Today’s focus is on solo ads – the paid solo ads.
If you are unfamiliar with solo ads, here’s a quick tutorial…
Person A: I have a list
Person B: I don’t have a list
Person A: I will send your offer out to my list for $X amount
Person B: Ok, sounds good.
Back on Tuesday, I had mentioned that I was going to run a solo ad and it was to go out on Saturday. Well, you can imagine how excited I was that my solo ad, actually went out ahead of schedule – on Wednesday!
Solo Ad Basics
So, here’s what I did for the solo ad I ran on Wednesday – I looked in the Solo Ad Directory and found a seller to run my ad. Here is the ad copy I used:
Begin copy:
Subject: Internet Marketer Looking for Students
Do you agree that actions speak louder
than words?
That’s why my message to you today
is not about words, it’s about actions.
link
What if an opportunity came along to get
daily coaching from an Internet Marketing
Millionaire AND, considering gurus sell
their courses for thousands and thousands
of dollars, he is practically giving it away -
Training like this doesn’t happen very often
and I want to make sure you are ready for it…
link
If you are ready to have an online business…
If you want to get coached by a successful
Internet Marketer…
If a proven system to follow appeals to you…
Then don’t miss out on this opportunity
to get daily coaching and access to our members
area for answers to all of your questions.
Every day you get coaching from an expert
Marketer who has built a wildly successful
Internet Marketing Business.
Get started with his coaching -
Link
###
End Copy
The results are not what I expected. Since Wednesday, I have had 124 clicks and 23 opt-ins. Sounds pretty good right? Unfortunately the solo I paid for was for 200-300 clicks. So either they will continue to trickle in or I am going to have to reach out to the seller again and find out what they will do to get more clicks.
Interested in solo ads and wondering what steps to take?
Here’s what I recommend:
When I buy solos I usually contact the seller before purchasing anything for a few reasons. First, to make sure they are still doing solos. Second, to ensure that they will run my ad. And third, to see how responsive they are to potential advertisers. Now, just because someone does not get right back to me for an ad does not mean I don’t use them, I just like to see how they approach a potential advertiser and if they answer my questions in full.
Plus, if your solo ad does well, you may want to use them again in the future.
For this solo ad, I did communicate several times with the seller, by email AND phone.
Another important point to address with solos and any other advertising for that matter is it is crucial to have your own way to track the results.
Tracking your ad
Tracking is essential to any successful (or not successful) campaign.
My solo ad is a perfect example – say that I set up the ad using my direct affiliate link - http://x.dotcomsecrets.com/x/sp/pcjc1999
So where it says “link” in my copy it would just have the above link. The big problem with this is that there is no way to track clicks. How would I know how many clicks my ad got?
Setting up a tracking system is very easy. You simply use an external tracking link. I use Linktracker – it is basic, but it gives me everything I need to know.
With any link you give out, ALWAYS use a tracker on it.
Free solo ads
With that said, I have also started looking at some other free traffic methods – there are many options out there, but I am looking at some of the mass email lists.
The way those work is that you sign up for an account and then earn credits by reading and clicking on emails that you receive. With those credits, you can then send out emails on a massive scale. Like in the tens of thousands!
Anyway, I’m not recommending it yet. Time is a pressing issue for me, so we’ll see how much time it takes to follow-thru with their process.
Conclusion
Just from the results of this one ad, it looks like this subject line with this copy is a winner with this solo ad seller.
That is not always the case, often, you may have success with one subject line and copy and then be unsuccessful with the same information with another seller.
It pays to get in touch with the seller first and ask them about the offers their list responds to best – most will be upfront with you about whether or not your squeeze page will convert or not.
And, even asking solo sellers about ad copy is helpful as well – if they want to write the copy or use your swipe file. List owners know their lists better than you and can often write better copy to entice a click for your offer.
Have a question? Please ask! Comment on if you’ve done any solo ads and what your experience has been -
Christine
A very useful post on solo ads.
This is something I am hoping to do in the very near future, and it’s always helpful to read of other people’s experiences and their recommendations.
Valerie Cuell recently posted..How Important Is List Building To Your Online Business?
Hi Valerie,
Thank you, so glad you found it helpful.
Regardless of whether or not a solo ad converts for me or not, I always figured something new out with each ad I run. And the thing is, what works now, may not work later.
