An Interview With Colin Delia of Adult Date Link
Colin Delia runs the Adult Date Link affiliate program, a company focusing on capitalizing in the dating niche. With over 30 different dating sites to promote Adult Date Links provides affiliates with plenty of options to profit from dating traffic.
Webmaster Vault (WV): When did you start your affiliate program?
Colin Delia (CD): We just celebrated our third anniversary at the end of last year. So we started in late 2003.
CD: We launched the affiliate program soon after going live. Within a few months. It was a pretty soft launch while we were collecting data and making sure our business model worked.
WV: Did you buy the sites/program or did you build it from scratch?
CD: It was programmed by Hindus.
WV: How many people do you have working for your program?
CD: Currently 14.
WV: Where in the world are you located?
CD: We’re in sunny
WV: What drew you to the adult business and inspired you to get into the biz and did you have any adult ventures before stepping into the internet?
CD: The World Wide Web came out when I was in college. I started spending all my free time on the net and learned HTML. After college, I decided there was a good opportunity for me to start a net business. With $50 to my name I started a company that submitted company webpages to 100 search engines, link lists and “free for alls”. I built the site myself. It was called “Get the Word out”.
My first two clients were adult websites. One of them offered to pay my company 50% of all profits generated. Once I saw that money I was hooked. After running the search engine submission business for about six more months I decided to switch to all adult sites. I didn’t really have an interest in “adult” as a business before that. Hell, the first time I looked at a Playboy magazine was to read an interview with Gary Kasparov. I was 18. Starting an adult company was very accidental. It could have been anything. Whatever I found to make money I would have done.
WV: How did you get your start in the adult internet biz?
CD: My first site was XXX Reviews. This was in late ’96 or early ’97. I reasoned that if I started a review site I would be able to network with many people because everyone would want reviews and links. This turned out to be true. One of the first companies to contact me was CEN; which later became Traffic Cash. I used to review all their sites and of course they were awesome looking sites with great content. That was a good contact made early on. Many more followed.
WV: Your program focuses on dating sites with an adult slant. What made you decide to go in that direction as opposed to more traditional paysites?
CD: There’s just so much competition in traditional paysites and it is difficult to differentiate yourself. We have our niche. Niche dating!
WV: You program seems to be adding new dating niches all the time. Which of your sites is the most popular? Which has the best conversion ratios?
CD: Adult Date Link is the most popular because it has been around the longest. Smoker Date Link has really good conversion ratios.
WV: There is often criticism of dating sites for having fake profiles. People will create profiles with models for the pics just to get responses so they can promote their sites. Is this as big of problem as it appears to be, or is it just a few bad seeds?
CD: We have a quality control person. It’s really not much of a problem.
WV: How do you deal with the fake profiles?
CD: A delete button!
WV: Every affiliate program has to deal with cheaters. Do you find that there are more or less cheaters promoting dating sites?
CD: We’re pretty good at all aspects of fraud control. We don’t have many problems.
WV: It seems recently that many programs are offering up contests and promotions. Some of these offer large payouts for a couple of days or a week; others offer free stuff like IPODS and TVs. I’ve seen your program use some of these promotions in the past. Do you think that they really work to help bring in long term affiliates or are they just good for a quick spike in traffic and sales?
CD: Contests are just one part of the marketing picture. They are as effective as any other sort of advertising but you can only do them for a limited time.
WV: Where do you see your sites and program heading?
CD: We certainly plan to add many more niches. I would think we’ll be coming up with more tools for webmasters to promote us in the coming year.
WV: What is the best part of running a program like yours?
CD: I’d probably be happy doing just anything that is challenging. Running a successful business is one of the most challenging things you can do in life. Everything keeps changing and you have to adapt or perish.
WV: What is the worst part of running a program like yours?
CD: Responsibilities. Having to be in bed by 2am on weekdays because I know I have to go to the office in the morning.
WV: Any regrets?
CD: I wish I had bought lots of domain names back in the 90s. I kept thinking it was too late. It surprised me when two and three letter domains started to become so valuable.
WV: Any cool new projects coming down the pipe for you?
CD: We just launched UK Date Link. That is the first time we have ever launched a country-specific dating site. We will probably do more like it.
WV: If you could change one thing about the adult internet biz what would it be?
CD: I like the way it is. I could say something like greater acceptance of our industry by the government but then that would just bring more competition.
WV: You seem to have a dating site for almost every niche. I’m looking for a goth-midget-milf-smoking-tranny-teen. . . can you hook me up?
CD: Next time we are in Vegas you and I have to go out partying together. I know a place.
