Originally Posted by Choker (Post 16851306)

If you are not familiar with API or Application Programming Interface please read this Wikipedia article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applica...ming_interface

API postings are becoming very popular with dating sites both mainstream and adult.
In order to explain the benifits lets look at how I use API posting.

1. Surfer goes to one of my dating sites such as http://realfreedate.com/x2-dating.php (if you signup use a fake email addy)

2. Surfer inputs his information in the fields and hits the search button.

3. When the search button is hit I API post his information to a dating site that is paying me.

4. That dating site(buyer) creates a free dating account for that surfer and emails him a welcome email. In that welcome email is a url that when the member clicks logs him into his account at the buyers site and also acts to confirm his account there.

It's that simple. There are many advantages to this sort of posting.

1. The person generating this API posting has complete control of what dating site or sites he signs his members up to.

He can in real time switch from one dating sponsor to another without having to change out banners and links. We all have seen how a dating site can do great for many days then for some unknown reason thier ratios and conversions drop like a rock. That is normally due to inboxing problems on their end but we will talk about that later. API posting allows you to quicky switch from posting to one dating sponsor to another. It also allows you to make and test your own signup pages. Surfers see the same dating site pages all the time. Unique and different pages is the key to getting surfers to signup. Being able to make your own signup pages is a big advantage.

2. You can API post the same surfer to more than one dating site at a time therefore increasing your chances of him upgrading and you making a sale. This is the tricky part so be carefull. The average dating site member signs up for 3 to 4 dating sites. Use this figure as a guideline. Signing up a member to 20 different dating sites is going to fill his email box with so many welcome emails that he will know that YOU are the source of these unwanted emails. Using API you can post him to a dating site at time of signup at your site, then another one 24 hours later, another one 48 hours later etc. This is much better than signing him up at multiple dating sites at the time of join. And this is most important: DO NOT sign him up at dating sites that are known to sell this same information to spammers or other dating sites.

Now for the disadvantages.

The main disadvantage of API posting is problems with the dating sites you API post to themselves. I have yet to see a single dating site that has worked out all the bugs and learned how to fully monetize API postings.

Here's some common problems I have encountered

1. Some dating sites require too many fields.

Some dating sites require the "Description" and "Looking For" in order to post. This is simply not practicle for most sites that API post. My join form http://realfreedate.com/x2-dating.php has the required fields that is most common and practicle. In fact the sites that I do the best with only require the email address of the surfer, his IP address, and gender. The less the better. Some dating sites tend to think that the more information they gather at signup the higher the quality the lead is. This is true to a degree but requiring a lot of fields can mean 100 signups at 50% productivity versus 1000 signups at 25% productivity. The math is in favor of less fields.

2. Most dating sites do not return a auto login/confirm url upon posting.

When you API post a member to a dating site you REALLY need thier API to respond to yours with a url that acts as a autologin and a confirm url. And this url needs to always work, not just the first time. Members bookmark this url and can use it to login and you can advertise this url to them so they do login the dating site you are trying to promote.

Some dating sites send the login url and the user name and password in their email so the surfer has to copy and paste it to login. Surfers are lazy, hell I know I am. If its not one click them I'm not interested. Surfers EXPECT urls to log them in. Copy and pasting your user name was great back in 1999. How many times have you went to a site you had a account with and couldn't remember your user name and password and didn't feel like bothering with doing a password reset or reminder? Most people will just say to hell with it and go join another site.

HAVING A AUTO LOGIN URL/CONFIRM URL IS THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IN MONETIZING API POSTINGS.

3. Many dating sites direct the surfer to the credit card page when they click the confirm url.

Aggressive is one thing but sending someone directly to a page where they have to pay right away in this situation is quite frankly the poster child of bad marketing. This tactic may work great if its a member that signed up for your site at your site, but for API postings its a sure fire way to lose a potential sale. A member API posted to you has never seen your site so why would they pay before they can see what your site has to offer? This is a no brainer yet many dating sites continue to do this. Use dating sites that send the new API posted member to thier complete profile or home page.

