Five affiliate marketing experts answered questions about promoting the Dating vertical in 2022.
Below you’ll find answers to the most common questions about the Dating niche.
The RichAds team recently held a webinar about Dating. The meeting was conducted in the new Round Table format.
During this webinar, five experts discussed the main questions about the Dating industry in affiliate marketing.
In the chat, our viewers ask them questions. Throughout this article, you’ll find all the answers to that questions. Also, you can watch the webinar itself for more information.
Who are the experts?
We’ve gathered Dating experts from different fields so you could have a deeper understanding of the vertical and learn how to work with Dating effectively.
Let’s have a look into the Dating vertical from 4 sides:
- affiliate marketer — Joey Babineau, the marketer with 20 years of experience,
- ad network — RichAds, 5 years in providing push and pops traffic,
- CPA networks that provide Dating offers — AdsEmpire and AdCombo & StoryLove,
- and spy tool — Anstrex.
| Affiliate marketer’s side | Ad network’s side | 2 experts from the CPA network’s side | Spy tool’s side |
|---|---|---|---|
 |  |  |  |
| Joey Babineau Full-time Affiliate Marketer Powerhouse Affiliate Founder | Anastasia Kazakova Chief Commercial Officer at RichAds | George Kach Senior BDM at AdCombo & StoryLove | Hiren Shah Anstrex Founder |
 | |||
| Nilu Yusupova Head of BD & PR at AdsEmpire |
Common questions about the Dating vertical
1. Tell us how to increase sales? Why do many webmasters have no sales?
Joey, Powerhouse Affiliate:
If you are referring to webmasters who focus on SEO then this could mean you are not targeting the right audience or countries with your SEO efforts. It might be wise to test smart links, or implement some way of collecting push subscribers yourself on your websites. This will allow you to start developing your own brand, which could then help increase affiliate commissions and advertising sales in the future.
George, StoryLoves (AdCombo):
There may be no sales for several reasons. For example, the creative may not match the product advertised. For example, it promises the user sex for one night, though the offer’s aim is chatting.
Sometimes an affiliate gets cheap and unsuitable traffic. By the way, when working with cheap traffic, it’s better to clear it with the advertiser: there is a probability that such traffic will be accepted for a lower payout.
Also,
- Always check the engagement rate for your campaigns since it can give you valuable hints on what your target audience likes the most out of your creatives. This can push up your CR;
- Set a high bid for CPM to reach the Top ad position and get the best traffic in an ad network;
- If the engagement rate of a creative material drops, it’s better to put it to temporary rest. In case you don’t have any alternate creative materials, pause your ad campaign. Get back to it in a week to make it even more productive.
2. What is the minimum amount (budget) required for a comfortable start in the dating vertical?
Hiren Shah, Anstrex:
Considering the population size of the push notification subscribers and desired 90+ confidence levels, each campaign should receive 1000-1500 clicks to get statistically significant results in each Geo. With clicks cost ranging from $0.005+ for Tier 3 geos and $0.1+ for Tier 1 geos, the total budget for each geo and each campaign can vary from $5-$100. If you are on a low budget, start from Tier 3 geo. If you are a newbie, start from Tier 3 geo.
George, StoryLoves (AdCombo):
I recommend spending $300 to test different creative pairs.
Nilu, AdsEmpire:
Depends on the geo and traffic source, but overall we need 100+ leads (regs) and 4 days to understand the quality of traffic. Before 4 days and 100 leads its too early for the advertiser to give any feedback on traffic.
3. How much budget do you use to test an offer in push?
Anastasia, RichAds:
It really depends on the conversion cost that you are looking for. For a test, we recommend you to spend 20-30 CPAs worth of budget. So, for example, if your CPA=$5, we recommend you to spend $100-$150 on each traffic source.
4. What recommended daily test budget to get data?
Anastasia, RichAds:
Again it all depends on your conversion cost. The minimum daily budget on our platform is $30. But to have enough data for optimization, you need to get at least 10 conversions daily. So, for example, if your CPA=$5, your minimal budget needs to be $50, but the more data you have, the better optimization will be.
George, StoryLoves (AdCombo):
It is better to buy 20-30 leads per day at first. Then there is a chance that in 3 days of tests, some users will buy the dating subscription.
