Somebody winked at me today on Match. Maybe I didn’t notice it before, but on the Wink page I see ads to “Email this member for free” brought to you by the Discover Card. The ad is being displayed totally out of context and doesn’t make sense in my case as I’m a paying member and I’m already logged in. Looking more closely, at the top of the page Match is asking me to subscribe today. Why am I being served up inappropriate advertising when Match knows so much about me personally?
Dating sites are perfectly suited to highly specific contextual and demographically-targeted advertising. What sites are taking advantage of the revenue opportunities?
I think part of Match’s problem is that IAC is involved with all the ad deals and there are clearly too many layers of management and approval to go through at this point as Match struggles to keep up with the Yahoo! Personals juggernaut.