4. Some dating sites sell your members information.

Avoid these sites. While it may be in their TOS, you don't get paid for this and the end result is that the member you worked so hard to get will soon have his email address rendered unusable due to the large amounts of spam. It's real easy to find out what dating sites do this, simply make a yahoo email address and signup as a free member and check daily for spam.

5. Some dating sites are not proactive in getting your members to confirm.

Use dating sites that send reminder emails to members that have not confirmed at least once a week. Many send 1 or 2 reminder emails then stop sending. I recently attended a google conferance where it was stated that the average dating site member will take 2 to 3 weeks to decide what dating sites to join after finding them. Common sense tells us that if this is the case then it probably takes them another 2 to 3 weeks to upgrade once they have joined a dating site. API post to dating sites that are agressive.

6. Most dating sites do not allow the same email address twice.

Most dating sites will not allow someone to signup with the same email address more than one time. Many people may have created a account 3 years ago at a site and forgot all about it. Try to use dating sites that allow them to make a second account with that email addy so you can get paid if they upgrade. Helping a affiliate from 3 years ago is not my idea of good business. If you send the signup YOU should get paid for it.

Last but not least cover your ass. Put in your TOS that you can and will sell and share the members info with third parties.

I even have a checkbox at the bottom where members can opt out of this.

While API posts are not as high quality as a click on a banner, the sheer quantity has a big advantage. Look for other programs that accept API posting besides dating sites. The market is wide open. Thank you Choker

Originally Posted by Choker (Post 16851306)

If you are not familiar with API or Application Programming Interface please read this Wikipedia article.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_programming_interface

API postings are becoming very popular with dating sites both mainstream and adult.
In order to explain the benifits lets look at how I use API posting.

1. Surfer goes to one of my dating sites such as realfreedate.com/x2-dating.php (if you signup use a fake email addy)

2. Surfer inputs his information in the fields and hits the search button.

3. When the search button is hit I API post his information to a dating site that is paying me.

4. That dating site(buyer) creates a free dating account for that surfer and emails him a welcome email. In that welcome email is a url that when the member clicks logs him into his account at the buyers site and also acts to confirm his account there.

It's that simple. There are many advantages to this sort of posting.

1. The person generating this API posting has complete control of what dating site or sites he signs his members up to.

He can in real time switch from one dating sponsor to another without having to change out banners and links. We all have seen how a dating site can do great for many days then for some unknown reason thier ratios and conversions drop like a rock. That is normally due to inboxing problems on their end but we will talk about that later. API posting allows you to quicky switch from posting to one dating sponsor to another. It also allows you to make and test your own signup pages. Surfers see the same dating site pages all the time. Unique and different pages is the key to getting surfers to signup. Being able to make your own signup pages is a big advantage.

2. You can API post the same surfer to more than one dating site at a time therefore increasing your chances of him upgrading and you making a sale. This is the tricky part so be carefull. The average dating site member signs up for 3 to 4 dating sites. Use this figure as a guideline. Signing up a member to 20 different dating sites is going to fill his email box with so many welcome emails that he will know that YOU are the source of these unwanted emails. Using API you can post him to a dating site at time of signup at your site, then another one 24 hours later, another one 48 hours later etc. This is much better than signing him up at multiple dating sites at the time of join. And this is most important: DO NOT sign him up at dating sites that are known to sell this same information to spammers or other dating sites.

Now for the disadvantages.

The main disadvantage of API posting is problems with the dating sites you API post to themselves. I have yet to see a single dating site that has worked out all the bugs and learned how to fully monetize API postings.

Here's some common problems I have encountered

1. Some dating sites require too many fields.

Some dating sites require the "Description" and "Looking For" in order to post. This is simply not practicle for most sites that API post. My join form realfreedate.com/x2-dating.php has the required fields that is most common and practicle. In fact the sites that I do the best with only require the email address of the surfer, his IP address, and gender. The less the better. Some dating sites tend to think that the more information they gather at signup the higher the quality the lead is. This is true to a degree but requiring a lot of fields can mean 100 signups at 50% productivity versus 1000 signups at 25% productivity. The math is in favor of less fields.

