How to drive traffic to dating offers: an affiliate marketing guide

Dating as a vertical is attractive for beginners because of its simple flow, relevance at any time of the year, regardless of geopolitical events, pandemics, etc. This introductory guide has answers to all questions. After reading, you will have a clear picture of what sources to drive traffic to dating, how difficult it is and where to start. Let's go! 
 

Dating offers: what are they and how are they paid

In the dating vertical, a webmaster earns money for people attracted to sites, services and applications dedicated to dating. Usually dating is divided into two types:

 

• Mainstream dating —these are classic, "white" dating sites and applications. For example, Tinder, Mamba, LovePlanet;
• Adult Dating — dating sites for sex, webcam sites, chats for communication 18+, etc.

 

In addition to differences in the offers themselves and approaches, mainstream and adult dating have a difference in the amount of payments. As a rule, mainstream traffic is a bit more difficult to attract, and payouts are higher than in adult. Below are the most common payment models in dating and their explanation:

 

• PPL (Pay Per Lead). There are two types - SOI and DOI. Single-Opt-In - the user entered the mail - the webmaster received the money. Double-Opt-In is a little more complicated - the user entered the mail and confirms it by clicking on the link from the letter.
• CPA/CPS (Cost Per Action/Cost Per Sale). A webmaster is paid for a certain user action: filling out a profile on a dating site, adding a photo, activity, etc. With CPS, it is even more difficult: a webmaster receives money for a user buying something on a dating site. This can be VIP status, subscription, access to paid features of the site, etc.
• Revenue Share. The webmaster receives a % of the product's profit. For example, a monthly subscription to a VIP dating site costs $20, and the Revshare rate is 50%. In this case, for each user who buys a subscription for a month, the affiliate will receive $10.

 

 

Sometimes there are other payment models, for example, Click2Call (usually this is phone sex). Here the webmaster receives money for every minute that the user spent on the line. 

 

What model is better for a beginner to start working in dating? To answer this question, you need to determine the source and the expected quality of traffic. For example, in push traffic, the quality of traffic leaves much to be desired, and working with RevShare will be unprofitable. But in applications with a paid subscription, both RS and CPS models look more viable. Start from your traffic source, which we’ll talk about later. 
 

Traffic sources for dating

Let’s take a look at all available traffic sources for dating offers in 2023. Usually they are divided into shareware and paid. For convenience, we will do the same.

 

Shareware sources

Dating on TIkTok, Reels, Shorts. It means uploading a video to TikTok with an active link in the profile description. The method is quite simple and intuitive:

 

1. Registering a TikTok account through the emulator.
2. The account is designed with an avatar, description and a link to the offer/pre-landing.
3. Uniqueized videos are uploaded to the account (cuts from erotic films, dancing schoolgirls, etc.).
4. Videos organically gain views (the main thing is regularity).
5. Some of the users who have watched the video follow the link and perform the targeted action - register on a dating site, confirm email, and so on. 

 

The main thing in this scheme: its custom original approach that will catch users. They make a little money from it. The standard bar for a beginner is 10-30 leads per day. It's $20-$90 per day.

An example of a TikTok profile for collecting free dating traffic

 

Some webmasters use a similar approach when dealing with gambling

 

With Reels and Shorts, everything is the same: videos are uploaded, affiliate links are put in the profile, but unlike TT, on Instagram you can additionally imitate live activity using posts in the feed, stories, links in stories and other tools.

 

 

Quite an important nuance: now all platforms are fighting against overflows. Instagram has announced protection against overflows from TikTok, and Shorts have already seen traffic drawdowns if the video is blatantly downloaded from TT and re-uploaded. Therefore, do not waste time on fuss: it is better to devote it to creating unique videos.

 

YouTube. You can also make doorways on YouTube - spamming videos for key YouTube queries. These can be reviews and comparisons of dating sites, ratings, video reviews. The more convincing the better. The more complex the method, the less competition it has. 

 

 

Below is an example of statistics from the affiliate network. CIS traffic from YouTube to dating offers with a simple payment model. 

 

Quora and various blogging platforms. Unpopular traffic sources, since it is not easy to work in them, you need to write beautifully, and regular spam will not convert there. It is also important to note the high competition for high-frequency queries. Plus, you may have to wait for traffic for months without waiting.

 

Other social networks and forums as a source of dating traffic. Shareware traffic professionals have not worked with the niches listed above for a long time. Just the same, they specialize in finding traffic where other webmasters do not see it. These can be various regional applications, such as Line in Thailand or Bigo Live in Uzbekistan. 

 

Since most applications ban webmasters for spamming private messages, the WhatsApp redirect approach is often used. Naturally, all this is done with the help of automation platforms for creating patterns of behavior of ZennoPoster or BAS bots. 

 

It is rather difficult to estimate the potential profit of such bundles. But some old webmasters still manage to get thousands of dollars out of shareware dating traffic.

Paid sources

Facebook. №1 traffic source for any vertical. The concept of all work with FB is based on applications, and dating here is no exception. Traffic is most often launched for installs on a WebView-application, inside which a registration form on a dating site is hidden. We don’t know if this is a pattern or not, but in cases on Facebook, mainstream dating appears more often than adult. This is probably due to fewer problems when passing moderation.

 

Google. Traffic to applications, contextual advertising and, of course, cloaking with adult offers disguised under various filters. Moreover, it is not necessary to be a hacking genius to deceive a search engine. The same shareware approaches in 2023 have not yet been stopped by anyone. All that is needed is an illegible font and an almost erotic picture without frankly naked causal places.

TikTok. According to the established tradition, the launch takes place on the application from pre-pay or post-pay self-regs accounts - these are ordinary TikTok Ads accounts that you can buy or register on your own. There are also TikTok agent accounts, but adult dating with them will most likely not be allowed to launch. 

