Dating in 2022. Results of 2021

Let's remember what happened to the dating vertical in 2021 and try to determine what trends of the past year will remain in 2022. 

Something is in fashion, something is out of fashion, and something is evergreen. When some verticals suffered from crisis during the pandemic, and businesses received losses, dating not only remained afloat, but also showed significant growth rates, and we are sure that this trend will only intensify, but why is that? Let’s figure it out.

Will the vertical continue to be “evergreen”?

The dating vertical is one of the most stable in the industry, next year it will continue to retain users and attract new ones. The pandemic has proven that online dating has become a great change for some types of entertainment that has suffered in recent years, drawing on some of the capital. Social distancing increases the feeling of loneliness among users and encourages them to look for new dates. The industry has demonstrated its resilience to the crisis, and online dating is far from a new trend. The dating vertical is considered to be evergreen, capable of generating profit all year round. And the best time to promote offers, as usual, are the winter holidays - Christmas, New Year and Valentine's Day. 

The dating vertical is one of the most stable in the industry, next year it will continue to retain users and attract new ones, the increase in Internet consumption during the pandemic led to the emergence of new online dating services, and competition has grown in the niche itself, more advertisers have appeared, and therefore prices have risen. Dating offers now account for more than 20% of all push traffic, and it is one of the most popular categories.

A noticeable trend has been advertisers focusing on ad networks with their own member area traffic, like Mirelia Networks, Traffic Stars, Exoclick. ( B - For example, all of our traffic is member area only, which means that our traffic consists only of registered users - the most active audience, ready to spend money and bring more profit. During the last year we conducted a large number of tests to make sure that our traffic performs well before selling it. 

Interstitials seems to be generating the most profit from the latest data received. It’s the most expensive ad format on our platform, but it definitely is worth trying. 

User preferences change every year, which requires constantly looking for new approaches and adapting to existing trends in adult dating. For the last year, our dating sites have grown significantly. We have implemented new relevant technologies which had a positive effect on increasing the number of our users.

We think it’s definitely not worth expecting a fall this year, because the pandemic is not going to recede, and therefore covid restrictions will remain in force. Even a massive outflow of users from online back to offline, will not lead to a drop in users activity on dating sites.

Users and advertisers preferences in 2021. What's changed? 

In dating, you need to constantly bring in new technologies and innovations, user preferences in this vertical are not constant, so there is a need to come up with original solutions. Ready-made landing pages have become one of these features. We have already talked about why this is important and why we always use landing pages in our campaigns. For each of our landing pages, we test the average CTR, which allows us to determine how well it performs.

In recent years the optimization of buying traffic through platforms that make life easier for advertisers, allowing them to set up campaigns more conveniently and at a favorable price has become a priority for many companies. And one of the most requested functions when setting up campaigns, in addition to geo, device or time zone, was the traffic segmentation feature. Some platforms have this valuable feature that enables you to divide traffic into segments, such as higher quality and lower quality traffic, which allows advertisers to pay for the type of traffic they are most interested in without overpaying. For example, on our platform we have various types of segments, like brown, green or pink and also the premium segment - PPS - with users, who bought the subscription on our websites. This could be a really nice and profitable choice if you are ready to pay more to get the best traffic posible. To determine which one works better for you - try using our split test feature. 

And what about the preferences in working with traffic? Among all available models, many advertisers in 2021 have chosen to work mainly on CPC CPM, due to the most favorable rates and traffic quality. In addition, many advertisers also began to focus their attention not on traffic volumes, but more on its quality. 

One of the notable trends of recent years has been the transition of some companies to paid subscriptions and the departure from the freemium model, which forces companies to sacrifice part of their income in order to attract new users to their platforms.

Overall, in dating and in affiliate marketing itself, there has been an increase in the number of teams and a gradual move away from the concept of working solo. Of course, no one is stopping you from working alone, but every year, along with increased competition, the situation will change and it will not be so easy for an inexperienced player to enter. We believe that the number of teams or large companies will continue to grow. 

We want to wish all of our partners more conversions this year, high ROI and good overall growth. Stay tuned for updates!