Adult Date Link offers a per signup program, a 50/50 revshare, a pay per click and a pay per email program as well as many different tools to help you maximize your traffic and turn it into cash. To check out Adult Date Link’s sites and affiliate program go to http://www.adultdatelink.com/affiliate/index.asp
Colin Delia (CD): We just celebrated our third anniversary at the end of last year. So we started in late 2003.
CD: We launched the affiliate program soon after going live. Within a few months. It was a pretty soft launch while we were collecting data and making sure our business model worked.
WV: Did you buy the sites/program or did you build it from scratch?
CD: It was programmed by Hindus.
WV: How many people do you have working for your program?
CD: Currently 14.
WV: Where in the world are you located?
CD: We’re in sunny
WV: What drew you to the adult business and inspired you to get into the biz and did you have any adult ventures before stepping into the internet?
CD: The World Wide Web came out when I was in college. I started spending all my free time on the net and learned HTML. After college, I decided there was a good opportunity for me to start a net business. With $50 to my name I started a company that submitted company webpages to 100 search engines, link lists and “free for alls”. I built the site myself. It was called “Get the Word out”.
My first two clients were adult websites. One of them offered to pay my company 50% of all profits generated. Once I saw that money I was hooked. After running the search engine submission business for about six more months I decided to switch to all adult sites. I didn’t really have an interest in “adult” as a business before that. Hell, the first time I looked at a Playboy magazine was to read an interview with Gary Kasparov. I was 18. Starting an adult company was very accidental. It could have been anything. Whatever I found to make money I would have done.
WV: How did you get your start in the adult internet biz?
CD: My first site was XXX Reviews. This was in late ’96 or early ’97. I reasoned that if I started a review site I would be able to network with many people because everyone would want reviews and links. This turned out to be true. One of the first companies to contact me was CEN; which later became Traffic Cash. I used to review all their sites and of course they were awesome looking sites with great content. That was a good contact made early on. Many more followed.
WV: Your program focuses on dating sites with an adult slant. What made you decide to go in that direction as opposed to more traditional paysites?
CD: There’s just so much competition in traditional paysites and it is difficult to differentiate yourself. We have our niche. Niche dating!
WV: You program seems to be adding new dating niches all the time. Which of your sites is the most popular? Which has the best conversion ratios?
CD: Adult Date Link is the most popular because it has been around the longest. Smoker Date Link has really good conversion ratios.
WV: There is often criticism of dating sites for having fake profiles. People will create profiles with models for the pics just to get responses so they can promote their sites. Is this as big of problem as it appears to be, or is it just a few bad seeds?
CD: We have a quality control person. It’s really not much of a problem.
WV: How do you deal with the fake profiles?
CD: A delete button!
WV: Every affiliate program has to deal with cheaters. Do you find that there are more or less cheaters promoting dating sites?
CD: We’re pretty good at all aspects of fraud control. We don’t have many problems.
WV: It seems recently that many programs are offering up contests and promotions. Some of these offer large payouts for a couple of days or a week; others offer free stuff like IPODS and TVs. I’ve seen your program use some of these promotions in the past. Do you think that they really work to help bring in long term affiliates or are they just good for a quick spike in traffic and sales?
CD: Contests are just one part of the marketing picture. They are as effective as any other sort of advertising but you can only do them for a limited time.
WV: Where do you see your sites and program heading?
CD: We certainly plan to add many more niches. I would think we’ll be coming up with more tools for webmasters to promote us in the coming year.
WV: What is the best part of running a program like yours?
CD: I’d probably be happy doing just anything that is challenging. Running a successful business is one of the most challenging things you can do in life. Everything keeps changing and you have to adapt or perish.
WV: What is the worst part of running a program like yours?
CD: Responsibilities. Having to be in bed by 2am on weekdays because I know I have to go to the office in the morning.
WV: Any regrets?
CD: I wish I had bought lots of domain names back in the 90s. I kept thinking it was too late. It surprised me when two and three letter domains started to become so valuable.
WV: Any cool new projects coming down the pipe for you?
CD: We just launched UK Date Link. That is the first time we have ever launched a country-specific dating site. We will probably do more like it.
WV: If you could change one thing about the adult internet biz what would it be?
CD: I like the way it is. I could say something like greater acceptance of our industry by the government but then that would just bring more competition.
WV: You seem to have a dating site for almost every niche. I’m looking for a goth-midget-milf-smoking-tranny-teen. . . can you hook me up?
CD: Next time we are in Vegas you and I have to go out partying together. I know a place.
Adult Date Link offers a per signup program, a 50/50 revshare, a pay per click and a pay per email program as well as many different tools to help you maximize your traffic and turn it into cash. To check out Adult Date Link’s sites and affiliate program go to http://www.adultdatelink.com/affiliate/index.asp
Reader Comments: (1 posts)
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Mike says: Colin is the man! |
February 7th, 2008 at 11:10am EST Rating:  |