 

SnapChat, Bigo, Line, etc. Not very popular messengers and apps are no less profitable traffic sources for dating. They just talk about them less: someone does not want to leak a non-competitive source to the public, and someone is not at all interested in promising foreign sources. There are very few cases on them, but whoever seeks will find, especially since all approaches to dating have long been invented. 

Promotional material for dating with Snapchat

 

Spend: 

Screenshot of statistics from the advertising account Snapchat

 

And profit:

 

SEO-traffic. A source of clean, relevant and highly engaged traffic. SEO is one of those sources where RevShare is the best option for the job.

 

On the one hand, SEO is simple: we made a website, pumped it up with content, made a rating, added traffic or boosted behavioral factors, bought links. Ready! On the other hand, an unprepared webmaster can stumble at any stage of work.

 

Nevertheless, SEO is an actual, live niche, which, by the way, is not particularly covered in dating. Let's give a simple example: in the screenshot below, a site that is in the TOP-2 of Google results for the query “best indian dating sites”:

In the first place is a site with a pumped markup. On the third line is an article called “Best Indian Dating Apps 2020”. To take this particular line, it is enough to write relevant and high-quality material in 2023.

 

If you dig a little deeper and find your non-competitive GEO, this can be a great entry point into the SEO traffic niche.

 

Push notifications, pops. Cheap, simple, and as a result, insanely popular push notifications are the main source of Dating traffic for most webmasters and affiliate programs. Even a schoolboy can launch an advertising campaign, there are no bans, blocking, cloaking and pushing much cheaper than any other paid source.

 

And pushes, oddly enough, still convert. This source is really good for offers with a simple target action (SOI, DOI), so push notifications are almost ideal for dating. But don't forget that such traffic is of lower quality, so it's unlikely to get RevShare or CPS from it.

 

The main approaches that are currently converting on push notifications are imitation of a message from a girl, imitation of a sent video, the use of local macros and frank adult.

 

 

E-mail mailing lists. It is impossible to call e-mail a free source of traffic, since serious and rather complex preparation of both software and content for mailings is required. The main danger of e-mail is unpredictability. If there is no information about the address base, it is difficult to predict what the envelope will be this time and on this particular base. In addition, the bases need to be constantly replenished: collect them yourself or buy new ones. Therefore, the source of traffic and the profit from it go to those specialists who already know how to work with e-maill.
 

GEO for dating

What GEOs are relevant for dating, what is converting now? This question is worth asking yourself every time before you start traffic. 

 

First of all, you can evaluate the dating market and the money that large services earn on it. Of course, infographics alone will not be enough: it is better to delve into the study of statistics, find out the average check or income of a citizen of a particular country, look at a more detailed TOP GEO and figure out where it is more profitable to start.

 

Below are the statistics for the countries where people spend the most on dating services.

To show the train of thought, let's look at the example of our screenshot and push traffic. We have: USA, China, Japan, India and UK. 

 

China and Japan can be discarded: the first GEO has its own strict firewall, and in Japan without knowing the language it will be difficult to find the ground through a translator.

 

USA. One of the top GEOs, competitive, difficult. Here you can turn to another factor: for example, your budget and traffic source. If these are the proverbial push notifications, 1000 clicks will cost you between $28 and $195 on average. Moreover, according to the lower bar, you will buy out dead and minimally involved traffic.

Therefore, to optimize a dating campaign in the US on push notifications, you will need from $1,500 to $2,000. Let's assume that such a budget does not suit us, if only because with this money it is really possible to launch in a better source. Therefore, we discard the United States.

 

In India, the situation is reversed. A click in it is very cheap - from 1 cent, and there is a lot of traffic. Unfortunately, most of this traffic is bot traffic, and optimizing GEO on push notifications is long and expensive.

 

The United Kingdom remains: the average CPC price compared to the options above, good payouts for offers ($2.5-5) and more understandable English. If you choose from the five countries above, in our case it would be the UK.

 

Of course, this is a basic example of reasoning. You can arm yourself with more detailed research, statistics from the affiliate network, estimate the volume of traffic in your source or the interest of users in the dating vertical, and then draw your own conclusions. It is important not to omit this moment and carefully analyze the selected GEOs. 
 

Where to get creative for dating 

Suppose we have chosen GEO. How to look at approaches from different sources or find out what converts from other webmasters? The easiest way is to use a spy service. 

 

In the article with a list of promotional codes, you will find 3 spy services for which we have discounts. Switch, use and save. But remember that spy is only needed to understand how other webmasters work with dating from different sources, to peep other people's approaches and create your own based on them.
 

How to choose and test a dating offer

Forget about spamming in social networks or not understanding how to work with push notifications to climb into push networks. This is the last century. Below is an approximate, but honest scheme for testing a dating offer. It varies slightly from source to source, but some variables remain the same. What you need:

 

• 2-3 offers and 2-3 GEOs. It is better to test several offers and not hope that the first selected offer will convert;
• 5 creatives for each offer. It is acceptable to take 1 from the spy service, make 1-2 creatives similar to what is in the spy, and come up with a couple of creatives on your own;
• Run each creative for 2-3 payouts. If the payout for the offer is $3, we pour $7-8 for each creative.

 

Based on the results, it will become clear whether the offer in your source converts or not. Further, everything depends on the source: if there are results, but it is pouring into the red, you can try to optimize the campaign. For example, reduce the cost of a click, narrow or expand targeting, add bad sites to the blacklist (if we are talking about push notifications).
 

Comment from the editors of AffJournal

Naturally, in addition to all of the above, it is important to have a proven affiliate program with converting offers. If you don't know who to work with, then go to our directory of CPA networks and work with the best.