Give them a try – just approach them like trying to put together a puzzle without having a finished model to look at – you just have to keep trying this and testing that. But eventually it will all make sense.
Kind of a different way of putting it!
~Christine
Good writeup Christine, I especially love the PErson A Person B starting – it was quite funny!
In all honesty I have never really ventured into Solo ads YET, but I will be venturing there soon.
I had a number of people run free ads to their lists for me, and like yourself, I found that they almost never delivered the response that they advertised. That is what really stopped me pushing this strategy firmly.
I have however done print advertising regularly (magazines and newspapers) and perhaps the basis is the same. You always need to ensure you have the publishers contact details in case there is a problem (I would never rely simply on an email, I like to call the person so that they might worry that I can actually bug them if something goes wrong).
I also learnt a trick recently whereby you agree a price and then simply send them between 60 and 80% of the agreed price. 9 times out of 10, they will accept it and nobody likes to say no to money!
A bit cheeky perhaps, but lets face it, just as with your example, it’s a big gamble from your side too.
Try testing different headlines, with just a few word variations.. I would be really interested to know how much a very small change affects open rates…
Dee Kumar recently posted..10 things I learned about getting your story to journalists
Hi Dee,
Thank you very much!
I guess with all advertising there will be positives and negatives with every ad you run. The key is to not just give up on that form altogether, but realize that, as you stated, even the slightest change – can make a non-converting copy all of a sudden convert like mad!
Testing, testing and more testing -
~Christine
Hi Christine,
Thanks for the informative piece. It’s good you will follow up and see what they can do to reach the 200-300 clicks.
Do you think the day of the week or time of day the mailer goes out makes a difference? I read somewhere that the best time might Tuesday right after lunch for your target timezone …
Good luck and thanks for sharing.
Dee Ankary recently posted..Is Automation Destroying Your Business?
Hi Dee,
Yes, I did actually the agreed upon clicks today!
I am not sure if day of the week matters, but I do know the time matters – I rarely send an email after 12 noon. I will if there is a webinar or something to remind my readers of, but other than that – I stick with the am time slot.
Interesting about the after lunch time slot – I will have to test it and see what happens.
Thanks!
~Christine
Solo ads are a type of advertisement briefly expressed within an on line magazine or ezine containing the key word message about your product but without other content that is a special issue inside of the ezine simply comprising a single ad. Solo ads are claimed to be most effective because they will get very briefly target the recipient’s undivided attention without his brain being clogged with detailed facts or waffle.
Carmen recently posted..My shed plans blog
Hi Carmen,
Exactly! Couldn’t have said it better!
~Christine
I had contact a few solo ads seller on the internet including solo ads directory, but they did not reply.
I wonder is that a norm that they will not reply to people even when they are potential customer.
Do you have any credible solo ads seller to recommend?Highly appreciated on this.
Hi Lawrence,
Hmm, that is not good – I’ll send you a PM with some good, reliable sellers.
~Christine
I’ve been browsing online more than three hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours All about Solo Ads. It’s pretty worth enough for me. Personally, if all website owners and bloggers made good content as you did, the net will be a lot more useful than ever before.
Well thank you very much!
Glad I could help!
~Christine
Christine,
I am new at all this. Not sure what to do next. Looking for good honest solo ad provider to guide me. I understand if you are too busy etc. I am a senior with limited funds and computer knowledge.
Thanks So Much,
Dan Holz
Hi Dan,
Not too busy at all – I would be delighted to help!
The resource I gave in the blog post is an excellent place to start for solo ads – and unlike many other places, there is no fee to “join” or use the providers.
So, if you want to buy a solo ad, then go there.
However, since you mentioned limited funds, I’ll just mention that solo ads can be costly. And here’s why – a solo ad will run you anywhere from $40 to $75 dollars, just for a 100 click solo. While you will get your 100 clicks, if your squeeze page does not convert, you may end up with very few subscribers. So that puts you in the hole quite a bit.
However, solos are great for testing a squeeze page, so if you have one that you are eager to test, give it a go and see how it does. Then change the headline and buy another one to test the changes.
So, if you can spare the $100 or so to test a couple squeeze page variations, then go for it.
But just know that it will cost you money first before you make money.
Do you have an auto responder set up yet?
~Christine