Dating — is the field of online dating, relationship searches, romantic encounters, or online communication. In everyday life, dating includes any dating websites and mobile apps.
In traffic arbitrage, dating — is one of the classic and largest verticals. Here, affiliates bring users to dating services and receive a payout when a person registers, confirms their email, or purchases a subscription.
Main dating categories
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Mainstream (Mainstream Dating): classic white-hat dating websites and apps for finding serious relationships, love, or friendship (without explicit content).
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Adult dating (Adult Dating): services for finding partners for one-night stands, casual dates without commitment, and 18+ encounters.
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Niche dating (Niche Dating): dating websites for specific groups — for example, based on age, interests, religion, or views.
What the advertiser pays for
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SOI: a payout is credited for a simple registration. The user only needs to enter their name, age, and email; no confirmation is required. This is the easiest step for beginners, but the payouts are low.
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DOI: the user must not only complete the form, but also follow the link in the email to confirm their profile. The payout for this type of registration is higher than with SOI.
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RevShare: the affiliate receives a percentage of all the user's spending on the website.
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PPS: a one-time payout when a user purchases a paid account or premium subscription.
Advantages of dating
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Huge and evergreen audience. People always have a need for communication, romance, and dating, regardless of crises, season, or country.
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Easy start for beginners. With models that pay for a simple registration (SOI), it is easier to generate the first conversions and understand how traffic works.
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Wide selection of countries. You can run traffic to any country: from lower-cost Asian GEOs to the US and Europe, where payouts for registrations are much higher.
Disadvantages of dating
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Strict moderation for adult offers. While major ad networks allow mainstream dating, running adult dating offers with explicit creatives is difficult — accounts are immediately banned for this.
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Strict quality requirements. Advertisers closely monitor whether registrations are made by real people rather than bots. If the traffic turns out to be «dead» and users show no activity within the service, the advertiser may reduce the payouts.
Important to know:
In dating, the advertiser evaluates not only the number of registrations, but also the users' subsequent activity. If the audience does not confirm accounts, communicate, or use the service, such conversions may be considered low-quality and left unpaid. In addition, the rules depend on the specific offer: advertisers often prohibit incentivized traffic, spam, or overly explicit creatives.