Nilu, AdsEmpire:
Depends on the geo and traffic source, but overall we need 100+ leads (regs) and 4 days to understand the quality of traffic. Before 4 days and 100 leads, it’s too early for the advertiser to give any feedback on traffic.
5. How much should we setup for a budget and what tools to use to send millions of emails every day?
Joey, Powerhouse Affiliate:
The minimum budget for testing SOI dating offers is usually $200 – $300, depending on the country you target. It is usually easy to tell if the offer itself is converting or not, and the budget is used more for finding the best placements and devices.
As for sending millions of emails a day, this is the science you need to research more. If you are spamming, it will be extremely difficult to find mail servers that will continue sending your emails. If it’s whitehat, then look into places like Sendgrid or Amazon, or search their alternatives. I personally use Aweber and Amazon SES, but I am running whitehat completely.
Hiren Shah, Anstrex:
For mass email, consider using Amazon SES (a simple email service) and Sendy on top to manage your campaigns. We have found this to be the most cost-effective and robust solution when compared to other email providers.
6. Which target audience is more suitable for dating? What is better to target?
Joey, Powerhouse Affiliate:
If you are starting out, then test with men 21 – 36. Also, consider what we spoke of in the webinar about which GEO to focus on. If you can get TikTok running, I think there is a huge opportunity to hit the perfect audience.
Anastasia, RichAds:
For our types of traffic, you will need to choose the format first. It’s better to start with in-page as this type of traffic has higher CR for Dating, plus it’s really cheap. Also, we can provide you with a whitelist of sources that are working great for this vertical.
George, StoryLoves (AdCombo):
If you run mainstream dating, target users aged 30-60+; if your offer is non-mainstream dating, your audience is users aged 25-45.
Nilu, AdsEmpire:
For us, as we can see really widely through our traffic – the older the user – the higher the LTV. And it works almost for all geos. The minimum starts from 21 years.
7. What payment models would you recommend to use in dating?
Joey, Powerhouse Affiliate:
For traffic arbitrage campaigns, run SOI or DOI. For backend follow-up, (like your own push or emails) or SEO, definitely adds in some Rev share offers.
George, StoryLoves (AdCombo):
Take CPL SOI offers for tests. If there are no such offers in the needed GEO, so try CPL DOI ones.
Nilu, AdsEmpire:
I’ve mentioned that SOI is the most common for us since a lot of affiliates require it. With SOI, it’s easier for traffic optimization, and you can understand faster how your traffic performs. When your traffic is stable and predictable (same as the offer you work with), you can switch to CPS/ RevShare or can stay with PPL (SOI or DOI doesn’t really have much difference, but when you run several offers, it’s just better to have them all in SOI for example).
8. We don’t have a Merchant Account anymore. Any solution is recommended?
I have been working as an affiliate for dating offers since 2014. Specializing in Non-English speaking European Countries and Latam. I decided to learn to code and do my own dating website (instead of hiring a developer). We did a simple, working website in French and got a few sales. We did it in Spanish, got very cheap leads but no sales. Unfortunately, due to a change in Regulations, we don’t have a Merchant Account anymore. Any solution is recommended? I’m not European resident and we are not incorporated in Europe. Thanks in advance.
Nilu, AdsEmpire:
Creating a Dating product is really complex and not easy since it’s a high-risk business. Not all banks and payment solutions are ready to process this kind of business. Even if you can get the audience for your website and users who are ready to pay – the main difficulty is payments. Especially if you want to scale and grow your business. To create a business like this, you have to deal with legals, regulations, payments, and finance all the time. It’s not just traffic.
The best geos for Dating offers
1. What are the best GEOs for Dating when we talk about Muslim countries: OAE, Turkey, Iran? What are the tips for the countries? Is there another substitute tier 3 country for non-mainstream similar to Italy and Romania?
Hiren Shah, Anstrex:
Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, UAE, Tunisia.
George, StoryLoves (AdCombo):
In Muslim countries, there is a billing problem: a lot of transactions usually fail. There are not many advertisers of dating offers, as well as successful case studies with these countries.
2. Which geos on non-mainstream should I pay attention to? And if I want to choose big geos will there be serious competition there?
Anastasia, RichAds:
The best GEOs to try Dating at RichAds right now are France, Japan, the USA, Germany, Italy, and United Kingdom.
George, StoryLoves (AdCombo):
Our strongest GEOs are Romania, Poland and Italy. We pay higher for such leads than for ones from other countries. As for peculiarities, they are languages and creatives specially designed for a country. By the way, girls aged 30-40 convert nicely.
