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Chadwick Martin Bailey study shows Match.com twice as effective as eHarmony

Match.com released some beat-the-competition success numbers (Sample size = 7000 US adults 18+, married within the last 5 years) last April 20.

David Evans contacted Match.com and asked them who their second closest competitor was. They told David,

Eharmony claims they’re responsible for 236 marriages a day, or 2% of all marriages. Our study found that we’re responsible for 4%.

In the April 20 press release, Match.com’s CEO says this,

Match.com is the clear leader in online dating. We don’t overpromise. We don’t tell people we’ve figured out the secret to human happiness. And we don’t say we’re the answer. We’re simply a new and effective way to do an old and important thing, which is meet great new people with whom you really have a chance of hitting it off.

In fairness, eHarmony’s Senior Research Scientist Gian Gonzaga did say that they tried to be conservative and understated their 2007 figures, which incidentally also had a sample size of ~7000 US adults. I expect eHarmony to post updated survey findings from Harris Interactive very very soon. (Harris reported 90 a day in 2005 and 236 a day in 2007, so an update is overdue.)

Read more in David Evans blog: Study Shows Match.com Twice As Effective as eHarmony.

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Comments 5

  1. SingleGuyInNC wrote:

    They have got to be kidding.

    I rarely got responses from women on Match.com (let alone dates) and they claim they are the leader in marriages?

    The data presented in the survey does not agree with my real life experiences with eHarmony and Match.com. From where I sit, I can only conclude that the sample was not truly random or the results manipulated in some form. Either that, or there is something wrong with all of the single women on Match.com in my area which can explain the abysmal results I’ve had.

    Posted 28 Apr 2010 at 1:33 pm
  2. john wrote:

    Yes. Yes! YES! Let them fight! That is great for us, ‘consumers’! Hopefully it does to things – better their services, lower their prices! So, let them duke it out!

    Posted 28 Apr 2010 at 1:41 pm
  3. Fernando Ardenghi wrote:

    1) If you carefully analyze the data, that study only proves that “Via Online Dating Site” is not the primary source to find a long term mate.

    2) Sites like Match/Chemisty, eHarmony, True, PerfectMatch, Be2, MeeticAffinity, Parship, PlentyOfFishChemistryPredictor and others have low effectiveness / efficiency of their proprietary predictive matching methods for LONG TERM mating. The majority of their members, over a 90% of them, are not going to achieve a long term relationship with commitment (or marriage).

    3) when they say “Approximately twice as many recently married couples met on Match than the site that ranked second (eHarmony)”
    They should check marital stability and marital satisfaction, not only marriage itself!

    Are divorce rates higher in Match than in eHarmony?

    Regards,

    Fernando Ardenghi.
    Buenos Aires.
    Argentina.
    ardenghifer@gmail.com

    Posted 28 Apr 2010 at 6:11 pm
  4. SingleGuyInNC wrote:

    Does it bother anyone that the survey was in affiliation with Match.com (and likely funded by them)? Major conflict of interests and potential bias, IMHO.

    “Are divorce rates higher in Match than in eHarmony?”

    Very good question, Fernando. The Match.com user community strikes me as “less serious” and informed about what makes a good/stable relationship. The counterpoint is one of my friends met his wife through them. From our conversation, it was a fluke as he had the same sort of results that I had (send messages endlessly with no responses) and couldn’t offer me any advice in the way of a “magic bullet” for success.

    I did see and found it interesting that they include all methods for finding a mate in the study. “Other methods” have actually been an active interest of mine for a number of months.

    All of this does make me wonder how the previous generation of folks got married without computers and the internet.

    Posted 28 Apr 2010 at 6:57 pm
  5. eharmonyblog wrote:

    UK’s advertising authority ruled EH’s “2% of marriages” claim as misleading ( http://eharmony-blog.com/1816 ), so I doubt Match.com will be able to make an equivalent success claim, at least inot n the UK.

    Using “independent market research” to back a product’s efficacy claims is not new.

    Posted 29 Apr 2010 at 3:01 am

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