What is Dating vertical in affiliate marketing

Dating is vertical, with offers in the field of online dating. These can be apps, websites, or other solutions that help viewers find friends, partners, or relationships. The goal of a webmaster is to attract an audience to such sites.

Features small payouts. The specifics and complexity mainly depend on the offer category and traffic sources.

Examples and categories of offers

Dating offers are divided into categories, payment models, landing pages, and advertisers.

Let’s start with categories. There are 3 of them:

• Mainstream. These are classic “harmless” sites for online dating. They are usually looking for friends or long-term relationships. The category is characterized by the lowest payouts and the ability to pass moderation easily;
• Adult. These are sites for 18+ dating – that is, dating for the sake of sex and similar activities. Payouts are higher, but promoting adult offers is much more difficult. The choice of traffic sources is limited;
• Same-sex. These are same-sex dating sites, the least common category of offers. Payouts depend on whether the site offers 18+ dating or not.

Also, dating offers a wide range of payment models.

It depends on them what target action you need to lead the audience to:

• SRA. In this case, the target action is the payment for particular services on the site. For example, it can be premium access, highlighting a profile from the rest, or simply paying for access to private dating sites;
• CPI. When working on CPI, the webmaster receives payment for each download of the application or registration on the site. The payouts are small, but the conversion is easy to achieve;
• Revshare. With this payment model, the webmaster receives a percentage of the advertiser’s profits. As a rule, payments for life are deducted from each deposit of the referred user;
• CPL. For a webmaster to receive a CPL reward, the viewer must enter contact information or verify their identity in any other way. This can be an email address or a phone number. The most popular payment model, as it protects the advertiser from incentivized traffic.

From the point of view of landing pages, everything is more uncomplicated – you can run traffic to applications or websites. Working with applications is more complex, but they remain on the user’s device, increasing the chance of a conversion.

Specificity of the vertical

The critical problem with dating is low payouts. To promote effectively, you need to learn how to work with free or cheap traffic. If you run traffic from the usual expensive sources, advertising simply may not pay off.

The average CPL payout in dating is from $0.5 to $3, depending on the GEO.

The audience of dating offers depends on the category. For the mainstream, you can upload to a broad audience of up to 50 years old, both sexes. For adults, the primary segment is mature men looking for a partner for one night without commitment.

The most commonly used traffic sources for dating are teasers, push notifications, and banners on porn sites and social networks with the opportunity to get free traffic (for example, TikTok). Many use spam – but remember that most advertisers prohibit promotion in this way.

The last thing to know about dating is the impact of seasonality and significant events. As a rule, the demand for dating grows in spring and autumn. Also, the vertical received a vast audience during the coronavirus pandemic.

Pros

• Easy conversions. If you work according to CPL or CPI, it is much easier to achieve conversions because the user does not even need to deposit funds;
• You don’t need big budgets. With dating offers, in any case, it will not work to recoup expensive advertising. The webmaster will have to master free or inexpensive traffic sources, which means that investments at the start are minimal;
• Stability. Dating is an evergreen vertical because people always feel the need to meet and communicate. The vertical has existed almost since the very beginning of affiliate marketing, and it is unlikely that it will lose its relevance.

Cons

• Low payouts. In dating, it’s easy to get a target action, so the payouts for them are minimal. With low payouts, it is difficult to promote through the usual sources of traffic, such as advertising on social networks and search engines;
• Competition. Due to the low entry threshold, many arbitrageurs, including beginners, are pouring into dating. Standing out in such a crowded market can be tricky;
• Difficulties with moderation. Many large ad networks don’t even skip mainstream dating. For example, if the webmaster decides to promote through FB, he will have to cloak;
• A decline in popularity at the end of the pandemic. During the pandemic, dating platforms received massive audiences and webmasters. At the end of the pandemic, the audience returned to offline dating, and competition among webmasters became even higher;
• PP requirements. In most cases, affiliates require a test run for 50-100 leads to check the quality of the traffic.

5 Famous Affiliate Programs in the Dating Vertical

Cpamatica

• Verticals – Dating, games, sweepstakes;
• Geo – all over the world;
• Payouts – from $50 once a week to Webmoney, PayPal, Payoneer, Wire, Capitalist, and cryptocurrencies;
• Chips – own exclusive offers and discounts on valuable services and tools.

Data.link

• Verticals – dating;
• Geo – the whole world;
• Payouts – from $10 every day, to cards, cryptocurrencies, Qiwi, Webmoney;
• Chips – provide applications, and work on CPA and CPL.

Traforce

• Verticals – dating;
• Geo – the whole world;
• Payouts – from $30 every week to Webmoney, Capitalist, Qiwi, PayPal, and cards;
• Chips – minimum requirements for a webmaster, own mainstream offers, supports all payout models.

Olimob

• Verticals – dating, gambling;
• Geo – the whole world;
• Payouts – from $300 once a week, to Capitalist, Wire, PayPal, and cryptocurrencies;
• Chips – own applications, pre-lander development, a wide range of offers.

Affi.co

• Verticals – dating, sweepstakes;
• Geo – the whole world;
• Payouts – from $10 once a week to cryptocurrencies or Capitalist;
• Chips – own exclusive offers, support all payment models.

Conclusion

Dating is one of the most popular and oldest verticals in affiliate marketing. It is distinguished by small payouts, specific ways of promotion, and stability, close in level to the Nutra.