What I Have Learned About Plenty of Fish - An Awesome Traffic Source for Dating!

45 replies
Hey Warriors!

I like to pop in here every once in a while to drop my knowledge and help people starting out. After all, I started in this industry from dabbling in the Warrior Forum.

Anyhow, even though I am relatively new to paid traffic, I've really enjoyed it. I am learning quickly and have a nice amount of campaigns under my belt right now. My most recent endeavor has been Plenty of Fish.

Now, for all of you that don't know what Plenty of Fish is, it's a FREE online dating website. Their members are very active, and best of all - they have GREAT advertising opportunities. They have one of the best advertising platforms I've seen. Their demographic targeting options are unparalleled.

Coming from Facebook's platform previously, PoF was a walk in the park. They actually have competent people approving/disproving ads, and they do it all in a timely manner. In addition, they have a fantastic blog where they give tips and tricks to getting those great CTR's you're looking for when making your creatives. The website is:

Ads.pof.com Blog

If you're starting out, I suggest PoF as a nice place to start. ESPECIALLY if you're vertical is Dating. What better place to promote DATING than on a DATING website, right?

Now you may say, Matt - aren't there TONS of Dating ads on there already? The competition must be fierce! Well, I can say there is definitely competition on there, but here are some tricks I have come up with to differentiate yourself on PoF.

1. Don't be afraid to test obscure ideas. Instead of looking for images of just nice looking guys smiling, look for guys flexing and smiling. Look for guys with their pets, look for guys with kids. If you are promoting to guys, look for girls wearing a costume, or look for a girl on a phone. Anything in an image that will look different than the norm has tended to perform well for me.

2. When testing, use the "ThunderDome" method. A friend of mine calls it the ThunderDome method because well, it's got a gladiator type feel to it. Submit 100 or so creatives when you start a campaign. Make them all inactive, and then test 5 ads at a time. Then, it becomes survival of the fittest. If the ad doesn't get any clicks after 1000 impressions, make it inactive and put in a new image in its spot. This way, you can quickly test images in an organized manner. You score the good images fast this way. For someone such as myself with no huge budget, it seems to be the best bet.

3. Make your ad-copys have different headlines. Yes, simple works, but simple and creative works better. You can just do the classic "Need a Girlfriend? Find one Now!" headline. It's straight and to the point, but do you know how many ads people see like that per day? Ad blindness sets in quickly on PoF, so you want to make sure you get around that by being different. Instead, say something like "I Bet You CANT Resist Our Women!" A simple idea like challenging your target can be the difference between your .1% ctr and a .3% ctr.

4. Split test offers. Even if its the same goddamn offer. Try different networks out. You will be surprised on how even the same exact offer will have dramatically different results. I've had networks give 0 conversions over 30 clicks, and the exact same offer had 8 conversions over 30 clicks. Whether it be coincidence or something shady going on in the back end, you want to do anything in your power to prevent yourself from getting shafted.


I hope some of these tips helped. Keep testing, keep working, and get rich. Enjoy your weekend everyone!

:: Matthew NY
#awesome #dating #fish #learned #plenty #source #traffic
  • Profile picture of the author Cash37
    Ironically I just posted a similar thread! Great minds think alike.

    I've done OK with POF in the past, but I really need to get back. For me CPM is always tricky because I have to "watch" my ads. Its cool though.

    Im probably going to test some NON dating stuff there.
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  • Profile picture of the author ChrisBa
    You don't get much more targetted than pushing dating on POF
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  • Profile picture of the author PPC-Coach
    Nice post, what's a "college guru" though?

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  • Profile picture of the author Bwick
    Nice , thanks for the advice!
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  • Profile picture of the author HairyPoppins
    Agree 100% with everything you said. POF is extremely lucrative and is much easier to get started with than Facebook.
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    • Profile picture of the author Dennisknows
      Originally Posted by HairyPoppins View Post

      Agree 100% with everything you said. POF is extremely lucrative and is much easier to get started with than Facebook.
      I agree.. I'll dive into FB advertising but when I have more testing money.
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      "May the optimism of your tomorrow fuel your drive for today"
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  • Profile picture of the author outwest
    What ROI are you getting? if you dont mind asking?

    how difficult to scale up offers?
    Thanks much for this thread
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  • Profile picture of the author LukePeerFly
    Some solid advice. I find your "ThunderDome" method interesting. I'm going to give it a try tonight. I usually allow a biggest test than 1,000 impressions, but I can see how that'd be useful if you had a small budget.

