The interesting world of In-Dating App advertising. For a very recent client campaign, we were tasked with composing a strategy for an LGBT+ Charity to drive awareness of their Phone Line service (similar to the fantastic work that the Samaritans do) during the Christmas period when some people find it tough to go back home and see family, specifically if they haven’t come out to loved ones.

A super interesting client brief deserved an equally interesting marketing approach. The strategy was to utilise in-app ads in popular dating apps – Grindr / Tinder / Bumble / Hinge etc. as well as more traditional media channels – like Meta. The dating app advertising ecosystem is a new area of display ads that so far hasn’t come up with any of our other clients. 

So here’s the low-down on the different platforms and what to look out for:

Grindr Ads

Grindr was a relatively simple place to start given the majority of app users are of the target audience here. The platform is relatively intuitive but is a bit of a throwback to something out of the 90’s. Check the amazing word-art-esque campaign selection options!!

Targeting options are restricted to just Geo-Targeting but you can get quite granular with this, down to specific city / regional level which was perfect for what we needed. After that, it’s a case of setting your budget and a Max CPM bid and off you go! What’s astounding is the level of engagement we were able to generate – A perfect blend of awesome creative and highly targeted ads was able to reach over 250k people and drive a 12-13% Click-Through-Rate – clearly stronger than most other forms of digital advertising.

Tinder / Hinge and the rest

Match Media Group operates the advertising within the other popular dating apps. It offers a managed service and does also have a minimum budget requirement which was slightly above our client’s threshold. On the website form, it states a $25k budget requirement but were willing to decrease this to $10k… Couple this with the fact that you cannot target advertising by sexual orientation meant that the channel became unviable for this specific audience requirement.

As with all campaigns, reaching the right audience, with the right message at the right time is what wins out in the end. Being laser focused drove some incredible results and I can now say I’m a fully qualified Grindr Ads expert!