Advertising

Advertising Spending by Online Dating Services

Between January and October 2007 there was a 9% increase in spending on advertising over the same period in 2006.

Advertising spending reached $379.6 million.
Online dating services spent $134 million dollars on internet advertising.
Online dating services spent $107.2 million dollars on cable television advertising.
Online dating services spent $22.9 million dollars on network television advertising.
Dating services are increasingly advertising in national magazines. (No exact figure mentioned in this article)

Match.com, the #1 online dating service, spent the most money of any online dating service in 2007 (doubling it's spending up from 2006): $145.5 million dollars

eHarmony, the #1 relationship service, was a distant second (cutting spending 16% from 2006) : $88.1 million dollars

No other online dating service spent more than 32 million in advertising1

True.com spent $52.2 million over the first 11 months of 2006 on Web ads, more than double the amount its rivals spent online. (Nielsen Monitor-Plus)

Chemistry.com spent about 21 million dollars in advertising in 2007 according to a recent article published on About.com.
This year 2008, Chemistry is launching a new 40 million dollar ad campaign which will include TV advertising. Chemistry.com is owned by Match.com.

Banner Ads

The Online Dating Banner Exchange is managed by Online Dating Magazine. It allows online dating websites to display banner ads on their websites in exchange for having their own banner ads displayed on other dating websites. The service stipulates that the banner ads must be at the top of the web pages. This is a very successful marketing strategy because through this observance, the quality of the service has increased. The service is exclusive to online dating services and provides guidelines for creating and running effective banner ads such as:

  1. Discouraging annoying ads that create a negative opinion
  2. Using animation effectively to draw the consumer's eye to the page.
  3. Creating incentives that will encourage the consumer to click on the ad.
  4. Recognize the time limitations of banner ads and refresh them every two to three weeks. Click rates drop when banner ads are displayed too long.
  5. Don't use distracting images or overpowering logos (unless you are Match.com)
  6. Increase clicks by using words to invite such as "free"
  7. Post questions to increase click rates

Banner ads are the dinosaurs of advertising on the internet but are still very effective when time tested techniques are observed.

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