Thoughtful dapper images, squatting images, or images of faces with twisted allergic reactions? You may be surprised by which performs the best.
Warning: Today’s post exceeds the ADHD reccomended total word count by about 2000 words. Take your meds before you scroll down.
Today I have with me the Professor in Plentyoffishology, Tom “Ain’t No Thang” Fang from iPyxel Creations.
Tom has been licking POF chops for the past two years. He has made this happen by taking a very structured/methodical approach to his POF campaigns.
The one mistake I see with people starting out on Plenty of Fish dating campaigns is they nearly ALWAYS go straight for plain professional images of good looking people…
Tom is about to show you what works, what doesn’t and most importantly why.
Tom: Today I’m going to share a lot of dating images that I use or have used in the past on POF. As many WILL probably copy these images and run them until the cows come home, I cannot guarantee that these will be profitable for you.
Mr Green: My readers would never do such a thing! Right guys??
Tom: We will see…However, I do know, that these concepts are tried and true. So take some notes and get some inspiration or use it as review for what you already know. Hopefully, this will give you all a solid overview of what generally works and what doesn’t on POF.
What kind of images work on POF?
Amateur Photos:
This has probably been drilled into your head a million times, but it’s true! Amateur photos kill it on POF. Let’s face it, users of POF are on average less sophisticated than most other dating sites. If you put an amateur photo in front of them, they actually think that they might have the chance to date this person. So, find images that look like someone took the picture on their 3-megapixel camera for use as their profile picture.
People Holding Up Cameras
This is an extension of the amateur photos theme. This type of MySpace-esque profile shots completely validates the amateur nature of the images. No, it’s not attractive that these people decide that this is the only way to get a good picture of themselves, but it makes the person undeniably real.
Calling Out Ethnicity/Religion/Other Attributes
Calling out user attributes is a tried and true tactic that still works and will continue to work. The great thing about POF is the ability to target so many niches. So in addition to calling out user attributes via your copy, you should also call them out via your images. It makes a HUGE difference when you are targeting Muslims and you have girls to match your message.
Remember that even though people have different beliefs, human nature is more or less the same. That is, Christian and non-Christian girls all want muscular dudes! Having a cross on who could be a heathen can automatically brand her as Christian (but with all the other bells and whistles).
Drawings and White space
Never underestimate the power of whitespace: another principle that’s been said a ton of times yet extremely crowded ads still run rampant. Drawings like this tend to do very well on POF. I think the main reason is that it is SO different from the other ads. Drawings are also non-threatening and friendly. People tend to trust it more. Pair this alongside copy that’s written in a similar style will yield great results.
What works specifically for females?
Muscles
Ask any woman whether they want a hunk or a fat dude. Well, don’t even ask; it’s common sense. Muscular guys generally do better than not. The key is the six-pack!
Uniforms
No doubt you’ve heard of this one, probably because it works. Women are less drawn to the physical attribute of men. Yes, they like muscles, but it’s not the actual muscles that they like. It’s the vibe that the guy carries. It says something about his personality and lifestyle. Women are drawn to fantasies and ideas. When you sell them a specific idea such as a military man, you are taking advantage of all of the positive externalities that are associated with that uniform.
Tattoos
Tattoos often do well with the younger crowd. They do well because the tattoos designate these guys badass. Women like guys who are confident, expressive, and don’t give a shit. Tattoos say all of that and more. These guys certainly don’t look like they’re going to be finishing last.
Couples
Images of couples have worked great for me targeting women, whether it’s out of admiration, jealousy, familiarity, comfort, or just because it’s different from most images. These images are saying “this is what you could have.” I think they work especially well for the older crowd as serious relationships are what they look for typically. Better yet, target relationships with them.
Pets and Babies
Pets and babies can really increase comfort as well. It says that this guy is not a bad guy. It says that this guy has responsibilities and cares for someone other than himself. The alternative guys with babies have worked pretty well since you’re capturing both the good and badass sides of the guy.
Mr Green: Baby pets must kill it!..Possibly pet babies (a.k.a babies on leashes)
Confidence
This should be more common sense here: get images of guys who look like they believe in themselves and seem to have their shit together.
What works specifically for males?
Curvy Women and Large Breasts
News flash: the guys on POF only have ONE thing on their mind when they’re surfing, and that’s sex. What will get them to click the most is sex, so you must sell sex. Men are incredibly visual creatures, so what will attract their attention are butts, breasts, and a flirty look.
