Learnings from Tinder, Bumble and Hinge on using cognitive bias to improve your app engagement and monetisation
Have you ever found yourself trapped in the clutches of a painfully awkward and uncomfortable date? You’re not alone. Bad dates are unfortunately all too common, and after another date, I found myself reflecting on these cringe-worthy encounters.
Despite the bad reputation of dating apps, their success is undeniable, with over 20% of Americans utilizing them and two in every five couples meeting online, contributing to a staggering $5.61 billion in revenue in 2021.
I explored different apps, examining how they work and trying to guess the mechanics behind the scene.
In this article, I will share some of the key learnings from downloading over 30 apps and spending hours on research.
I haven’t unlocked the full secret to making people meet, but I’ve gleaned invaluable insights. In this article, I’ll share a key element that has proven to make a difference on dating apps, keeping users engaged even when they profess to despise them. 😄
Make the first few steps on your app really simple
Progressive disclosure is a strategy used to reveal information gradually, only showing what’s necessary at each step to avoid overwhelming users. In the context of dating apps like Tinder and Bumble, they use progressive disclosure during onboarding and activation to keep users engaged and coming back.
For example, when you first sign up, they only show the option to like and skip a profile. Gradually they introduce additional actions such as undoing, super likes or boosting your profile.
This a technique that’s heavily used by gaming apps to introduce players to the game mechanics gradually. At the beginning, they may provide basic instructions on how to navigate the interface and perform simple actions. As players progress, more advanced features and strategies are introduced, allowing them to gradually master the game without feeling overwhelmed. This approach keeps players engaged and motivated to continue playing as they uncover new aspects of the game over time.
Show your users that you’re putting some hard work in to pick the best person for them
When using a dating app, you want to feel like you are seeing the best profile for you, as if the app had spent hours handpicking your best match. One way to create this sensation is to artificially increase load time at specific moments.
This is called the labor illusion.
That’s when people perceive something as more valuable or higher quality if they believe more effort was put into it, even if that’s not necessarily the case. In simple terms, it means that people tend to appreciate things more if they think someone worked hard on them, even if it’s just a perception.
When you adjust your filters on Hinge, they take a long time to refresh the app and show you a new profile, probably to increase your trust in their suggestion.
Pique their curiosity
The curiosity gap is the space between what users know and what they want or need to know. Gaps cause pain, and to take it away, users need to fill the knowledge gap.
Dating apps use this technique to encourage user engagement.
For example, Tinder prevents you from viewing another person’s photos unless you have more than two photos on your own profile. This creates frustration and is a great way to prompt you to fully fill out your profile.
Dating apps also utilize this strategy for monetization.
Can you distinguish between these three dating apps? It’s challenging, isn’t it? That’s because they all rely on the fact that we are nosy little creatures who want to know who likes us. Therefore, they all have a dedicated tab to show blurred profiles of people who have liked you. The irresistible urge to know who is behind this blurred image is their most popular premium feature.
Frame the information in a compelling way
The framing effect happens when your decision is influenced more by how the information is presented (or worded) than by the information itself.
Dating apps need you to feel like you could have a connection with the person that they present you. For that, they frame the profiles in a way that highlights the things that you have in common.
Use scarcity and loss aversion to make it feel exclusive
People value things more when they’re in limited supply and they prefer to avoid losses more than earning equivalent gains. These biases are used for both increasing levels of engagement and prompting specific behaviours and for monetisation.
Bumble only gives you 24 hours to talk to a match. The threat of losing the match encourages users to start a conversation right away, increasing the chances that the connection will turn into a meaningful one.
They also make their offers and promotion sound very exclusive and usually time them. I typically received a “VIP invite” to Premium+ and a few days later, had a chance to try it for 1 day for £4.99 with a timer indicating that I only 54 minutes left to do so.
Preselect the option that you want your users to pick to and show them the highest price first
Unless the incentive to change is compelling, people are more likely to stick to the default situation presented to them. This is also called the Status quo bias. Dating app tend to preselect an expensive plan as they know that users are likely to stick with whatever option was presented to them. This also helps to anchor a higher price. The initial information that users get affects subsequent judgments. It’s useful to increase perceived value.
On Hinge for example, the preselected option is the three months plan for £89.99 making the monthly and weekly plans sound cheap in comparison.
In essence, the most visible similarity among various dating apps, despite differing in UX and target audiences is their reliance on cognitive biases. These biases serve as powerful tools to draw users into the app, encourage engagement, and facilitate meaningful connections.
Contrary to the misconception that these biases are overwhelmingly complex concepts requiring electrodes attached to users’ brains, they are, in fact, relatable and comprehensible. No neural probing was involved in uncovering these insights.
Cognitive biases play a pivotal role in helping each of us navigate the overwhelming deluge of information in our daily lives. They serve as a means to:
🙈 Filter the information
🔮 Seek the meaning of it
⏰ Act within a given time
💾 Store bits of the interaction in their memories
They can not only be used in pretty much any product to nudge users into doing what you want them to do, but also in “real life.” The Obama organization had a whole team known as the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team dedicated to influencing people’s behavior for the best, using psychology, behavioral economics, and other decision sciences. They studied things like whether personalized text messages can reduce “summer melt,” the failure to enroll low-income students accepted to colleges, and how to encourage better eating in school cafeterias by placing the healthier options first. In both cases, the answer was yes. These simple changes could have a significant impact.
That said, even though cognitive biases are a great tool, overly relying on them or using them in an unethical way, such as with “fake offers,” can diminish trust in your product. Over time, they will lose their efficacy.
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