If you try to submit a dating ad on Facebook, you might get a rejection saying:
“Reason(s): It looks like you submitted an ad for a dating service through one of our self-service advertising tools.
Unfortunately, ads for dating sites and apps are only allowed from approved advertisers at this time.
If you’ve read the guidelines in the Help Center and think your ad follows the rules and should have been approved, please let us know.
If you’d like to advertise your dating service on Facebook, please follow this link to learn more.
If you would like to become an approved advertiser, an application form may be available from February 15, 2014. If you have any questions about this policy or feel that your ad is compliant and was incorrectly disapproved, please contact us.”
Not only will dating ads be rejected, but anyone caught running them will have their accounts banned.
Why would Facebook do this?
The ads were becoming too risque (cleavage, half naked pictures) and were damaging user experience a lot. According to my source, dating ads were being reported at many times the rate of any other niche. Not only were the ads bad, but some were actually sending users to casual dating offers (sex sites).
What Facebook allows Dating Advertisers to use
What affiliates were actually using
Facebook’s all about a high click-through rate and it was pretty much a race to see who could get the most scandalous ads through.
Analysis With every situation, there are winners and losers. Here’s a quick analysis:
The Winners:
- Mainstream Dating Advertisers – Less competition to deal with. They will also have better branding now since dirty images aren’t allowed.
- Facebook – This will improve the overall experience for users.
- PlentyofFish – If you want to promote mainstream dating now, PlentyofFish is one of the few viable choices left. I’m sure there will be a surge of affiliates signing up soon.
- White-listed affiliates – Facebook is still allowing certain affiliates to promote on the platform. These people will have the advantage of an even higher barriers to entry for their competitors.
- Facebook affiliates in general – There’s plenty of other niches to make money on such as gaming. Click costs will go down since you don’t have to compete against boob ads.
The Losers:
- Affiliate Networks – Most networks have dating as a part of their portfolio and revenues will definitely go down. However I don’t think it’ll be that drastic since most networks are diverse with adult and other niches.
- Newbie Affiliates – Many guys had their first profitable campaign through Facebook Dating. This change takes away one of the tried and true ways for a newbie to break into the game.
- Adult Advertisers – Facebook traffic’s always been of higher quality than porntube traffic since affiliates could filter out the audience by age.
- Facebook Dating Affiliates – The best route is to try and get another vertical working, or see if you can get whitelisted by an advertiser.
Then, how to do?
Overall we don’t see this affecting the industry too much.
Facebook’s been a pain in the end of 2013 as far as banning accounts and retro-disapproving ads, and they’re going to keep making things worse for affiliates. If Zuckerberg had his way then Facebook would have no affiliates, and the only advertisers would be big brands / local mom and pop shops.
Can you really blame affiliates? The nature of being an affiliate is to push the edge. Every CTR and conversion increase means more money in our pockets. When we’re all competing against each other, then some of us are going to cross the line.Affiliate marketing is survival of the fittest at its best – the smart ones will find a way to adapt.
