We’re heading into the busiest time of the year for online dating! With a natural uplift in traffic from December 26th until the end of January, it’s essential that you start preparing your Christmas campaigns now to ensure you are generating the highest possible returns from your acquisition efforts in the coming weeks.
Although this year a ‘Covid Christmas‘ is expected to influence online behaviour, we’re confident from our recent insights into the number of members logging into our partners’ dating sites (an insanely high amount by the way, if you haven’t checked out our latest blog yet), that the number of times members are logging in, wider on-site activity and upgrade rates will continue to grow.
What happened last year?
Last year we saw a huge +36% increase in the number of registrations to our partners’ sites during the 7 days immediately following Boxing Day, versus the rest of December.
During the 2 week period following Christmas Day, we saw that members’ propensity to pay went up by +15% versus the pre-Christmas period. We also saw an increase of +10% in our partners’ yield per registration (the amount of money made from each registration driven to their dating sites).
To learn how to take advantage of the natural uplift in search traffic resulting from Covid and Christmas read on…
Img: An increase in member logins since March 2020 lockdown bring huge opportunities as we enter peak dating season
Update your landing pages and campaigns to reflect the season, but get the tone right for a ‘Covid Christmas’
Having festive landing pages is an extremely important part of preparing campaigns for December. Add some festive cheer with seasonal imagery but remember, we’re in a global pandemic, so get the tone right. Focus on maintaining connections and dating safely – don’t ignore the wider picture.
This goes for your PPC ads too. Your messaging must be sensitive and empathetic to your target audience. Or, your ad might not even be opened in the first place. Make sure that you showcase the value of an online dating service given the circumstances people are in – we’re helping people stay connected online at a time of uncertainty.
Tip: Make sure the changes you make are consistent across mobile and desktop and are still in keeping with the theme and colour scheme of the rest of your site. Also, be sure to take your site’s geography into the planning – a couple building a snowman won’t work down under.
Analyse your data and set aside additional budget for PPC
To analyse trends, seasonal variations in traffic and conversion rates we recommend using Google Analytics. This year we have the caveat of Covid-19. However, looking at last year’s data will still be pivotal in helping you to explore which times of the day and days of the week you saw the best ROI and so on. But remember, this year more people have time available to search and more people are actively seeking connections online. Don’t miss out on these additional searches – set aside some additional budget to ensure this traffic reaches your site.
It’s also important to keep an eye on what your competitors are doing. If they’re decreasing their bidding expenses, or are dropping out of the PPC game altogether, for the time being, you should be taking advantage of it – especially if they’re dropping out due to an incorrect assumption regarding their audiences intent to register, engage with, and upgrade on online dating sites.
Tip: We’d strongly advise setting aside some additional budget to not miss out on any potential leads from the natural uplift in traffic.
Next week we’ll be sharing some more ‘Covid Christmas’ campaign tips. Keep your inboxes refreshed and your eyes peeled. If you have any questions, please reach out to [email protected]