While these women might not be the kind of women the guys would want to date or marry, they do catch their attention because in the world of instant gratification, they are the ones they would want to take home for a night. Large breasts do particularly well. As a matter of fact, if the breasts look like they are disproportionately too big for her, you probably found a winner.
Emo Chicks
Images of alternative people seem to do well in general on POF. I have a few campaigns that run exclusively emo girls, and do surprisingly well. I didn’t really think people would be big fans of it since I’m not myself, but something about them makes people want to click. Of course, you need the appropriate copy to go with it.
Girls in Glasses
Everyone likes a nerdy hot gal. Something about the glasses makes them seem more easily approachable. Models also typically do not wear glasses, so the images come off as more amateurish and real.
Women in Sleepwear
Photos taken on the bed or what seems to be what the girl sleeps in or lounges in have done well for me. It has to do with the fact that it associates sleeping, with sensuality. The guys must be thinking: “Well, she’s already there. All I have to do is show up!”
Cougars
This is a pretty common fantasy, and it works pretty well on POF. It works well enough on POF that young guys are seeing a lot of these ads already. They work well because there’s a notion that if an older woman wants to date, she obviously doesn’t want to get into a serious relationship. It really gets the younger guys going. It’s getting pretty saturated now, however.
Webcam-esque Images
Webcams are associated with amateurs. If the girl uses a webcam, then the guy might think that she will webcam with him. He can foreseeably believe that he might get to interact with her through the safety of his computer screen.
What just doesn’t work on POF?
Professional Looking Photos
Professional looking images just simply don’t work on POF. When the user thinks the person in the image is a model and isn’t real, they lose interest. Professional images bring people’s attention to the fact that your ad is an ad, and that you are trying to sell them something.
Cartoons
I tried playful clipart and cartoons a few times, and they just completely bombed for me. I don’t think POF has that kind of innocent playfulness that you might find at Facebook. I could be targeting the wrong audience with it or wrote bad copy to accompany the images, but I just don’t see them working well at POF.
Images that Cover Up the Face
This is just a general theme that I’ve found. Images that do not show, or covers up most of, the subject’s face tend to not do well. I think it makes the image more impersonal. When looking at a picture of someone, you typically look first at the eyes to connect with the person.
Losers
This should really go without saying, but I see a lot of images being used of people (of men in particular) who look incredibly boring and don’t really have their shit together. Using amateur images doesn’t mean go find lowlifes! Find good looking people with something interesting about them who can pass as amateur. If it’s a picture of a guy being lazy or eating a bowl of leftovers, don’t use it. When in doubt, as yourself: “Would my friend/sister/mom/cousin date him in a MILLION years?”
Flashy Outrageous Ads
Some people really misconstrue what I say when I tell them their ads need to be attention grabbing. When I look at the example ad here, I’m thinking this is gotta be a joke. The point of an ad is not to annoy your target into clicking. People on POF have such short attention spans that if you hit the wrong trigger in the least bit (in this case they are immediately annoyed by your ad), they will move on in a nanosecond. If this ad looks anything close to what you’re advertising, you should seriously think about pulling the reins back on you’re outrageousness.
Mr Green: Nice Tom! You gave me a bit of inspiration. One trend that I noticed across your images, is that a lot of them crossed over using multiple elements. For example one of your images has an amateur looking photo of a muscly guy, with a tattoo. The cool trick was that the tattoo is of a cross so it gains interest from a religious demographic as well.
ADHD Summary:
General images that work.
- Amateur photos
- People holding cameras
- Calling out religion or ethnicity
- Drawings and white space
- Muscles
- Uniforms
- Tattoos
- Couples
- Pets & Babies
- Curvy women
- Emo chicks
- Girls with glasses
- Women in sleepwear
- Cougars
- Webcam-esque images
- Professional photos
- Well designed ads
- Cartoons
- Images covering faces
- Losers
- Flashy ads
Let us know if we missed any!
Awesome! Thanks for providing images!
No problem! We thought there was a lot of posts out there about image/ad copy, but none really had a lot of examples.
Glad you liked it.
great post as usual.
I will be glad to have a PDF version download button on your posts, thx
Haha I'll see what I can do!
done!
Great ideas.
Any suggestions on where to get these types of images without scraping them from spy tools?
You kind of have scour the internet for these sites. There's lifestyle blogs, "hot or not" sites, webcam sites (take screen caps), and social networks where users post pictures.
