What Solo Ads Are and How to Run One

The first few years of running an online business are tough. It seems like everyone else has already figured it all out while you remain on the sidelines. What if we told you that it’s possible to use those who’ve been in this trade for longer to your advantage?

How? With solo ads.

What are solo ads, we hear you ask? How can they help you and your business? In simple terms, solo ads are an investment you make for increasing your traffic and, ultimately, your list of emails and success rate.

Let’s take a detailed look at how a solo ad works.

What Is a Solo Ad?

A solo ad is an email campaign that you send with to a niche email list that you do not own. You basically “rent” these email lists of someone else in your industry to send your targeted promotions.

Building a comprehensive email list is the cornerstone of any successful internet promotion, sale, or business. After all, reaching out to individuals directly is that much more efficient than massive, generalized ads.

How Does a Solo Ad Works?

The ‘solo’ part in the name of this model means that personal users will see your promotion alone. They will receive a message related only to your offer, without any additional attachments.

That way, prospective subscribers won’t be distracted from your message.

When an online personality in your niche builds a large enough database – thousands of subscribers –  they might start selling such ads. You will pay for their services, and in turn, they will send an email promoting it to a set number of subscribers.

What Do You Get?

When you’re purchasing from a solo ad provider, you buy by the number of clicks or emails your message will be sent to.

The owner of the list will then send the email to that many contacts, and if everything goes as planned, you get traffic and sales.

Are Solo Ads Right For Your Business?

There are many opposing opinions about this method of increasing traffic. While some companies won’t go near them, others claim they would’ve never started their business had it not been for these solo ads.

Your decision will depend on your business, but there are some rules to determine if you could benefit from solo ads or not. If you fit any of these criteria, you may consider giving it a shot.

Your Niche Is Saturated

There are some fields where the amount of content put out daily is enormous. In that case, no matter how high-quality your content is, it won’t get through without a bit of assistance.

Your Niche Is Competitive

If you’re trying to make money in, say, health, gambling, and dating, you need to rank high or you will get nowhere. Again, a helpful hand from some good solo ad email lists would mean the world to you in this case.

You’re Starting and/or Have a Low Budget

Sometimes, you will need your business to start growing right away, and you won’t have months to build a solid audience base. In that case, a direct advertisement can kickstart the project.

It is your content that will make the audience stay, in any case.

Benefits Of Solo Ads

In a world where we’re bombarded with information every day in every way, it’s difficult to be the business that stands out above the noise. Services such as this one may seem frivolous at first, but they could be crucial to your business’ success.

It may already be evident to you what you can get from pursuing a solo ad vendor. However, let’s take a look at why this model persisted and is widely used nowadays.

It’s Straightforward

You won’t be spending hours trying to think of catchy pop-ups or a new blog post. Instead, your brainstorming ends with writing your email and paying the vendor. The rest happens by itself.

It’s Comprehensive

If you’ve just started building your email list, you may find it challenging to reach out to large audiences. If vendors have built up massive email lists, then this will be great for you if your niche is much more general. If your niche is specific, there will also be vendors ready to cater to you.

It’s Effective

The emails your future subscribers receive won’t go into the spam folder. Instead, those people are already interested in the emails they receive from your vendor. This makes it more likely they will open the message and visit your website.

How to Ensure Success with Solo Ads

Don’t forget that, by using solo ads, you’re putting the marketing success into somebody else’s hands. To avoid misfortunate waste of money, look for telltale signs of their quality. Besides that, you should be sure they match well with what you’re trying to achieve.

The List

First of all, you should inquire as to how your vendor created their list. You can never be entirely sure they are telling you the truth. However, if you manage to confirm that you share the target audience, you’ve got yourself a win.

Here, it would be ideal that the list was built using traffic from a webpage within your niche.

The Vendor

Naturally, beware of lofty promises and check for the vendor online. You may save a large amount of money by doing some research.

Also, even if their portfolio seems spotless, start small – invest a reasonable amount, and increase it only when you’re satisfied with the results.

The Approach

Furthermore, you should ensure that the vendor doesn’t send emails to their list every day. If this is the case, your message will get lost among many others. You could also get information about the preferences of their mail list and tailor your message accordingly.

Check how they deal with users on the list that don’t open a single email; it’s a red flag if they do nothing about it. Ask about the response rate, too.

The more information you get, the better. Plus, it says a lot about a vendor if they’re happy to give and provide proof of their data.

Writing the Ad

When you are sure you’re targeting the right audience, and your service provider is of high-quality, you need to write your ad. Let’s see how we can achieve the best results.

Sometimes, the vendors offer to write the email themselves, too. This is probably a bad idea. You know your product better than they do.

Here’s what to do instead:

Hook The Readers

Make the subject line catchy. People tend to receive tons of ads in their mailbox every week, so yours needs to stand out from the crowd. By choosing the title with care, you can ‘hook’ the prospective subscribers.

Keep It Simple

Even if the subscribers do open the email, you will lose their attention with a wall of text. Instead, make it one to three paragraphs of length, and write in proper, simple language. Don’t use complex expressions and metaphors even if they sound creative to you.

Link It

Include a link – but not five. It’s only reasonable that your message contains a link to your website. However, if you include several, it will end up counterproductive and distract the readers. A link to your main page will suffice, and you may put it in using a call to action.

Don’t forget to track each one of your links with software like JotURL.

Target Properly

Know who you’re targeting. Even though you’re targeting an audience interested in your niche, you gain nothing by staying too general. You could address a specific problem common among that group of people. Then, offer an innovative solution.

Where to Find Solo Ads

As we mentioned earlier, finding proper solo ad vendors is a risky business. Only by trial and error can you see which ones work and which are fraudulent…right?

Not quite. Nowadays, it’s possible to utilize a website acting as a middleman between you and the vendor. Such sites save you the legwork and thousands of hard-earned dollars on poor results.

There are a few solo ad networks available online, but the best, most trusted one right now is Udimi.

So, how does it work?

What Is Udimi?

Udimi is, in essence, a marketplace for people buying and selling solo ads email campaigns. It’s free and straightforward to join, and when you pay, you will only be doing so to your chosen vendor.

Benefits of Udimi

The best part about it is that you get the details we discussed earlier before you even contact the person. On each profile, there is a location as well as positive and negative ratings from previous clients.

You may also learn their buying percentage of a solo ad email campaign. This number tells you how many people who have used the service reported a sale afterward. While this information isn’t precise, it showcases the quality.red to find what works for you. Besides, most sellers post extra information on their profile, specifying the niche they operate within and setting some ground rules.

How to Buy a Solo Ad?

Once you decide on the seller, you may apply some Udimi filters that track your traffic. The base filter will automatically discard bots. Other filters require a bit more investment, but further increase the success rate.

The system itself is pretty basic but represents a handy and effective platform for a large business model. If you’re considering solo ads, this is the best place to go to for a positive experience.

The Bottom Line

There is a wide array of people and prices, and you can use the filters offered.

To sum it up, solo ads are an excellent way to increase traffic effectively. With a little caution, it’s easy to take advantage of the benefits while avoiding the drawbacks. However, remember that quality content is crucial and that this is merely an assistant.

If you have any questions about the basics or want to read more, leave a comment below. We will get back to you with more informative guides.

Now it’s time to think about your business. Visit Udimi and see how it looks. Then, think again and give it a test drive. Good luck and happy marketing!