Is Facebook promoting a monopoly in the dating space?
On September 29th 2014 Facebook disabled our ads for a dating mobile app specific to Brazil. Upon further investigation we discovered that Facebook closed their doors to all dating apps EXECPT those they have made a commercial agreement with. They claim that these ads have to be more "serious" (ours are!) showing less flesh and be more geared towards real couples (ours is!) and that they are not open to new partnerships. Interestingly they allow ads from a larger dating service (starts with Z) to run, even though their focus is on "meet female singleS now"- note the emphasis on the plural; it's about scoring. Yet facebook is happy to show their ads.
It is sad to see facebook closing the doors on the little guys like us and promote the big players, hindering competition and innovation from the new, little guys.
Here's their answer:
"To make sure everyone has a positive experience on Facebook, ads for dating sites and apps are only allowed from approved advertisers through a direct sales partnership. This means that you must have prior authorization from Facebook to buy dating ads on Facebook. Unfortunately, we aren't accepting new partners at this time."
I support their motivation, but closing the doors on services that are compliant just because you already closed a deal with a big player just does not seem correct to me.
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6 comments
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This might work, it might not, but if you're a business, what have you got to loose. At the least, you'll meet some interesting people and maybe learn a thing or two. Be sure to ask not only what you can do to get on Facebook, but maybe ask them what else you should be doing that would have made them more likely to accept you in the first place.
I can see that getting onto Facebook could be important for your business, but if it's the most important thing, you don't have a business, so work the facebook angle but maybe you'll also come up with something innovative that would be more valuable than getting your ads on facebook.
Focus on micro content now. (Facebook has its own rules and we cant do anything) Also, explore Reddit for ads, there amazing sub reddits and you can target each of them that matches your app and create an add there. It only costs your $5 for 5000 impressions there. Try it.