Dating apps: What are the User Acquisition constraints?

Dating apps need acquisition to support their growth, revenue, and number of active users. Nevertheless, they are subject to constraints that are specific to this vertical.

Choosing a strategy

Before launching your campaigns, you need to think about the overall strategy for your app and your objectives:

– Gender distribution: Separate by gender and tailored content to make sure you can control the investment and, therefore, the recruitment needs for each gender.

– Objectives by gender and, therefore, adapted tracking: Make sure that the tracking on your MMP has been correctly tagged so you can track your performance in the best possible way, even if the events being tracked are different.

– Objectives by country: it is also important to analyze app awareness in each country and for each gender as this will particularly affect the types of campaigns launched and the distribution of investments.

– Investments according to seasonality: Dating apps are particularly affected by seasonality (vacations, back to school, weekends, Valentine’s Day, etc.). You need to correctly analyze the top recruitment periods for the app to know how to distribute the annual budget and not lose pockets of profitability.

Choosing distribution sources

The inventory of acquisition sources is more difficult for apps in the dating category than for others.

– Facebook categorically refuses to allow ad campaigns by apps that it categorizes as “casual dating.” Advertising in these placements is only possible after having been whitelisted by the Ad teams.

– Google Ads does not allow App campaigns to be run on specific demographics. As a result, apps that have defined gender-specific targets will find themselves in a bind.

The creatives used

The creatives used in the campaign will be the first encounter between the app and the user, and taking care of these creatives is all the more important since the app deals with users’ private lives.

– It is important to avoid all references to sex, even implied: in the store pages as well as in the creatives launched. This goes from #SexFriends to the eggplant emoji.

– The images must stay very soft: a too bare shoulder or too much cleavage and the creatives will be rejected by the various sources.

– Face cam visuals or those using a human image will be rejected if the source considers that the character put forward does not respect the legal age of use for this category of app (18+).

– An app that has had creatives refused in the past is flagged by the sources and will be much more likely to be refused again. So, you should pay close attention to all the elements of a creative before launching it.