What is Solo Ads: history, concept, advantages

Basic Concept of Solo Ad

Internet marketing is the new deal! There is a myriad of marketing strategies out there that you can use to get your company's name and products out there and at all price levels. It is only wise that you learn about all these strategies to be better able to make the best advertising decisions that will see your company reaping the best benefits. Solo Ad is one cost-effective method of advertising which can be used to promote your business and attract new buyers. Today, we will be giving a holistic overview of the concept of solo ads, its history, and its advantages.

The concept of Solo Ad is simple, it is a single email promoting a particular product or service in an email blast to a targeted email list of recipients, prompting them to click to view or learn more about said products or services or to make a purchase.

What is Solo Ads?

Doing business over the internet requires that you look for traffic sources that work for your company. Solo Ads are among the most successful marketing campaigns that allow the user to drive traffic that can squeeze pages into lists. As the name suggests, Solo Ad is a stand-alone, independent ad that goes out to a targeted audience online by using an e-mail list. A Solo Ad is an email send-out/broadcast that you BUY from solo ad vendors to promote a specific brand, product, service, or organization. To employ this marketing strategy, one has to buy clicks from people who have these lists. Solo Ad Vendors are ‘EMAIL LIST OWNERS’ and they charge a cost PER CLICK to send traffic to your pages using their email lists (using email broadcasts/follow-ups). A vendor with a responsive inventory of email subscribers will send several click promo to their email subscribers to access their responsiveness. The emails are mostly related to the services they are offering already, and for this case, most of the clients on the email list will likely respond to the mails. Solo ads provide an avenue for sellers to stand apart from their competitors as the mail is designed to focus their attention on what the particular solo ad has to offer.

What are Solo Ads used for?

Solo ads are used specifically for directing traffic to a targeted list of consumers via an email blast, these consumers would have already knowingly agreed to be apart of this list, wether by accepting a promotion in which they provide their contact information in return for some incentive, such as discounts. These ads work because generally a mailing list will be focused around a demographic or particular topic and that means the subscribers are a focused group of individuals who share common traits. This is ideal for advertisers because it means their message is getting in front of a defined audience. Solo Ad and is a great way of promoting your business and it is an alternative to Google Ads or Facebook Ads. It is a pay per click form of advertising. Once the sellers have determined the number of clicks one is likely to receive from an advert, then they sell the list at a cost per click, to the prospective buyer. Both the seller and the buyer will have to access the landing page to ensure that the potential email lists could want to learn more. As an online business, buying these Solo Ads generates traffic to your site and thus improves your Search Engine Optimization.

Why people subscribe to mailing lists

A mail list is a special list of names, telephone, and email addresses of people who permitted you to send them updates and promotions from your business. Most people subscribe to an email list for the following reasons:

• to earn or receive special gifts, discounts, and deals
• stay up to date with the latest content from the company website
• access special content not available on the website
• recommended by family or friends

An email is a direct and personal tool, therefore if people are willing to subscribe to your mailing list they are extremely interested in what you have to offer

History of Solo Ads

Solo ads became popular with the rise of ezines or email magazines where consumers would be required to subscribe by providing their email address to gain access to the latest content of the email magazine and on their website. These were very popular as the primary means of communicating with others was via email rather than via social networks. Many e-magazines do still operate today however, the average size of their mailing list would be significantly less than it was ten years ago, owing to the evolution of technology and the introduction of ads on social media.

What served as the prototype for Solo Ads

Solo ads predate the internet, it is a concept that marketers used to collect information about their customers and potential customers. Marketers collected the names and addresses of their customers and would mail them the latest updates of their products or services. It is basically the same the system used today in the Solo Ad industry, names, and emails (the virtual mail address) are collated on a list and the Ads sent out in an email blast, the difference is, it is much faster and it makes the tasks easier for marketers working online. Solo ads have been an email marketing tool for many years now, and people still use them to this day because of how effective they are.

Difference between offline and online sales

Shopping options today are aplenty, you can shop online from the comfort of your bathroom or if you feel like it, visit a local store. When you think of the difference in your options, the quickest thought would perhaps be, the convenience of shopping whenever you like and get your item sent wherever you like. Whichever you choose, offline and online sales has great advantages for both buyers and sellers, With offline sales, you get the opportunity to evaluate your prospective client, see them shop, determine what interests them by sparking conversations, reading their body language, and overall demeanour. This way you can make informed judgments based on your observations on whether invite them to leave their email address so that you can send them promos and discounts. You have the advantage as you interact with these customers every day and you get to build relationships with them

Online sales, on the other hand, are a bit tricky, you have to be innovating to capture and hold your customers. Entrepreneurs know that e-commerce is only going to continue to grow, this means that they have to adapt to meet the needs of the online market. With online sales, you will most likely never meet potential clients in person, this means they have the advantage because you cannot read their emotions or body language and make your sales pitch. Potential customers usually have their minds, set on something even before reaching out by calling or messaging you on social media or making a purchase. They have read your website content, watched videos, followed your social media pages, and most likely read reviews of your product or service. With online sales, you are unable to pitch a sale, you are basically answering questions to help the potential client make their decision to purchase.

Why entrepreneurs should consider Solo Ads

If you are an entrepreneur wanting to generate high traffic with potential buyers to your webpage, a Solo ad is an excellent marketing strategy that you can use for directing traffic to your landing page or website. Think about it! Solo ads are promotional email ads that you send to a niche email list that you do not own, In a sense, you are renting the email lists from someone who has a large list so that you can send your promotional ads. With a solo ad, you are able to obtain access to this list of potential buyers in your niche market, at a small price compared to running a large campaign ad that might not get to the people you want it to reach, a solo ad is direct and it is guaranteed that the information will reach your intended target audience. Solo ads are an investment you make for increasing your traffic and, ultimately, your list of emails and success rates, you basically find a solo ad list you’re interested in you then contact the owner or buy access to the list from their site. You have the option of buying how many subscribers your email message will be sent to, or by how many clicks your email will get. The ad is successful when subscribers click, and those clicks are converted into sales or referrals. ultimately, you’ll end up with solo ad conversions that cost less than other types of advertising.