2. Most dating sites do not return a auto login/confirm url upon posting.

When you API post a member to a dating site you REALLY need thier API to respond to yours with a url that acts as a autologin and a confirm url. And this url needs to always work, not just the first time. Members bookmark this url and can use it to login and you can advertise this url to them so they do login the dating site you are trying to promote.

Some dating sites send the login url and the user name and password in their email so the surfer has to copy and paste it to login. Surfers are lazy, hell I know I am. If its not one click them I'm not interested. Surfers EXPECT urls to log them in. Copy and pasting your user name was great back in 1999. How many times have you went to a site you had a account with and couldn't remember your user name and password and didn't feel like bothering with doing a password reset or reminder? Most people will just say to hell with it and go join another site.

HAVING A AUTO LOGIN URL/CONFIRM URL IS THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IN MONETIZING API POSTINGS.

3. Many dating sites direct the surfer to the credit card page when they click the confirm url.

Aggressive is one thing but sending someone directly to a page where they have to pay right away in this situation is quite frankly the poster child of bad marketing. This tactic may work great if its a member that signed up for your site at your site, but for API postings its a sure fire way to lose a potential sale. A member API posted to you has never seen your site so why would they pay before they can see what your site has to offer? This is a no brainer yet many dating sites continue to do this. Use dating sites that send the new API posted member to thier complete profile or home page.

4. Some dating sites sell your members information.

Avoid these sites. While it may be in their TOS, you don't get paid for this and the end result is that the member you worked so hard to get will soon have his email address rendered unusable due to the large amounts of spam. It's real easy to find out what dating sites do this, simply make a yahoo email address and signup as a free member and check daily for spam.

5. Some dating sites are not proactive in getting your members to confirm.

Use dating sites that send reminder emails to members that have not confirmed at least once a week. Many send 1 or 2 reminder emails then stop sending. I recently attended a google conferance where it was stated that the average dating site member will take 2 to 3 weeks to decide what dating sites to join after finding them. Common sense tells us that if this is the case then it probably takes them another 2 to 3 weeks to upgrade once they have joined a dating site. API post to dating sites that are agressive.

6. Most dating sites do not allow the same email address twice.

Most dating sites will not allow someone to signup with the same email address more than one time. Many people may have created a account 3 years ago at a site and forgot all about it. Try to use dating sites that allow them to make a second account with that email addy so you can get paid if they upgrade. Helping a affiliate from 3 years ago is not my idea of good business. If you send the signup YOU should get paid for it.

Last but not least cover your ass. Put in your TOS that you can and will sell and share the members info with third parties.

I even have a checkbox at the bottom where members can opt out of this.

While API posts are not as high quality as a click on a banner, the sheer quantity has a big advantage. Look for other programs that accept API posting besides dating sites. The market is wide open. Thank you Choker

Originally Posted by candyflip (Post 16851409)

Interesting read.

Are the Educational series things an officially sanctioned thing, or can any title a thread "Educational Series" if it might have some thing informational to offer?

Originally Posted by Choker (Post 16851481)

No it's a gruelling process. You have to take pics of yourself sitting on a sybian with the double dildo attatchment up your ass and send them to Myjah. If she thinks the pics are hot then she will invite you to post here.

Originally Posted by Jean-Francois (Post 16851518)

Very good post Choker, some amazing info for anyone interested in doing an API.

As for your french join page http://realfreedate.com/x2-dating.php way to many mistakes on there my friend. Let me know if you need help with it.

Originally Posted by Longboat full of Vikings (Post 16851445)

Interesting.

Is it legal to do that?

Originally Posted by Choker (Post 16851538)

Yeah so much for the google language translater eh? LOL. Thanks man thats on my list of to do things I need to properly translate every language.

Originally Posted by Jean-Francois (Post 16851925)

What is best email to contact you I'll send you a revise version of that one ;)

Originally Posted by Choker (Post 16851306)

Last but not least cover your ass. Put in your TOS that you can and will sell and share the members info with third parties.

I even have a checkbox at the bottom where members can opt out of this.

Originally Posted by Choker (Post 16851306)

Signing up a member to 20 different dating sites is going to fill his email box with so many welcome emails that he will know that YOU are the source of these unwanted emails.
...
4. Some dating sites sell your members information.

