Match Group CEO Talks Competition with Facebook Dating

Mandy Ginsberg, the CEO of Match Group, has admitted that she is “not too worried” about the threat of Facebook Dating.

Speaking to the Recode Decode podcast, Ginsberg said that Facebook Dating would appeal to a slightly different demographic to Tinder, their most popular product.

Ginsberg said to Recode: “Tinder’s our big growth engine, and Tinder tends to skew very young, so 18 to 25. Facebook does not skew that young in general.

“If you’re a 23-year-old and you’re going to be using two or three apps, definitively, we think you’re going to use one of our apps, most likely Tinder.”

Furthermore, she believes that people will be concerned about their security and privacy, considering the amount of income revenue Facebook Dating will generate from advertising.

Match Group takes less than 5% of their income from advertising, compared to Facebook’s approximate 98.5%.

“People have to come to us and realize that we’re not going to expose their information, we’re not going to sell their information, and that they have to feel confident because dating is highly, highly personal.”

It used to be compulsory for new users to sign up through Facebook. Since the option to sign up using a phone was introduced, Ginsberg told Recode: “75 percent of people said, ‘I’d just rather use my phone and not use Facebook,’ even though it was the second option and Facebook was the big option on top. So it was clear that they wanted to separate their dating world from their Facebook world.”

However, she stated that her company would be “foolish” to write Facebook off as a competitor completely.

This new interview comes after Joey Levin, the CEO of IAC, Match Group’s parent company, said he was very confident with their brands and products, and their ability to compete with Facebook.

Read more and listen to the full podcast here.