One example is this: http://thechive.com/
In google, you can customize your own search engine. You specify the sites and you can have google only search those sites for images.
-Tom Fang
Great idea Tom. Thanks
Please tell me you split test those 3 images across the top… who won!
I actually got permission to use those photos after I posted them. So I was a little hesitant to do anything "special" with them. No doubt Silver's face explosion would draw some epic CTRs. Just need a product like "Face Jack", make your face ripped in 2 day.
It's actually the same guy.
Left: before Face Jack
Center: he used Face Jack
Right: after Face Jack
Everyone talks about CTR when it comes to POF, but what about the ad text? Whats the best approach for the ad text? POF doesn't allow ads written in first person, third person, and you have to mention you have to signup to an ad site. Is there much leeway in terms of what you can say in the adtext besides, "chat online with hot girls in your town, sign up at blahdate.com right now it's free!"?
The tone of your ad copy totally depends on what demographic you are targeting.
General rule of thumb try to call out as many features of your target demographic as possible, followed by a solid call to action.
I also like to answer a question like "Are you interested in women living in x, who like x?"
Lorenzo, this must be one of the best Ad copy post i have read.
I am certain your readers would appreciate it like i do.
Pls keep it up!
Henry
p.s when are u doing pedobear suit whilst driving a fast car stunt? :p
Haha cheers, the pedostunt is in November!
Is it ok to just take these photos from other sites to use in our ads? Legally?
If you don't own the rights, then you are open to being sued. Although the chances of that are slim…do at your own risk.
I've been running a few campaigns using pics of this guy Ibrahimovic but they just aren't converting. I can't for the life of me think why?! Help me Mr Green! Perhaps I should use images of Van Persie?
I think you will find that people won't click Ibrahimovic ads because people know he is untouchable.
Just a little tip for ya mate, Van Persie will probably convert extremely well to a "gay" demographic.
Hope that helps!
Apple+shift+4 screenshot…haha jk.
Great post, as always man.
It's hilarious to compare what works for targeting females vs. what works for targeting males.
Men are from Mars!
Hopefully, now that everyone's images are outed, we'll see an inflow of brand new stuff
I've already started promoting alien dating with amateur alien pics. Evolve or die. dun dun dun!
i lol'd when i saw the pic of silver haha
I've used some of thos same muscly dudes before. Thanks for your insights Tom. I'm reviewing soem of my "professional looking" pics before submitting them to a merchant for approval. lol
Sure thing! Yeah definitely stay away from those professional images on POF.
Phenomenal post.
Awesome post and nice images
Most ADHDs won't even get to the summary, sadly.
I'm from Seo and Organic World, I would like to know what is the minium Budget for a daily test in your opinion?
I would like to start testing POF but i would like to know how much money have to burn to starting testing and becoming better on it. (Normally how much is the cost for CPM on POF).
Thanks for the help.
What I tell people in my guide is to set aside a few grand if they are really serious at putting in the effort and making POF work. It will take a few months probably, and it will be an investment in your education, if anything. If you can break even out of those first few months, you would be doing great. POF isn’t as expensive as FB (and not NEARLY as annoying and risky), and its most common CPM bids are in the $0.50-$0.60s.
love the first set of pics
<img src="http://www.fitnessfoodlist.com/news/dailynews/left.jpg">Awesome pics, strong men.<img src="http://www.fitnessfoodlist.com/news/dailynews/leftl.jpg">
hahaha, fun stuff.
Great pics, awesome post! Tom def knows his shit.
Great tips. Lots of useful information here. I have some questions though. Is it generally better to link the ads directly to the dating offers or is it better to create your own landing pages on your own domains and then use that to direct people to the dating offers?
If done right, the landing page almost always wins. The landing page is where you have the chance to really add value as a marketer. If all people had to do was direct link a bunch of offers, everybody would be a full time AM. The sales funnel is where you add value by getting your traffic more INVESTED. The longer they stay on your landing page and click through, the more invested they are, and the more likely they will fill out their information. Some times we forget that we are asking people to fill in multiple fields of personal information. What are really the chances of that happening when you just throw up an image of some cleavage?
Thanks. I was hoping I could do it the lazy way, but yea it does make more sense to use a landing page to have them become invested in the offer first.
Very good post
Thanks for sharing those
Excellent stuff man!!! Thx.
This is really interesting, You are a very skilled blogger.