Nilu, AdsEmpire:
Top geos at this moment – USA (of course big competition but big volumes), France, Spain, and Italy are showing good performance. Mexico, Chili, and Brasil as something with cheap traffic and good volumes.
3. What geos and products can you recommend most? like top3?
George, StoryLoves (AdCombo):
Our top-converting GEOs are Romania, Poland, and Italy.
Nilu, AdsEmpire:
For us, it’s USA, France, and Australia at this moment.
4. Do u have traffic to Russia?
Anastasia, RichAds:
Yes, we have traffic all over the world, and in Russia too. In July, Russia is one of the top GEOs for push and in-page push ads and for direct click ads. You can find more details in RichAds monthly report for July.
Use RichAds traffic to make a profit on Dating in 2022
What is RichAds?
🔝 Push and pop ads,
🔼 Domain redirect traffic,
🔝 CPM for domain ads starts from $ 1.5,
⏫ CPC for push ads starts from $ 0.003,
🔼 CPM for pops — from $0.3 in Tier 3, $1 in Tier 1,
⏫ large volumes of available traffic in more than 200 goes.
The best ad formats for Dating
1. What ad format is better to start with for dating? Among all formats and in RichAds exactly?
Anastasia, RichAds:
RichAds best traffic options for Dating are push, in-page push (especially for non-mainstream Dating), and pops. They show the best results.
Nilu, AdsEmpire:
Dating works well almost with all ad formats such as display, native, push, and in-page push. Some offers might not accept pops/popunders and email.
2. Hi, How can you improve the quality of traffic if you work with push notifications and in-page? So that the advertiser is satisfied and there are more sales?)
Joey, Powerhouse Affiliate:
This is definitely a challenge for affiliate marketers. You will need to keep testing your user flow and the consistency of your funnel. If you blatantly lie in your ads to increase CTR and conversions, then your quality will not be good. You need to work with your managers to understand what the KPIs are and try to form your messages to encourage users to do that. For example, if your quality is assessed on people using an app, then encourage them to use the app somehow in your landing page message and CTA’s.
3. How does it convert calendar traffic to dating?
Anastasia, RichAds:
Calendar push ads is a great format that is working for Dating offers as well. With this type of traffic, you can reach the iOS audience. But at the start, I would recommend you to go for in-page as that format has a higher conversion rate for Dating, and it’s cheaper than calendar push ads.
4. Nilu, push, in-page, or pops: Which traffic type is better to use?
Nilu, AdsEmpire:
Push, in-page push, and then pops.
5. How do push notifications work with non-mainstream dating? Can they be launched?
Anastasia, RichAds:
As you guys might know, we have recently removed all the restrictions at RichAds and now allow non-mainstream creatives and landings. Non-mainstream at RichAds can be launched for push, in-page, and pop ads campaigns. We’ve made a white list of sources where you can use non-mainstream. You can ask about them your manager.
We’ve actually noticed great results and increased CR in non-mainstream offers. So we can say that non-mainstream offers work better for the Dating vertical than mainstream at RichAds right now. Our decision to allow non-mainstream on creatives 2 months ago may have caused this, so this is still a hot topic at RichAds.
George, StoryLoves (AdCombo):
Push ads have good performance in Tier-3 countries, where the price for traffic is quite low.
6. How does the TikTok traffic show up? Not TikTok ads
George, StoryLoves (AdCombo):
We have affiliates who run offers on TikTok via their own apps. TikTok is a suitable traffic source, and it does bring profit.
Nilu, AdsEmpire:
Tiktok traffic as well as TikTok ads show good performance for many verticals, Dating included. As with any other social network, it’s important to work with content (video content in this case) on a regular basis.
CPA networks and offers for Dating vertical
1. Can you recommend CPA networks or advertisers with CPL mainstream dating offers who accept push?
George, StoryLoves (AdCombo):
We have CPL DOI offers and accept such traffic for some of our offers, but affiliates should consult their managers before the launch.
Nilu, AdsEmpire:
We do accept push, and we have mainstream offers as well.
