Solo ads are becoming increasingly popular amongst marketers and many believe they are the best way for beginners to start building their lists. They’re not a new idea, in fact they are one of the oldest ways of marketing online.
We will look at setting up your first solo ad and how you can get paid for building your own list.
WHAT ARE SOLO ADS?
Solo ads are emails that go out to a list advertising a product or page. The purpose is to get as many people to click on the links inside the email.
What makes them ‘solo’ is that there is only one page or product being advertising in the email.
You can purchase solo ads from people who have already built lists and you can also sell ads if you have a large enough list.
HOW CAN A BEGINNER USE SOLO ADS?
As a beginner either without a list or a small list, you would want to purchase solo ads.
It is common nowadays to pay by the click and you can usually start off buying at around $30 per 100 clicks. This means that your email (or ‘swipe’ as it is known) would be sent to the sellers list and the seller guarantees you will get at least 100 clicks on any links in the email.
Normally you will end up with more than you pay for as it’s not an exact science and the seller wants to make sure the minimum number of clicks is reached.
WHAT SHOULD I ADVERTISE IN MY SWIPE?
As a beginner your main aim is to start building your list so you want to direct your 100 clicks to a squeeze pagewhich offers something of value to the visitor in exchange for their email address.
Don’t worry, you can follow up with promotional emails to make money later. Initially you are trying to get as many visitors interested in your free offer and therefore have them looking forward to the next email they receive from you.
WHERE CAN I BUY SOLO ADS?
When you have your squeeze page created and you have composed your swipe, you need to go and purchase some solo ads.
The best places currently to get them are Safe Swaps and the Warrior Forum.
I prefer Safe Swaps as there is a built in rating and reputation system and everything is tracked by the site itself. When you are only interested in buying solo ads, you can use the free membership at Safe Swaps. We’ll talk about the paid membership later.
However, there are a lot of quality solo ads sellers on the Warrior Forum in the Classified Ad section too. Just make sure you check out the responses from people on the thread so you know they are a reputable seller.
I HAVE SIGNED UP AT SAFE SWAPS. NOW WHAT?
Firstly, you need to add your swipe file which is the email that the seller will send out to their list.
You do that by going into the settings screen by clicking on the cog at the top right and choosing ‘Settings Screen.’
Click on ‘My Swipes’ on the left and then add your swipe.
Now that you have added your swipe file, you are ready to find a seller to send out your swipe.
Click on the ‘Search’ option at the top and you’ll see a small table. Choose ‘Solo Clicks <100′.
You will be presented with a list of solo ad sellers.
Go through the list and find a seller with a price you are willing to pay.
Check the sort of offers they are willing to send and review their ratings and reputation.
Once you feel comfortable, click on ‘Buy Solo.’
As a free member, your swipe is automatically chosen. If you are a paid member, you can have multiple swipe files to choose from.
Pick a date and time you would like the solo ad to be sent. The time isn’t that important as most sellers send them out when they want but they will honour the date that you choose.
Some sellers allow you to choose from a range of clicks so pick the amount you are willing to pay for.
Finally click on ‘Commit to Buy.’
That is the first part done.
The seller will review the swipe and check if they are happy with it being sent to their list.
If so, you will be informed via email and a button will appear on your dashboard to pay for the ad.
This is done through PayPal and that is your final part of the transaction.
Once the seller has received the payment, they will confirm that the email is queued in their autoresponder for the day you ordered.
Once your email is sent out, Safe Swaps deals with the click tracking and you can review the statistics on any solo ad you have bought.
ADVANCED SOLO ADS TECHNIQUES
The best solo ad campaign is one that costs nothing whilst building your list but how do you achieve that?
As discussed in the List Building – IM Basics post, it’s good practice to have a paid special offer on the thanks you page that the visitor is redirected to after inputting their email address.
Lets do the math for a moment. If you paid $30 for a 100 click solo ad, you only need 3 visitors to purchase a$10 offer on your thank you page and you have broken even.
This is how you should think about your solo ad campaigns. It’s great to build your list but if you can do it whilst making a profit too, that is perfect.
SUMMARY
Solo ads are a great way to start building your list. You can start with any budget and scale up your purchasing as you make money.
Eventually you will be able to ‘ad swap’ once your list is large enough and this is cheaper as you don’t have to pay for the number of clicks. However, you will lose subscribers so you will want to also supplement them with some purchased solo ads.
Once your list is large enough, you can become the solo ad seller and sell clicks to other people. This is when things get really exciting as it’s a steady and recurring form of income.
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