How Dating App Lox Club Found the Perfect Match With TikTok

More than a year after its founding, dating app Lox Club had all the ingredients of a successful startup brand: good public relations via articles in titles like The New York Times and Vogue, celebrity investors and events in Miami, New York and LA. What was missing was a paid social strategy to capitalize on the hype, a strategy that's increasingly driving new customers on TikTok. Despite its lack of advertising, Lox Club was in some ways content marketing before it was a company. Co-founder and CEO Austin Kevitch said Lox Club started as a joke—after grudgingly swiping through dating apps following a breakup, Kevitch made a website making fun of them, encouraging users to apply for an exclusive dating experience. To his surprise, thousands of people applied, convincing him to monetize his prank. Today, the Lox Club’s tagline is “a members-only dating app for Jews with ridiculously high standards,” which makes money via a subscription model. The app is focused on Jewish people, though is open to any user, comparing itself to the “culturally Jewish” institution of the deli. When the startup finally had enough money for advertising, Kevitch said the company wanted to avoid diluting the brand value in stilted spots. So it took to TikTok, an increasingly attractive platform for brands in light of Apple's privacy changes causing havoc on Facebook's conversion metrics. Not only that, brands are rewarded for being funny, casual, and a little bit unhinged. “I know firsthand I respond better if a company is giving me value, entertaining me, making me giggle,” Kevitch said. “No wants to be sold to.” So far, the brand has gotten results from its TikTok strategy. Lox Club’s paid advertising on TikTok has driven 13,000 total conversions, measured by app downloads, in January and February. This is five times the number seen during November and December—the first two months the startup was advertising on TikTok, a spokesperson told Adweek, drawing from data the company gets from analytics firm AppsFlyer. Finding the right tone for bantering (with customers) Lox Club has utilized a variety of strategies on TikTok, from organic posts to influencer marketing (which the brand started in March 2021, several months before its dedicated TikTok strategy) and paid formats, including traffic and conversion objective campaigns. Some of Lox Club’s most viral TikToks feature a classic online dating marketing strategy: showing couples who successfully met on the app. One TikTok, which was viewed 6.5 million times, shows Carly Silverman’s Lox Club love story. Silverman also works for Lox Club. https://www.tiktok.com/@carlyrsilverman/video/7026368263231704326?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1 But in general, Kevitch said the company tries to avoid the traditional dating app advertising playbook. “If we would roll our eyes if another dating app did it, we wouldn’t do it,” he said. Using Lox Club employees as brand representatives, however, has been a winning strategy. Several Lox Club employees man their own personal widely-followed TikToks, where they occasionally post Lox Club content. Aside from Silverman and head of membership Morgan Raum—who each boast tens of thousands of followers—Lox Club’s account is filled with employee antics. The two most liked TikToks on Lox Club’s account show employees making fun of Kevitch for being scared of flying—and Kevitch singing on a Zoom call facing several blank-faced employees, which he said was a punishment for getting to meetings too late. https://www.tiktok.com/@loxclub/video/7077772352146148650?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1&lang=en “SOS our CEO is the real life Michael Scott,” text on the screen reads. Nora Birch, creative strategist at Gen Z-focused creative agency Carson & Doyle, said that employee-driven TikToks can resonate with young people because they make the brand's account feel like it could belong to any real user, rather than a faceless corporation. Ironic dating app, meet irreverent social platform Kevitch said the company has focused on TikTok as an advertising channel because other platforms, with their display ad-like formats, feel more like traditional advertising. Adnatomy: How Dating App BLK Turned 'Vax That Thang Up' Into the Song of the Summer “We found TikTok to be the best because it aligns with our brand pillars,” Kevitch said. “It felt kind of corny to run a plain ad like, 'Hey we’re application only and curated and here’s an ad and we’re begging you to come join.'” And with Apple’s privacy changes making Meta platforms less effective for app install campaigns, clients have been switching budgets to Google, Apple and—sometimes—TikTok, according to Katya Constantine, CEO of direct-to-consumer brand-focused performance agency Digishop Girl Media. “With TikTok you have really cheap CPMs but you have a really engaged demographic,” Constantine said. “We are seeing a shift.” An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Silverman's video was viewed over 100,000 times. It was viewed 6.5 million times.