Internet dating has exploded in popularity over the past two years and sites like Lavalife.com and Match.com are reporting hundreds of thousands of unique visitors daily.

To find out more about this new group of high-tech daters, BBM Canada added a question on the subject to the Fall ’02/Spring ’03 BBM RTS survey of Canadian consumers. The results are in and they may surprise you.

First of all, based on the results of this survey, a whopping 550,000 Canadians have gone online in search of companionship.

But more than that, the survey demonstrates that online dating is no lonely guy’s club. Surprisingly, more women than men use online dating services – 57% vs. 43% – and 18- to 24-year-olds account for an impressive 27% of the total. Even more surprising is that the vast majority (70%) of those 18-to-24 Internet daters are women. Male Internet daters tend to be older, with the largest group among them being 35 to 44.

As expected, the majority of Internet daters are either single or divorced, but amazingly, a sizable 17% admit to being married.

In marketing terms, Internet daters represent interesting prospects for advertisers: Entertainment and personal care are just two of several opportunities highlighted by the survey.

In general, Internet daters tend to go out more and are more socially active than other Canadians. They are more likely to spend time at movies, bars, restaurants and concerts – in short, they spend much more money than average on entertainment. They also spend more on personal-care products, hair care and diet items.

In targeting terms, their media habits are pretty much average for yesterday exposure across media – except, of course, they are more likely to use the Internet.

The preceding information is based on BBM RTS, a survey of over 55,000 Canadian consumers conducted bi-annually by BBM Canada. For more information, contact Craig Dorning, BBM’s marketing manager, radio, at: cdorning@bbm.ca.