2. What is the advantage of Dating SmartLink? How does it work, and what difficulties may I have while working with it?
Joey, Powerhouse Affiliate:
A smartlink will serve the best offer based on what your traffic is. This works well if you have a broad type of traffic where you cannot control the GEO, or devices. For example, SEO, email, or push lists. If you are running paid ad campaigns, you should have the ability to track and target audience, but you could also do a broad campaign and use a smart link if you have a larger test budget and when to see where conversions happen.
George, StoryLoves (AdCombo):
Weak offers aren’t taken for this. So it will save money of affiliates since they won’t have to spend a dollar on tests. The problem is that there are several offers for a GEO, and sometimes it’s difficult to make a creative that will fit all of them.
Nilu, AdsEmpire:
Dating smartlinks show really great performance for Affiliates traffic if you run multi-geo and devices etc. We at AdsEmpire have a separate team of managers who works with SmartLink accounts to make the EPC of our partners the highest plus, we always improve the algorithms which help distribute traffic in the most effective way.
3. Hi, I had a question, please. Can I promote non-mainstream offers in the USA? is there any legal issue? please answer
Anastasia, RichAds:
Sure, on our platform, you can promote non-mainstream for the USA. We can provide you with a whitelist of sources where non-mainstream on this GEO is allowed. So there are no limitations.
George, StoryLoves (AdCombo):
Yes, promotion of such offers isn’t prohibited by law there. Such offers can only be run through ad networks that permit their users to do so.
Сreatives and landing pages for Dating vertical
1. What would you recommend to use for working with dating? What tools and creatives work best?
Anastasia, RichAds:
With push notifications, dating shows very good results. Using the notification format, you can communicate privately with someone, saying, “Hi!” I want to meet you, or I have some videos for you, let’s chat!”. This notification can show a selfie of a girl on the icon.
The majority of people who date through push notifications are men. Develop different creatives according to the type of audience and the needs of that audience. There is a trend of building different funnels for varying types of women (young and old, plump and thin, of different ages).
In addition, you can test the general trends in dating campaigns by adding:
- a TikTok logo on the main picture,
- an icon to start video,
- emojis with audio messages,
- brands of popular dating apps.
Find a pack of 300 icons for push and in-page push ads here. Dating icons included!
Hiren Shah, Anstrex:
Additionally, consider using minimal text (or emojis only) to draw attention and make your campaign compatible for any geo without any need for additional translation. Here are some examples:
George, StoryLoves (AdCombo):
OAuth buttons on a landing page can increase the signup conversion rate by 3 to 4 times.
Speaking about mainstream offers, there’s an interesting fact that designs from 2000s convert a lot better than super-trendy TikTok videos with many filters.
To get a higher CR in Romania, one of our top GEO, it’s better to:
- Use photos of the ladies from Romania or ones that seem to be from there;
- A creative must be eye-catching. You can create it either fairly gorgeous or fairly hideous. Both ways work;
- Closeups are important. Don’t place photos or gifs in the corner of a banner, filling the remaining space with texts;
- Design a plain and simple prelander with an engaging poll or age confirmation popup.
2. What do the experts think about LanderBolt? I was seriously thinking of getting this. When you copy a landing page, of course, you have to change the content and links.
Joey, Powerhouse Affiliate:
I have used landerbolt and found it was more of a hassle than a help. I use easy HTML templates. (we have some in Powerhouse Affiliate, or you can download them from a tool like Anstrex.) If you are not a coder, Landerbolt will be just as difficult as coding a fresh HTML template that is cleaned up for you. If you have the budget, then check good tools like Instapage, Leadpages, and Unbounce.
3. What are the top headlines for datings?
Anastasia, RichAds:
You can find at least 11 approaches for Dating creatives in this Dating guide. You can also ask our managers to prepare creatives for free. Contact your manager for more details.
George, StoryLoves (AdCombo):
According to the statistics of our brand for the USA — Planetofloves.com, the titles like “Slavic girls want to chat with you” work fine.
4. Did you collect list information on the landing page?
Joey, Powerhouse Affiliate:
My strategy is to collect list information or push subscribers by triggering a popunder from my own landing pages.
Use RichAds traffic to make a profit on Dating in 2022
What is RichAds?
🔝 Push and pop ads,
🔼 Domain redirect traffic,
🔝 CPM for domain ads starts from $ 1.5,
⏫ CPC for push ads starts from $ 0.003,
🔼 CPM for pops — from $0.3 in Tier 3, $1 in Tier 1,
⏫ large volumes of available traffic in more than 200 goes.
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