    Do you use the tags to include variables in your ads? Like {age:default}?
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    • Profile picture of the author jinn
      Great post Mathew, thanks for the share,

      Is it possible to advertise anything else beside dating with POF? if so, what do you guys recomend?

      Br

      Jinn
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  • Profile picture of the author pacelattin
    "An Awesome Traffic Source for Dating!"

    No duh.
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  • Profile picture of the author TomFang
    Good general guidelines.

    I probably wouldn't test 5 at a time like that. You have to do too much micromanagement, activating and watching ads all the time. And 100 images is a lot when you probably dont need that many. If you want to achieve scale on POF, you need to be running lots of campaigns. Let a batch of ads run, take the top performing ads and optimize from there. Doing that will allow you to manage a lot of campaigns. Just my 2 cents.

    -Tom
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  • Profile picture of the author Linerider
    That's good info Matthew. I need to find some way of downloading your brain onto my computer.

    So I've been using POF to promote CPA offers for a few days now. I figure I've got quite good at the advertising. I'm averaging .2% to .3% CTR for my various campaigns. Despite the fact that I am getting loads of clicks, very few people are signing up to the CPA offers. I'm on my sixth CPA offer now, and I'm barely breaking even. How many CPA offers do you guys typically have to try before you come across a profitable one? I'm determined to make this work.

    In the mean time I'm going to kick back and relax with a cold beer. Some of man's best decisions were made with a beer in his hand
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    • Profile picture of the author TomFang
      Originally Posted by Linerider View Post

      That's good info Matthew. I need to find some way of downloading your brain onto my computer.

      So I've been using POF to promote CPA offers for a few days now. I figure I've got quite good at the advertising. I'm averaging .2% to .3% CTR for my various campaigns. Despite the fact that I am getting loads of clicks, very few people are signing up to the CPA offers. I'm on my sixth CPA offer now, and I'm barely breaking even. How many CPA offers do you guys typically have to try before you come across a profitable one? I'm determined to make this work.

      In the mean time I'm going to kick back and relax with a cold beer. Some of man's best decisions were made with a beer in his hand
      If you are getting high CTRs, that's a great start. Now you need to turn your focus to the other part of the equation: the conversion rates.

      Sounds like you have really low conversion rates resulting from direct linking or poor landing pages. To succeed at POF and market with scale, you NEED to get good at producing landing pages that convert. Sit in your spy account and click through the ads and analyze other people's landing pages. See what you think works. Get ideas from them. Then test your own landing pages. When testing landing pages, use a control variable (i.e. direct linking) so you know whether your landing page is helping or hurting your campaign.


      Originally Posted by martyJames View Post

      might be a dumb question but do you think promoting 'web design' would be effective on pof?
      No, definitely not.



      -Tom
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      • Profile picture of the author outwest
        Originally Posted by TomFang View Post

        If you are getting high CTRs, that's a great start. Now you need to turn your focus to the other part of the equation: the conversion rates.

        Sounds like you have really low conversion rates resulting from direct linking or poor landing pages. To succeed at POF and market with scale, you NEED to get good at producing landing pages that convert. Sit in your spy account and click through the ads and analyze other people's landing pages. See what you think works. Get ideas from them. Then test your own landing pages. When testing landing pages, use a control variable (i.e. direct linking) so you know whether your landing page is helping or hurting your campaign.




        No, definitely not.



        -Tom
        Tom I cannot for the life of me figure out your POF Mastery guide page
        honestly, its too small print, and I did manage to find a link to the guide on a page linked from that page, linked me right back to the confusing page
        How can I get this guide?
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        • Profile picture of the author TomFang
          Originally Posted by outwest View Post

          Tom I cannot for the life of me figure out your POF Mastery guide page
          honestly, its too small print, and I did manage to find a link to the guide on a page linked from that page, linked me right back to the confusing page
          How can I get this guide?
          You can get it here.

          Let me know if you have any issues.

          Thanks,

          Tom
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          Please stop making self-promotional posts. It wastes your time post them and ours deleting them
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      • Profile picture of the author outwest
        Originally Posted by TomFang View Post

        If you are getting high CTRs, that's a great start. Now you need to turn your focus to the other part of the equation: the conversion rates.

        Sounds like you have really low conversion rates resulting from direct linking or poor landing pages. To succeed at POF and market with scale, you NEED to get good at producing landing pages that convert. Sit in your spy account and click through the ads and analyze other people's landing pages. See what you think works. Get ideas from them. Then test your own landing pages. When testing landing pages, use a control variable (i.e. direct linking) so you know whether your landing page is helping or hurting your campaign.




        No, definitely not.



