Dating app Tinder is selling programmatic advertising using Google’s ad tech to allow advertisers to buy impressions from the ad server at a fixed price with programmatic guaranteed deals or buy from private marketplaces.
Tinder will sell the ads on Google and will manage and measure campaigns to maximise revenue. The dating app is currently testing the partnership, with plans to roll it out by the end of the year.
Advertising is Tinder’s second revenue stream after a premium subscription model. The app first tested ads on the platform in 2015, showcasing branded content between potential matches in its ‘swipe right’ design.
Tinder’s partnership with Google is all about seeing how user behaviour changes depending on the ad frequency, as opposed to monetising impressions. Tinder has stated that it won’t use Google as a third-party demand source, although, Facebook is said to be launching its own dating service on its app, which could have consequences for its deal with Tinder.
As reported on Digiday, Peter Foster, general manager of global advertising and brand solutions at Tinder’s owner, Match Media Group said: “For almost any company that isn’t Google or Facebook, you’re going to have impressions that you don’t have demand for. We think about both those platforms as excellent partners that provide ways to reach advertisers that we won’t be able to get on our own because we don’t have that scale.”
The focus, according to Foster, will be on creating different buying channels and making sure that they have those pipes in place for advertisers that want to transact in a modern way.
“As more of our properties move to in-app models, we will try to create some consistency so that we can start to do ad deals that stretch across all those brands,” continued Foster.