Avoid these sites. While it may be in their TOS, you don't get paid for this and the end result is that the member you worked so hard to get will soon have his email address rendered unusable due to the large amounts of spam. It's real easy to find out what dating sites do this, simply make a yahoo email address and signup as a free member and check daily for spam.

Originally Posted by raymor (Post 16852193)

This probably makes it legal, provided that the surfer is over thirteen years of age:




Aside from purely legal issues, Choker mentioned a couple of things related
to pissing off a customer and basically being a scumbag or not.



Obviously if YOU spread your customer's information around so that "the member you
worked so hard to get will soon have his email address rendered unusable due to the
large amounts of spam", the customer is not going to be happy with you, is not going
to keep buying from you, and will rightly decide that you are a scumbag.

Decide for yourself to what extent you want to provide your customers with a quality
service and build customer loyalty versus how much of a scumbag you want to be.
You can then consider what that means you should do as far as the checkbox labeled
"do not share my information", etc.

One company uses "Don't Be Evil" as one of the major guiding principles of how they
do things and that company, Google, has done fairly well. One economist called them
"the most successful company ever". More on Google's ideas about this:
http://investor.google.com/conduct.html

While the value of Google nearly doubled in twelve months, Microsoft has lost value
just about every year for the last ten years. In their "good" years they didn't quite
keep up with inflation. We all know MS is fine with being scumbags. Draw your own conclusions.

Originally Posted by ColetteX (Post 16852296)

how many people read that? and how many people understand that? lol. i hope you will stay alone in this shitty api bussiness, where you will be always, doesnt matter what you will say, spreading informations of your surfers. congrats

Originally Posted by TheDoc (Post 16852331)

Some great info Choker... thanks!

Do you collect the data first, so you get the email? Or do you just post to the api's you want, as the possible sales comes in?

Originally Posted by Choker (Post 16852521)

I collect the data first.

Originally Posted by Varius (Post 16852364)

Nice summary, as someone who has both implemented and used APIs of others for as long as I can recall, you offer people out there some solid info. :thumbsup

One additional point I think you may want to touch on is regarding usernames and emails (you did touch on duplicate emails briefly).

Say you are currently sending your API post to 5 different sites. Let's say the username is in use already at three of them. This doesn't mean they already had an account, it could just be they are trying a very generic or common username. How do you proceed?

Some dating sites will append digits or characters to the username, to create one that is unique. This is great as you do not lose out on creating that account.

Other sites simply report back the error that username is already taken. Do you then report an error back to your user to choose another, even though the username was available on your site as well as some of the ones you successfully posted data to? No, that wouldn't maintain a very smooth process. You could do your own appending of characters in an effort to successfully find one that is available... this isn't perfect as it may cause delays as you make the API call potentially multiple times until you succeed.

Another option is just to skip creating an account at those sites. However, while the easiest thing to do, you are leaving money behind.

The same situation can apply for the email address, however it's a more severe problem as one cannot just be modified to succeed; the email must be valid if you have any hopes to convert the member.

For those facing this problem, what I would do, is create an email alias at a domain you control. Pre-arrange this with the dating site in question beforehand, so you do not get blocked for fraud. If my domain where I use the API posts is called hotdates.com and user john888 creates an account with an email address already in use, I would dynamically create the mail alias [email protected] and forward this to his actual submitted email address.

That comes with its own set of issues, such as making sure you can still get the email through (often, large dating sites will have more resources at their disposal than the average affiliate when it comes to email delivery rate). That is another story alltogether though and best left for another Education Series article :)

An alternative may be to offer your users an internal mailbox on your site, where they could login and access the mail from multiple dating sites. This would likely not convert well, however, unless your users are used to coming to your site often to check a message box.

Hope that adds some addition food for thought to Choker's article. Enjoy!

Originally Posted by Choker (Post 16852605)

Adding a prefix to the user name is what I do. As far as the dupe email thing well what happens if you use forwarding, someone does signup, upgrades, then forgets their login? Chargebacks, so I don't recomend doing that.