I’ve joined your rss feed and look forward to seeking more of your wonderful post. Also, I have shared your site in my social networks!
Lorenzo I'm having trouble buying your POF ad uploader tool
I keep getting a paypal merchant error.
Such a great list Lorenzo! You've hit the nail on the head : )
This is definitely a useful guide for all those involved with PoF.
Dude +1 on the "holding camera/cellphone" thing. As luck would have it, it's ridiculously easy to procure images like that =P
[...] Feedback White bg always works well on POF – check out this post if you havnt seen it also, what works on POF! Split test them both, but from experience – [...]
Can anyone suggest for me. I try create creatives on pof with sexy girl image. My target is male 25+ in us.
And description for my creative like a … meet charming girl near your area….
But I get disapproval from pof. How I need to fix it.
Any suggestion will appreciate.
Thanks
Charming isn't really a word you would use to try and make a girl appeal to most guys. You want to replace charming with a different word such as "hot", "sexy" maybe even something like "She's DTF Are, You?".
I haven't messed around with much POF yet so I don't even know if that's something you could use but just about any word in the English language is going to work better than charming when targeting guys over 25 in the U.S.
dating…
What Works On Plenty Of Fish (Images) – Mr Green…
[...] of black guys who look around that age. For a better idea of the kind of images that work check out what works on Plenty of Fish. I like to collect a bunch of images and then split them into batches of 10. I test them 1 batch at [...]
great tips for pof. I am not sure about the couple photos, but you never know. There are thousands of people on POF got various tastes
Hey I like the post. OK Cupid did some similar analysis before, but I think that is a more sophisticated site than POF.
I've written a post about POF Dating, and included a link below!
Plenty of Fish is full of losers who vent online, pretending they're the cat's ass. In real life, they're people who have menial employment, little to no post-secondary school education (and no, not many are entrepreneurs) and very little transferable skill sets. Yet and here's the amusing part, many expect to be treated like a VIP. Most of the women I've come across have baggage coming out the ying yang, issues that make you want to run for the hills.
In no shape or form does online dating represent real world dating. It's a venue for castaways.
If you enjoy scraping the bottom of the barrel, know yourself out.
Ahah ! funny post!! But i think POF is not a very good dating site…
[...] an emotion in women. You need to do is never talk bad about Vegas? You get to Vegas. I had no guess that won’t hurt at all I hope. I gather there is all about it and just kindly say some of the [...]
"Couples"
I knew that one, but considered it my secret.
They kicked me off pof….no nudity, maybe content of messages….how can i get back in?
"Warning: Today’s post exceeds the ADHD reccomended total word count by about 2000 words. Take your meds before you scroll down."
- oh well, i can't let it then. that's how i can always make a difference.
thanks,
steps in creating a budget
Great, This is really an impressive article here, thanks for the good insight here and keep posting more.
The images look great, thanks for the good insight here.. I will definitely share this article to my friends out there.
Thanks for sharing. These are some fantastic examples! I am just starting up my POF advertising campaign now and this will definitely help. I'll take your pointers into consideration when I create my next batch of creatives for my campaigns.
Thanks again for the help!
Yet and here's the amusing part, many expect to be treated like a VIP. Most of the women I've come across have baggage coming out the ying yang, issues that make you want to run for the hills.
Wow..This blog is fan-diddly-astic! I can't stop reading and here I was dreading my upcoming first-time POF campaign cause I'm not really into advertising and such (but I have a great product to promote)..Thank you for making it interesting, entertaining..and improving my results, surely. I can't believe I'm being entertained by something I was afraid would be so dull…
This is a noob question (or maybe not!): Any place to find true to size examples of all of the banner sizes on POF? (Like, especially the ones that don't require thousands of dollars of deposit?) . I'd like to play around with making a mockup before I send it off to the designer.
Thanks again, Mr. Green..I guess I'm the last person on earth to find you. Woot woot.
This is funny but dating site is useful if you intent to looking for soul mate.. Hehe here is another one similar to pof is http://www.droidmsg.com with mobile app
Such a great yet interesting post. Thank you very much for sharing this helpful stuff.In addition to I visited http://trinidadhunt.com/180-power-pak/ (solution for educators and school administrators.)
What goes around, comes around and POF is at the bottom of the barrel.
I've already started promoting alien dating with amateur alien pics. Evolve or die. dun dun dun!
summer camps and organizations
No problem! We believed there was a lot of content out there about image/ad duplicate, but none really had a lot of examples
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