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In the past few years, the dating scene in India has rapidly evolved thanks to the popularity of online dating apps. The option to choose from a wide variety of matches with similar interests and a change in how modern India sees relationships has given further impetus to their popularity. According to a report, the revenue in the online dating segment in India was pegged at $63 million in 2020, with the average revenue per user (ARPU) amounting to $2.78. By 2024, the revenue is expected to grow at 5.2 percent resulting in a market volume of $77 million.

The figures highlight the fact that online dating is a burgeoning market, rife with opportunities and new players are clamouring to enter the space. For both new entrants into this crowded marketplace as well as established brands, the ‘Dating App Marketing Guide 2021’ from Adjust offers solutions to the challenges that could restrict them from scaling and highlights benchmarks, tips and tricks to help improve customer satisfaction.

Though global brands were among the first to enter the online dating space in India a few years ago, homegrown companies like QuackQuack were not far behind and now make up around 50 percent of the market share. By positioning their brands to fit with local social norms and expectations, they have been able to gain an edge over competitors.

There is great potential for further growth in the dating app industry in India. The industry clocked record growth in India in 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic meant that social interactions had to move online and connecting via mobile became one of the few ways to meet new people. If homegrown companies continue to engage new users over global brands, they could be the biggest beneficiary of continued growth in the Indian market.

A guide to impressing users

The Dating App Marketing Guide 2021 takes app marketers and developers through the whys and hows of marketing and outlines effective measures for engaging users and protecting them from fake accounts. It highlights the importance of nurturing and maintaining relationships with users by listening to them and gauging their requirements. The task of ensuring that the users get a seamless experience when using an app involves many aspects that include customer acquisition, re-engagement campaigns and even UX design, among others.

Once you sense the pulse of the listener, it gets easier to understand what they want. Dating apps can use insights like micro-moments to inform when and how they interact with their users. Micro-moments are the instances where a user turns to their device to perform an action. In case of dating apps, these would be the moments a user is most likely to search for matches or when they accept a request or reject a match. Adjust’s guide looks at when these micro-moments usually occur for dating apps and suggests what kind of strategies marketers can employ to engage their users at the most opportune time.

Making the right first impression

Given that dating apps are a part of a highly competitive vertical, it becomes important to make a good first impression on users and that the app features among the top suggestions whenever users search for a dating app with some robust app store optimisation (APO) strategies.

These are five important ASO areas on which apps should focus:

● Include keywords particular to your niche in your app’s name

● Add keywords to your app’s description

● Localise content for best results

● Use primary and secondary app categories to for user engagement

● Include screenshots and other useful images to attract organic installs

The success stories

India-based mobile dating app, QuackQuack, is an example of a homegrown brand that has grown to become one of the country’s leading dating platforms. During the COVID-19 lockdown, the app saw an 80 percent surge in the number of daily new users. As the app apparently draws more men than women, it runs separate campaigns for the two genders and uses two different performance metrics to gauge its success.

To balance the male to female ratio, QuackQuack prioritises acquiring new female users over male ones. For that reason, it uses upper funnel metrics for its female-centric acquisition campaigns, like registrations, which indicate its brand awareness. Meanwhile, it uses bottom-of-the-funnel metrics like Return on Advertising Spend for its male-targeted campaigns.

By using Adjust’s user-level cost and revenue reporting, QuackQuack was able to increase the number of female users accessing its app while keeping the budget the same and also decreased its acquisition costs by 20 percent. Moreover, it was able to manage the budgets for its male-centric campaigns wisely due to access to partner-level costs and revenue data.

“We saw the opportunity to place meaningful and engaging ads in front of high-value customers, and we were curious to investigate further. Thanks to Adjust data, we started to navigate more clearly and test the waters with an exciting and new channel,” says Anil Naik, Digital Marketing Manager, QuackQuack.

Want to ramp up user acquisition for your dating app? Download Adjust’s ‘Dating App Marketing Guide 2021’ now!