I am so very lucky to have amazingly talented friends! My friend Lindsay wrote this guest post that made me feel so much better about my success rate on dating apps.

Swipe right, nothing.

Swipe right, nothing.

Swipe right, more nothing.

What are you doing wrong? Nothing. Sure, in theory, dating apps are about compatibility. But in reality? They’re about the numbers.

In the olden days, young people had to venture outside of their homes and offices to meet other singles. Can you even imagine the time they dedicated to this quest? Fortunately, times have changed. Now you can check out an endless stream of strangers from your living room, the laundromat, or the elevator at your office. No longer do we need to dedicate time to getting ready, getting to the bar, and then camping out for the night. Nope. Five minutes waiting for your bus, 5 minutes while walking the dog—and all of this in whatever damn outfit you please.

We’re in the wild wild web of dating now, so why not steal moves from the pros? There’s an entire profession out there dedicated to maintaining online profiles and sending messages to strangers. Who are these pros? Digital marketing specialists, of course. Oh yeah, it’s time to market yourself.

Lesson One: Your Profile

Optimize your profiles to resonate with your target demographic. Know what you like, and figure out what attracts those matches. Does that bikini pic lead to hook ups or long term relationships? Test it. Keep tweaking your profiles until your matches fall in line with who you’re looking to meet.

Lesson Two: Conversion Rates

Email campaigns are a big part of digital marketing. Email campaigns are pretty much the marketing equivalent of your daily dating app activities. Think about the entire population of an app as the potential follower base for your “mailing list.” Your subscriber list are the people who have opted-in, in dating terms: they swiped right.

Do you know what percentage of mailing list subscribers will actually open the emails they receive? According to MailChimp, depending on industry, it’s only 17 – 28%. Crazy, right? In other words, if 25% of your matches are even reading your messages, you’re ahead of the curve. You can also apply this to how many matches are messaging you. Let’s be honest though, sending the first message is the hardest, so your goal percentage should realistically represent that.

Okay, so then how many reply messages should you expect? Mailchimp puts the average, depending on industry, 1.3 – 5.4%. Seriously. If 2 in 100 matches reply to your message, you are very desirable. The matches who don’t respond? It’s not you they’re ignoring, they’re just giving in to their lazy digital habits.

Lesson Three: Effectiveness

This is the most important lesson to be learned from the marketing gurus. Your time is valuable, so don’t waste it! One easy way? Streamline your process. In marketing it’s all about testing.

You can play the swipe right no matter what game, but there are more effective methods. The goal isn’t to get more matches, that’s a waste of your time. The goal is to get the right matches, the ones who are most likely to convert. Don’t forget, convert means something different to everyone. A date? Someone to go to Coachella with? Life partner? Dog walker? It’s up to you.

You’ve already optimizing your profile, next up: optimize your messages. Come up with three introductory lines and send them, in equal measure, to all of your matches. Which one works best? Use that for everyone. Copy, paste your way to more conversations, without wasting time scrutinizing profiles or second guessing. The best part? This is all testing, and you can always change your line. An unresponsive match isn’t a rejection, it’s just data.