Solo Ads work best for marketers who:

• have a small budget working with
• are in a niche where pay per click prices are through the roof. In this case, cost per click from solo ads may be so much less than what you’d get on Ad-words or Bing that solo ads are worth a test.
• are in a niche that is oversaturated with content (like affiliate marketing or weight loss).
• are in a niche with intense competition for search engine traffic.
• are about to launch a product, or need traffic sent to a page quickly
• have no time to write guest posts, build an audience, or do anything that takes more than a few days to see results.

Advantages of Solo Ads over other types of advertising

Solo ad marketing is one of the leading online marketing strategies, it is an effective way of reaching hundreds of target audiences in a short period of time. Many companies that are engaged in the marketing of products and services use Solo Ads as a cost-effective method to reach hundreds of target audiences. Solo ads offer a chance to get their message out and expose their brand to niche audiences.

Some of the prime reasons behind the popularity of Solo ads are that they are highly economical, It is no brainer that solo ads are much more economical than other print and electronic mediums of advertising. The success behind solo ads based on fact that the operation cost is low and that the ads will be exposed to a tightly focused list of consumers. Solo ads are a great option for solo entrepreneurs or even those involved in affiliate marketing who are operating on a small budget. They can leverage solo ads to bring them high-quality traffic. The low costs to obtain visitors to your website or landing page to view or purchase your product or service could pay off. Additionally, solo entrepreneurs may not have highly developed websites that will be approved by pay-per-click (PPC) ad networks and those sites may not be particularly suited to obtaining organic search traffic from search engines. With solo ads, none of this is a concern because it is up to the list owner to decide whether or not they are willing to place an ad. Solo ads have an advantage over other types of advertising because it is cost-effective, straightforward, comprehensive, and quite effective in reaching a huge target audience. Another plus to solo ads is that you don’t need to create your own email list, however, you can still direct leads to your site or landing page in which you can capture people’s email addresses. In fact, overnight, you can see your list grow to a hundred with just a single email.

Direct response from the target audience

Direct response is a type of marketing designed to elicit an instant response by encouraging prospects to take a specific action. The key in any kind of advertising is the fact that the solo ad is going directly into the subscriber’s email inbox, the solo ad must trigger immediate action from prospects since the goal is to generate leads quickly. To get a direct response from the target audience, advertisements must trigger immediate action from prospects, since the goal is to generate leads quickly. In contrast to traditional marketing, which aims to raise brand awareness and promote brand image long term, direct response shows ROI immediately.  That is the great thing when you buy solo ads, for every dollar you spend, you can know exactly how much you will make in return. This is classic, direct response marketing because you can you test, track and monitor everything which means you can maximize your efficiency, your spending and your profitability. You can track how many people clicked on the link in your Solo Ad. You can track what percentage joined your list and how many buy your products. You can even put a dollar value on how much every visitor to your website costs and more importantly how much every visitor to your website is worth.

Getting your mailing list

Mail list building is creating a list or a collection of emails of people who have a similar interest online. The very act of creating a list, in and of itself, does not create viable income, but when the act of list building is employed strategically, high incomes can be created. Solo ads are a popular way to promote a product or build your email lists. The concept is very simple. A marketer will allow you to send an advertisement to their email subscribers for a set fee. The price will largely depend on the size of the list though there are a lot more important factors to consider. If used right, it can be a really good way of building your email list. For example, you pay for an advertisement in someone’s list promoting a free ebook or It can also be used to directly promote a product. The real value comes from growing your own mailing list as then you can promote a product or service to subscribers at any time you want (i.e. you don’t have to pay anyone for the privilege)and it can be used as a means to make money.

Easy testing and scaling

It’s important to test a list before you run a full ad campaign. however, you do not want to test the maximum! Test the smallest amount that the list owner will let you test to see what kind of results you get. This way, you keep the risk low and avoid blowing money on a campaign that gets you nowhere. In testing and scaling, you want to aim for least 80% opt-in rate, that’s a dream level, and then a 10% conversion rate at the sales page. Then anywhere from a 25% to 33% OTO 1 and OTO 2 purchases (One Time Offer), these are hard to reach but if you want to get to those levels, aim for them. Anything over a 35% conversion rate is a good conversion rate for any decent solo ad run. While opt-ins are good, you want better – you want sales. What good are opt-ins if you don’t make a sale? If you are not converting well, you should test your subject line and possibly even your solo ad copy. You want to know how many people are seeing your landing page, and when they do, how many people are opting in? Plus, how many buy the first offer? What about the upsells? That’s why your focus will be on always tweaking the front end, to make sure that people are getting subscribed to your list.

As an entrepreneur, you will know when business is looking up. You’ll know what is and what isn’t working in your market and for your niche and that's when you should scale. But what does scaling mean? once a solo entrepreneur has found a profitable niche they invest more money in ads to expand their target audience or reuse a successful campaign to target a similar audience; these are two examples of scaling. The most common ways of scaling a campaign are scaling up or scaling out, we’ll discuss these two scaling strategies in more detail below. After your ads have run for 24 – 48 hours, you can make some data-based decisions on what to do next. You can let the ad continue to run to collect more data, scale it and invest more money, or kill it and look into possible reasons for its failure.