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I’ve been thinking about something lately, and I guess this forum is the best place to put it out there. Has anyone else tried running matchmaking ads and felt like you’re guessing half the time? I’m not a big agency person or anything, but I’ve messed around with ads for different niches, and matchmaking ads have been one of the trickiest for me. They look simple from the outside, but once you start actually trying to get people to sign up or take any action, things suddenly get weirdly complicated.

My early attempts felt like tossing money into the wind. I’d set up a campaign, choose the audience, write the copy, hit publish… and then nothing meaningful happened. Plenty of impressions, sometimes OK clicks, but conversions? Barely any. I kept wondering if it was just a tough niche or if I was doing something wrong. I also saw a bunch of people online saying matchmaking ads are just “expensive by nature,” which didn’t help my confidence at all.

After a while, I realised the biggest challenge wasn’t the ads themselves but figuring out what actually matters for people in this space. Matchmaking is personal, and people aren’t clicking on just any shiny ad. They want to feel comfortable, curious, or at least a little understood before taking the jump. I honestly didn't think much about that emotional layer at first. I was treating it like any other lead-gen campaign, and that approach clearly wasn’t cutting it.

So I started paying attention to what I would respond to if I were on the other side. Most matchmaking ads I saw looked super generic—things like “Find your perfect match now!” That didn’t feel real. It sounded like every other ad in the universe. I figured maybe the answer was to be a bit more human and less “ad-like.” So that’s what I tried next.

I played around with copy that sounded more like a calm suggestion than a sales pitch. Stuff such as “Looking to meet someone serious?” or “Trying to find someone who matches your vibe?” I noticed these performed a bit better. Not huge results at first, but I could see the improvement. Small progress is still progress, right?

Another thing I learned the hard way: audiences for matchmaking ads behave differently depending on the stage of life they’re in. I kept targeting everyone between 22–45, thinking it was a safe range. But once I started separating the groups—like early 20s, mid-30s, and so on—I saw completely different patterns. Some groups clicked more but converted less. Others clicked less but were more serious about signing up. It helped me stop wasting money on mismatched segments.

One unexpectedly useful thing I tried was running “soft intention” ads. These weren’t pushing anyone to sign up. They were more like conversation starters. Things like polls or simple “what matters most to you in a partner” type questions. These didn’t bring in leads directly, but they warmed up the audience. When I showed them the actual matchmaking ads afterward, conversions improved quite a bit. It felt more natural—kind of like easing into the pool instead of jumping straight in.

At some point, I got curious and started reading up on what other people had tried, and I came across a piece that talked about small, overlooked things that can make a campaign click. I’m dropping it here because it explains a couple of ideas way better than I can, especially around understanding the mindset of people looking for matches:
launch a matchmaking ad campaign that actually pays off

One more thing that helped me was experimenting with smaller budgets instead of going big from the start. It sounds obvious, but when you’re frustrated, you sometimes throw money at the problem hoping it fixes itself. Testing with small amounts made me less nervous about experimenting. I’d run small batches, look at which angles or creatives got real engagement, and slowly scale those. It kind of turned the whole process into a calmer routine instead of a stressful guessing game.

I’m not saying I’ve cracked the code—I’m still figuring things out. But I’ve definitely moved from “nothing works” to “some things work more often than not,” which feels like progress. If someone else here is struggling with matchmaking ads, I’d say the biggest thing is to stay patient and be willing to test ideas that feel a bit too simple. Sometimes the simple stuff actually clicks.

Not every ad will perform, and that’s okay. Once you stop expecting every campaign to be a winner, it gets a lot easier to read the data without frustration. I’m still learning, still tweaking, and still messing up sometimes, but I’m getting better at reading what people respond to. And honestly, that’s half the game.