It’s not uncommon for business professionals to hear the term solo ads and suddenly feel a twist in their stomach. The thought flashes through their minds “Solo ads. Should I be doing that?” But when they go online they are bombarded with so much information that they just drop the subject until the next time they hear about it.
These ads can be a very useful part of any business model. But there’s a few things you need to know first. One of them is how to buy them. Note that I did not say where to buy them. There are a lot of ads salesmen on the internet who will promise you the sun and the stars. Some of them will even deliver on those promises, but you have to understand why and how they are able to do that if you want ads to be successful for you. So when I say “How to Buy Solo Ads,” what I actually mean is “How to Buy Solo Ads productively.”
These ads are part of a business model that involves outsourcing marketing to other agencies. A solo ad is 8 to10 lines of text which links to a landing page. When someone buys a solo ad, it is sent to every name on a mailing list. Sometimes this mailing list is a group of subscribers which belongs to a venture owned by the client, but other times it is provided by the ad seller with or without an additional fee.
Generally if you have a group of subscribers you are trying to reach you would use that list, but if you are just trying to sell a product it can be more beneficial to reach out to a separate group as some subscribers may unsubscribe if they don’t like the way you advertise to them.
You can pick up solo ads for a fixed fee or for on a payment plan that is performance based. There are benefits to both models. If you’re using the same marketing group and you trust their performance then a fixed rate may save you some money, but if you don’t trust the marketer a performance incentive will help to guarantee you get what you paid for.
One thing to be careful with when it comes to solo ads is false conversions. A lot of salesmen will be quick to show you their conversion rate: the number of people who clicked the ad. However, this can be misleading. A solo ad that says “1 Billion dollars, click here” may get you some conversions, but they will become irate when the site on the other side is selling them shoes, and they will promptly unsubscribe. Make sure that your marketer is selling you ads that are producing true conversions: customers who are clicking the ad and then following through the sales funnel.
