Buying advertising on dating sites used to be an expensive proposition. It wasn’t long ago that impressions on a medium-sized site could run you $10,000 per month. Most of the graphics looked poorly integrated and un-targeted because the low-budget ad networks offered up 3.9% APR, ED pills or mortgages. Portal-sized pricing for poor CTR.
If Userplane has their way, it appears those days may be a thing of the past. They have come up with the Aggregated Social Software ad run. A single buy, with a $2,000 minimum that will spread your ad buys across 2 of the top social networks, MySpace and Friendster. [Disclaimer- I’m an Intermix shareholder.]
General parameters:
– US and Canadian Traffic Only
– Generally targeted toward singles
– Banner advertisements will be displayed equally between MySpace and Friendster (with additional properties in the near future)
This is something I’ve been talking about for some time now and I’m glad to see Userplane taking the lead on this one. Joe Tracy has had a dating site ad network for some time now although I don’t hear much about that. Chat, search and now advertising, Userplane is certainly broadening their base with their recent partnerships.
I take issue with the fact that the traffic is being identified as “mostly singles”. The most easily identifiable demographic on Myspace and Friendster is twentysomethings. This demographic grew up on internet ads and knows how to run ad-blocking software. However, part of the Myspace appeal is that visit to the site is like visiting a psychedelic circus. Pam Anderson, boy-bands, basement DJ’s, slackers, hackers and freaks. It couldn’t get any freeform and most likely turns off anyone who was old enough to remember Carter. Demographics aside, Myspace gets a ton of traffic and there are a lot of music labels out there willing to pay for the priviledge of joining the Myspace circus. Friendster’s cache and traffic palls in comparison but they must do something to monetize the remaining eyeballs. I wonder if Userplane will offer ads on Friendster blogs or if that is a separate deal?
The value of these opportunities is not yet set in stone but Userplane is well positioned to reap the benefits of a multi-site social and dating ad network. They don’t even have to to know who the visitor is. All they have to do is figure out how to do keyword targeting on profiles. Assigning keywords to profiles and blog posts and anything else that needs to be indexed, searched or tagged for advertising is the next big thing on the interweb. Fantastic opportunities for ad networks as soon as they figure it out.
Later on this year Yahoo! Personals will begin offering up profiles via RSS. That has the potential to drive some enticing advertising deals. And to think they have shied away from advertising because they didn’t want to pollute the user experience. They just didn’t know how to make enough money at it to risk screwing up their site like some other date wharehouses.
