Tinder to explore native advertising

Tinder is set to explore monetising the popular smartphone dating app with native advertising, its owner IAC told analysts today.

Tinder
Tinder’s owner IAC says it is to explore rolling out native advertising across the dating app.

Speaking on the company’s first quarter earnings call with analysts, IAC – which also owns internet properties including Match.com, Ask, Vimeo and OKCupid – said monetisation of the Tinder app was just a “matter of time” away.

Less than 5 per cent of IAC’s dating division’s revenue comes from advertising, but Greg Blatt, chairman of IAC’s Match group, said the nature of the Tinder user experience presents itself with “real opportunities for native advertising that certain of our other products don’t”.

A factor of Tinder that will be of particular appeal to advertisers is Tinder’s audience. IAC said the majority of Tinder users are under 25-years-old and are new to the dating category. The company also said that Tinder users new to the category are 50 per cent more likely to use multiple IAC products.

Although IAC did not strip out numbers, the company said it was growing to be a “very powerful, quickly built brand”. The company said user additions were up 15 per cent from February to March, an increase of 1,500 per cent year on year.

Tinder is the 20th most-downloaded iOS app in the UK and the 2nd most popular lifestyle iOS app, according to the latest (29 April) data from app analytics site App Annie.

Blatt said the strength of the Tinder brand meant it is unclear what the nature of Tinder could ultimately be. He suggested the user experience could extend beyond dating to social discovery and messaging – which would again offer more opportunities for advertising placements.

He added: “[Tinder] is so early in its existence I think its definition has not yet been written.”

Some brands have already explored using the platform to engage with its users. Earlier this year US broadcaster Fox flooded the app with a series of fake profiles of the actors starring in its sitcom “The Mindy Project”, to encourage them to watch the programme, while last year the USA Network ran a similar campaign for its series “Suits”.

Blatt also suggested IAC could look to offer Tinder subscriptions or other forms of transactions to generate revenue from the app.

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