        -Tom
        Tom I thought POF no longer has spy account
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        • Profile picture of the author TomFang
          Originally Posted by outwest View Post

          Tom I thought POF no longer has spy account
          There is no official spy account left because a bunch of idiots sent messages through them so POF shut it down.

          But that doesn't mean you can't create a profile of your target demographic on your own.

          -Tom
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    • Profile picture of the author SirTestAlot
      Originally Posted by Linerider View Post

      That's good info Matthew. I need to find some way of downloading your brain onto my computer.

      So I've been using POF to promote CPA offers for a few days now. I figure I've got quite good at the advertising. I'm averaging .2% to .3% CTR for my various campaigns. Despite the fact that I am getting loads of clicks, very few people are signing up to the CPA offers. I'm on my sixth CPA offer now, and I'm barely breaking even. How many CPA offers do you guys typically have to try before you come across a profitable one? I'm determined to make this work.

      In the mean time I'm going to kick back and relax with a cold beer. Some of man's best decisions were made with a beer in his hand
      This is the same thing I'm experiencing. I'm getting enough clicks but people aren't signing up to the offers. It is a quality network and I've tested a few of the highest CPC offers that the network has. Anyone know why they aren't signing up?
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      • Profile picture of the author Dennisknows
        Originally Posted by SirTestAlot View Post

        This is the same thing I'm experiencing. I'm getting enough clicks but people aren't signing up to the offers. It is a quality network and I've tested a few of the highest CPC offers that the network has. Anyone know why they aren't signing up?
        Are you guys targeting men or women? I heard men ages 25 to 34 are easier to convert. But my most profitable offer was directed at women..m

        When I figure out how to track CJ.com leads, I'll get it back up and running.. Or if I find that particular offer on a better network
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  • There going mobile so thats a big thing too.
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  • Profile picture of the author Musicmoneyman
    Excellent post. I've been focusing on FB, but will uses your ideas for POF.
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  • Profile picture of the author g2114
    Thanks for the share. What's the amount you should spend a day when starting out? I've been searching to advertise on POF, but not sure how much to spend.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kwonyoo
    What bid do you suggest? so dating converts well with pof. what converts well with 7search?
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  • Profile picture of the author brianzeng
    Thanks,i think more offers other than dating can be testes on pof,and i will share my experience after my test run.
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  • Profile picture of the author jayman
    Thanks Matt, great pointers you have there
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  • Profile picture of the author martyJames
    might be a dumb question but do you think promoting 'web design' would be effective on pof?
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  • Profile picture of the author theredsun
    Thanks for share I will following your advised.
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  • Profile picture of the author WF99
    very good share !!
    i liked it ...
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  • Profile picture of the author adam2526
    Great post Matt and yes pof is sick source of traffic, i found it to work on multiple levels as well,not just dating, But your spot on when you said people get easily distracted on their, and you need to have very grab attention pics to hit those ctrs, great post Matt, thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author Azzi
    I'm probably going to try this with a couple of friends and report our test results here. Thanks for sharing this
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  • Profile picture of the author mrahmadawais
    I am gona try this out great post ! and comments !
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  • Profile picture of the author Jetmir
    Brilliant share my friend.

    Thank you!
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  • Profile picture of the author Matthew NY
    Thank you very much for the great comments on this thread! I'm glad I can help a lot of people out on here. Definitely continue to differentiate yourself on PoF and you will make positive ROI's.
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  • Profile picture of the author jsmiz
    I hate PoF lately, my CTR's are so volatile...campaigns need to much babysitting and bid managing...they need a better bidding system!
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    If you do POF ads, you need solid campaign tracking and managing. Contact me for more info!

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  • Profile picture of the author Dennisknows
    Do they really let you promote dating sites on there? I thought that was kinda dumb on their part.. I tried a few offers on there... Had one in fashion that did ok. It was on CJ.com and couldn't figure out how to track sales or update sales in prosper202. CJ.com tracking sucks.

    Not really made for affiliates IMO
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  • Profile picture of the author shawnlebrun
    I remember WAY back in 2004 or so, when John Reese came out with Traffic Secrets.

    He talked about testing out 2 different Google ads, and used the analogy of 2 boxers going at it in the ring, and the winner is the champion.

    Well, same with your ads... ALWAYS be testing 2 different ads against each other, and see which one wins.

    that one becomes the champ and then a new challenger steps up to challenge the champ.

    Bottom line, always be testing.... cause 1 word can make a huge difference.
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  • Profile picture of the author Greedy
    He talked about testing out 2 different Google ads, and used the analogy of 2 boxers going at it in the ring, and the winner is the champion.
    Ha, funny analogy, but I agree, you always have to be testing new ads.
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