According to Laguna, a campaign run on JDate spawned some surprising results.
"JDate did a custom campaign for Sarah Silverman's show on Comedy Central," Laguna says. "She received more than 4,000 emails and got a better response than on any other social network."
For Laguna, the key is narrow targeting that leverages the data users provide in their signup forms. In the case of Sarah Silverman, the Jewish comedian's brand of humor made her a natural fit with a segment of the JDate audience, which in turn allowed Sparks to offer Comedy Central better ROI than competing platforms.
Tailoring messages is something Ward also stresses when it comes to the dating space, but in doing so, he offers a word of caution.
"Brand interactions are important," Ward says, pointing out that eHarmony takes great care when it comes to associating with other sites and brands.
One ad partnership that worked well for eHarmony, the brand and community, according to Ward, was one that happened organically.
For a campaign that matched eHarmony users interested in health with 24 Hour Fitness, Ward says the idea grew out of the site's lab, which developed the company's matching system.
"[Our lab was] in the middle of a study exploring the linkage between fitness programs and relationship success," Ward says. "The marketing partnership was supported with a multi-faceted campaign that we developed with agent Silverfox, 24 Hour Fitness's agency, that mixed media, CRM and both websites to effectively get our members into their clubs."
So what about ad networks?
Not all dating sites use ad networks to sell their inventory. Sparks Networks, for example, sells its own ads, preferring to keep a tighter control. While eHarmony reports using ad networks -- both to sell its own inventory and to market its brand -- Ward says marketers should be wary about approaching the dating space through such a vehicle.
"As both an advertiser and a publisher, we believe the most effective and memorable campaigns are highly customized, deeply integrated, have a high degree of brand interaction and are well executed," Ward says. "For marketers that work with us, we see better results from integrated campaigns than from ad networks, even on a cost-adjusted basis."
One other reason ad networks don't perform well in the dating space, according to Ward, is that they treat the space as a uniform block when the reality is that every site is different, and within each site there are smaller communities for whom mass marketing simply won't work.
Don't be too aggressive
When users sign up for a dating site, the last thing they're probably thinking about is advertising. But that doesn't mean the space can't be used as an effective ad platform, so long as the message is disseminated in a friendly manner.
"We are fairly conservative because our overriding goal is creating great relationships," Ward says. "So that's the most important thing to us. We won't allow anything that might detract from the user's experience or interfere with the trust they place in us -- no interstitials, intrusive video, pop-ups or pop-unders."
According to Laguna, the better ad units are those that integrate into features members regularly interact with on the site.
"Sparks offers both industry standard banners and customized ad units," Laguna says. "Sparks also allows its advertisers to sponsor polls, create custom co-branded micro-sites, profiles and dedicated emails."