What are solo ads and do they work?

What are solo ads and do they work?

One of the first forms of internet marketing was through the medium of email. Email has a few types of common ad formats with the most popular being banners and solo ads.

The original solo ads

Solo ads also known as ‘solos’ are a type of advertising that originated in the real world by marketers with mail order lists (snail mail). As email is a model of the original mail service early internet marketers adapted the offline solo advert model into the digital world and email solo ads quickly took off. They were one of the best email advertising methods for early internet marketers.

Email marketing

Nowadays email marketing and solo ads in particular are seen as ‘past it’ and no longer a successful advertising strategy. With the major search and social platforms offering PPC (Pay Per Click) and CPM (Cost Per Mille or impression) email is seen as the poor cousin and perhaps in some markets that is true but when you cut through the hype the numbers say otherwise.

Back in 2009 the Direct Marketing Association estimated that email gave a ROI (return on investment) of 4300% Wow! But that was 2009, what about now?

It’s estimated that in 2014 over 150 million emails were sent worldwide every single day! Email is still a personal (one to one) form of communication and it has become a backbone of business communications. It’s estimated that there are over 4.3 billion email addresses in use.

So for most internet marketers solo ads are not dead, the solo market might be saturated and in some areas has come to resemble SPAM but that’s just a testament to it’s popularity.

So what are solo ads?

A solo ad is where the owner of a subscriber list (usually a newsletter etc.) agrees to send an email to his list of subscribers promoting another person’s product or services. The entire email, that is, the subject and message body are dedicated to the offer alone hence the name solo ad.

The offer is usually for something free but it can be selling a product or service. The goal of a good solo ad should be to get the reader to click on the link in the email and encourage them to subscribe to the advertisers list.

Example of a solo ad

Here is an example of what solo ads look like. We have used one of these as a template in the past to good success. Please feel free to use it for your own solo ads if it is appropriate and of course change the figures to match your situation

Download your solo ad examples here

What are solo ads best used for?

Generating leads is one of the best strategies to use solo ads for. The goal of your solo ad should be to get your reader curious about your product. Provide enough information to get them interested enough to take action and click the link(s) in your email. You are using the reputation of the list owner to give credibility to your offer, if the list owner isn’t credible then neither will your offer be!

Target a list that’s in the same niche you’re marketing to and create a lead capture page that will give the reader more of a taste of what you have on offer and make them want to give you their email address.

Once they are on your list you can build a relationship with the subscriber, if they stay on your list and show interest in your offers you can continue to build that relationship by offering more value and in time you will both provide value to each other by way of product purchases from your customer and quality products, service and extra value provided by you to the subscriber.

When you get advanced at solo advertising you can branch out to a different niche that might convert well for your product and try segmenting your list to better understand what your subscriber is looking for (and provide it).

Should solo ads be used?

A lot of people have reached the conclusion that in the area of home business and business opportunities the sale of get rich quick and push button money schemes has destroyed the solo ads market. While that fact is open to discussion for that market other areas are virtually untapped and solo ads are a very cost effective and profitable way to promote your product or service.

Sending your first solo ad

If you would like advice on using solo ads for your business or on what alternatives are available please feel free to contact us and we’ll be happy to help.

Always only work with a reputable solo advertiser that has good reviews and references. It’s tempting to take the cheap option but it could be cheap for a reason! Make sure to start small to check out the quality of the list before going big

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