By Lauren Georghiou
Special to YNOT

Online dating users, especially those on adult sites, favor privacy and confidentiality. Over the past two years, stories of high-profile dating and technology businesses being hacked and the names, addresses and credit card details of users leaked online have hit the headlines and threatened the dating industry’s reputation. Reinforced by regular headlines about dating scams, it’s no surprise that some consumers lost faith in online businesses.

It is now our job as dating providers to protect the future of adult online dating by improving the reputation of the industry and rebuilding consumer trust in our brands.

Rebuilding consumer trust

To rebuild consumer trust, we need to better communicate how we provide a safe, high-quality user experience in order to attract real users, both male and female. This can be done through attractive landing pages with engaging content and clear information. It’s important to highlight the safety and security measures in place to reassure users that sites are reputable and secure.

To build a strong brand reputation, all advertising should be honest and follow pre-defined brand guidelines. Brands should take a holistic approach to building trust, ensuring that branding on each page of a site, interstitial pages, blogs and social media pages is consistent. Consistency signals quality to the user, which is likely to attract more high-paying customers.

If dating providers can take on the responsibility of building consumer trust in their brands individually, we can collectively rebuild trust in the industry.

Providing quality service

Due to the large number of competing sites in the industry, providing consistent, high-quality service is essential to retaining users. Consumers are becoming increasingly fickle and expect more from dating sites — even adult dating sites — so a negative experience could discourage them from paying again.

Users are unlikely to pay for a service if they think they are being scammed, so dating providers must work together to fight scammers and remove bots from sites before they come into contact with members. People will pay to meet real people, but a negative experience with scammers can lead to users charging back their payments and a loss of trust in the brand. Therefore, it’s key to create a rich, quality user experience with real people that users are willing to pay for.

Using CRM to drive sales

Despite the loss of consumer trust in the industry, the White Label Dating Adult network has continued to grow. Seven-day conversion rates in the U.S are better than ever: In July, desktop conversion increased by 44 percent over June’s. These increased conversion rates boosted total revenue on the U.S. adult network by 26 percent. We’ve also seen growth in the UK, where revenue from first-time subscribers grew by 12 percent compared to six months ago.

This growth can be accredited partly to various comms campaigns that were effective at driving engagement and activity, encouraging members to make use of all the site’s features and contributing toward a richer user experience.

By sending campaigns when you think users will be most likely to hook up, you can drive logins and activity on your sites. Photo upload campaigns tend to be the most effective on adult networks; a recent campaign increased photo uploads by 340 percent! Not only did this increase activity on our sites, but it also increased the volume of user-generated content. This creates a richer experience for users, as it highlights the number of real users on the site and makes it easier for them to engage with other users.

The future of adult dating rests on the industry working together to effectively remove scammers and bots from sites and providing a great user experience with real, genuine members. The challenge of rebuilding consumer trust can be overcome through consistently providing a high-quality, safe user experience.

Lauren Georghiou is head of White Label Dating, an award-winning dating platform powering niche dating sites for brands and individuals worldwide.

Georghiou heads up the company’s industry-leading account management team and nurtures the strategic direction of the White Label Dating platform. She manages multi-million-pound dating portfolios across multiple international territories.