolutionary online dating tactics and strategies to share with our followers.

We will begin posting the results of our experiments soon. Don’t miss out… subscribe to our blog!

Topics:Offline Dating dating tips, first date, good date locations

By VictoriaNwosu-Hope

Location, Location, Location

Staging the perfect first date is an art form, and location is crucial. Conversation basics, how you look and how you act are all vital – but without a stage you have nowhere to perform; without a field you have nowhere to play; without water, you have nowhere to swim… You get the picture. Pick a terrible location and all the charm in the world won’t help you.

Choosing the right locale is the easiest way to show your date a good time. You’ve got plenty of time to do your homework and pick a knockout spot, but time and again people get it wrong… Which is a shame, because it can make or break your date.
The right place should spark conversation, put you both at ease and be the seedbed from which romance can grow. Get it wrong and you’ll both be sitting awkwardly in silence, destined for your paths never to cross again.

Who Chooses?

This depends on how your online relationship has developed. Who made the first move? Who’s been driving the conversation since then? If one of you is newer to the city, an “insider’s tour” is a no-brainer. The local expert should take the reins, organizing where the date should be.

The choice doesn’t have to be democratic. Sometimes it’s a relief to just be given a time and a place, without any superfluous to-ing and fro-ing. Remember, confidence and decisiveness are attractive characteristics. If you can’t pick a place to go without endlessly checking if it’s OK, what does that say for the rest of your personality?

So when organizing your date, confidently make the suggestion and add a ‘Sound good to you?’ at the end. It gives your date a feeling of being involved in the decision-making process while making it clear who’s in charge.

Spice Up a First Date with Miniature Golf

Ace the Place

The beauty of online dating is that even before your first meeting, you already know a little about your date’s likes and dislikes. But don’t assume you know everything. Just because they mention their fervor for fiction doesn’t mean a book club meeting will make for a romantic evening.

Keep these tips in mind when you’re making your choice:

Quick & Painless

We have to face the facts: first dates don’t always succeed. There’ll be times when you know within seconds it’s not going to work, and you need to put your escape plan into action. Choose an activity from which you can make a quick – yet smooth – exit in the event that no one wants to prolong the agony unnecessarily.

Keep it short and sweet. After all, even if your first rendezvous is a success, you always want to leave your date wanting more. It’s much better to walk away with more to talk about the next time you see one another, as opposed to letting the conversation run dry. Meeting for drinks is always a better choice than a romantic dinner. Coffee or tea is better than lunch.

When it comes to cost, unless you’re Donald Trump, pick somewhere that won’t break the bank. Whether or not you intend to split the bill, it’s best to go for something for which anyone would be comfortable paying.

Conversation is Crucial

Remember, this is the first time you will meet face-to-face. No matter how genuine you are online interacting in person is different, so a good place for conversation is key. The first date may not be the right time to check out your favorite band. No matter how much you both enjoy the music, sign language is not an ideal mode of communication. Opt for an activity that gives ample opportunity for interaction. You are there to get to know one another after all.

But don’t go too far the other way. Even if you’re a great talker, we all need inspiration sometimes. Rather than getting cozy in a coffeehouse, get a latte to go and take a walk in the park, along an interesting waterfront, or somewhere with a nice view and plenty of people watching opportunities. If you run dry there’s always a terribly dressed passer by you can both beat up on.

Creativity and Comfort

Don’t be afraid to get away from the traditional dinner-and-a-movie option. Try something kooky and fun – miniature golf, go-karting, playing air hockey at a local arcade – something different that can offer respite from any stalls in conversation.

Beaches, hikes, forest picnics and romantic dinners at your place are best avoided. It’s never a good idea to seclude yourself away from others while you are getting to know someone. On the other hand, nor is it a good idea to attend an event (like a football game or rock concert) which often attracts a raucous crowd. You don’t want your date to feel uncomfortable or unsafe.

By following these simple rules, and with a little creativity, your date will be itching to know what you have up your sleeve for that next encounter.