My Solo Ad – The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

I promised a while ago that I would report back on the result of my solo ad. I got my new squeeze funnel all set up so I decided just before Christmas that it was time to really test it out.

Generating free traffic to a squeeze page to build your list is all well and good but it takes time.

If you want a lot of traffic and hopefully subscribers ( if you have a compelling offer)  almost instantly then solo ads are the way to go.

What is a Solo Ad?

In case you don’t already know a solo ad is when you pay someone to mail their email list for you with some copy you supply that contains a link to your squeeze page with your free optin offer.

A solo ad is the only ad that gets sent out by a marketer to his list.

I have come across quite a few internet marketers recently who say that they only started to get somewhere making money online when they began buying solo ads.

I asked a few internet marketers I know if they could recommend someone that I could buy a solo ad from.

It saves a lot of trial and error if you can get a recommendation as they vary so much in price and clicks and you don’t want to waste your money on unproven solos.

Most internet marketers selling solo ads guarantee that you will get a certain number of clicks. For example you can buy a solo ad for around $150 for 500 unique clicks.

Now that may sound expensive but if your squeeze page converts well and you have a good convering OTO ( one time offer ) in your funnel and some affiliate banners on your download page you could get some sales that help pay for the solo ad.

And, of course once you get your subscriber you have the chance to sell more products to him. You know the saying “the money is in the list”. Actually, it’s more like the money is in the relationship you develop with your list.

I got a name of a good marketer to buy a solo from and he was only charging $50 for 200 clicks which sounded like a good deal to me. I have seen others charging $75 for 200 clicks.

At this stage I just wanted to test my squeeze funnel. I didn’t know how well it would convert.

The Good

I went ahead and booked one and sent over my “swipe”. This is what they callthe  ad copy that you want sent out.

Some solo ad sellers say they will write their own copy as they know their list but others use your ad exactly as you wrote it.

The optins came in over a couple of days. At first I only saw 160 clicks but I eventually had over 200 clicks so it was a good solo.

For this first one a reset the counter on my webform in Aweber so I could get some accurate figures.

Here are my results:

Squeeze page conversion: 58%
Subscribers: 133
Sales: 1

I am using a squeeze page template that I got from James Francis and he said that optin rate was amazing and that some top internet marketers never achieve a conversion figure like that.

I don’t like to blow my own trumpet but I was on a webinar a couple of nights ago when a well known internet marketer showed us her web form conversion and I noticed that she was only getting a 39% optin for one of her free offers.

So, James was right but I expect this internet marketer was getting sales from of her optins.

The Bad

I was really chuffed with the optins I got but very disappointed with the low conversion of my OTO. That one was obviously no good so I changed it for another. James said that his Point & Click Squeeze Page offer converts well so I changed it for that.

I decided not to do another solo ad until after the Christmas holidays and everything was back to normal. I went ahead a booked one which was going to be sent to a different segment of the sellers list.

The Ugly

Here are my results:

Squeeze page conversion 49.8%
Subscribers 108
Sales 0

I say ugly because I did not get one sale from the new OTO!  How disappointing was that?

The rest works just fine. My squeeze page copy and offer is evidently good.

The OTO was obviously not what my subscribers were looking for. It may be that the offer does not match the subject of my Free Traffic Deluge report closely enough or they have already been exposed to it before.

So,  I am going to try to find an OTO that relates to traffic and test that out next.

It can get expensive buying solos if you don’t make any money from them but if you can get a good converting funnel it can almost pay for itself.

Link Tracking

You have to have some way of tracking the clicks you get on your squeeze page link from your copy to make sure you get the clicks that you paid for.

There are a number of free and paid sites where you can set up a link and keeop track of your results such as Bitly. https://bitly.com/.

I used the Pretty Link plugin for mine.

Where to  buy solo ads

Warrior Forum

There is a section in the Warrior Forum where you can buy and sell solo ads. People give feedback about ads they buy here so any scammers are soon exposed.

Solo Ad Directory

This directory is a page where Reed Floren has listed a number of solo ad sellers with reviews. http://www.soloaddirectory.com/

Safe-Swaps

Although Safe-Swaps started out as a site for ad swaps you can find people selling solo ads there now as well.  http://safe-swaps.com/

Do you know of any good solo ad directories or any good reasonably priced solo ad sellers? If so please share your experiences in comment box.