Ask 5 internet marketers their opinion on solo ads and you’ll get 10 different answers. There are definitely scammers and fakes who give solo ads a bad name. If you learn how to avoid those crooks, they can be a great way to get traffic.
I was introduced to solo ads during my Free List Builder experiment. Let me tell you….I’m hooked!
If you don’t know – solo ads are when you pay someone to send a link to your offer (whatever you’re trying to sell) as an email to their subscriber list. The exchange works as Cost Per Click (CPC) and each time a person clicks on your link, it counts as part of your order from that solo ad seller.
When you’re first starting out a new business, there is a mountain of stuff that you need to get done. Automation and outsourcing sound like a dream come true, but how do you choose what (and how) to hand off to someone else? How do you trust someone?
Traffic is the lifeblood of any business. That goes for online stores and brick and mortar. If no one comes to your shop, you can’t sell anything.
So, you want to get customers to your store. You can choose to run ads using: Google, Facebook, and the countless other social media platforms, Microsoft, etc. Each of those advertising platforms have their own learning curve to optimize your ads. Do you want to learn them all? Or do you want to hire a marketer who already knows the best way to advertise?
That’s what got me hooked on solo ads. It was a no-brainer to outsource my advertising! I mostly used Udimi for my ad campaigns, but you can find out more here.
The Bad
Yes, there are solo ad sellers who will outright scam you. They’ll send bots and automated traffic that’s basically “empty” with no hope of selling anything ever. There are resellers who (maybe don’t have bad intentions) sell you someone else’s traffic and you end up with duplicate subscribers. There are sellers with “junk” lists of subscribers who have no desire to buy anything.
However, I’m willing to say there are more good guys than bad. You do have to monitor carefully, especially with your first order from a seller. If you pay attention, you can easily weed out the duds.
The Good
Like I said, when I first started, I was looking for something, anything, I could outsource that made sense to do. I’m FAR from a marketing expert. In fact, I’ve lost thousands on Google ads with nothing to show for it because I didn’t know what I was doing! I realized I needed help with marketing.
I like to think of solo ads as outsourcing my advertising.
Using solo ads, I was able to grow my email list to over 3,000 in less than 2 months. If I used free methods, such as blogging or posting on social media, it would probably take me years to reach 3k subscribers! Oh, and I made sales during those 2 months to off-set my advertising cost.
There were definitely some lessons learned. I crossed paths with a few not so honest solo ad sellers. And some simply didn’t have the right audience for my niche.
Summary
I tell people all the time: “there’s always a cost to running a business – either time or money.” You have to invest in your business.
If you truly don’t have a dollar to spare, then you’ll have to spend a lot of time and results will take longer to come along. It’s possible, but you must have discipline and determination. If you can spare even just $10 a week to invest in your business then you’ll see results faster.
Solo ads are a way for me to trade money in order to free up some of my time and grow my business faster.
Do you want to save even more time AND money? I’ve spent thousands with various solo ad sellers over several months and learned which ones are really worth their salt. You can take a shortcut and find out exactly which sellers I use for my business. Check out my Little Black Book of solo ad sellers here. You can also grab a $10 Udimi Gift Card for just $5.