The Mechanics Behind Solo Ads

Welcome back to the list building lifestyle. I’m your host, Igor Kheifets. Today we’re diving into the world of solo ads. Once again, I’d say today’s discussion is a general summary of the whole mechanics behind solo ads, how they work, how the campaign is set up, how to prepare, and what to look for when starting your first solo ads campaign in order to set yourself up for success. We’ll also touch on the key elements to look for your solo ads provider in order to have the best bang for your buck, because it’s crucial to know what you’re promoting, but also who you’re promoting to. We’ll also touch on how your solo ad swipe is one of the key elements of a successful solo ad campaign, and what are some best practices when it comes to that, but before we get started, let me just say this intro was recorded using an artificial intelligence voice. Now this AI voice might sound like me, but let’s be real. It’s just a robot impersonating my dulcet tones. We’re kind of just keeping it around to add some fun to the intros. But if you think we should get rid of it, then head over to Igor dot top slash voice and let me know if it gets enough downvotes we might end up letting it go. And now let’s dive into today’s episode.

01:07

I’m Igor Kheifets and this is the list building lifestyle. The podcast for anyone who wants to build a wildly profitable email list working from home. If you’d like to make six figures travel the world and help people improve their lives in the process. This podcast is for you. I also invite you to claim a free copy of my bestselling book, the list building lifestyle Confessions of an email millionaire at www.igorsbook.com. Get the free book plus $3,000 bonus package that includes my best capture page templates, email, swipe files, and traffic blueprints, visit www.igorsbook.com for details. And now it’s time to claim your list building lifestyle.

01:52

What are the mechanics behind the solo ad? How does it work? In other words, do your customers send you an email swipe and say hey, send this out to your list? Do you have an email swipe that you send out to your list like walk me through the actual mechanics of how that solo ad works for them once they engage with ego solar? Right.

02:09

So the first thing you want to have when you are looking to drive traffic is kind of like when you get into your car at the beginning of your journey. The first thing you need to know is that address, where are you heading because you don’t get in the car just for fun, you pretty much know where you’re going before you step out of the house. That’s like common sense. Otherwise, you’re not even stepping out of the house. Now the problem is that most people when it comes to marketing or driving traffic, do not use the same common sense that they do when they get out of the house, but they have no idea where they’re going. But they are looking for a nice car to take them there, which is a traffic source. So before you go looking for traffic, make sure you understand where you’re going by knowing what you are promoting. So if you do not have something to promote to sell something to the market, don’t go looking for traffic, you’re just wasting your time, you could get your feet wet in terms of just getting educated about it. But you’re not going to get places because you have nothing to promote. And you will find it very challenging to just make any sense out of this whole process because that’s where it all starts, once you have something to promote. The other thing that you’re doing now is you’re reaching out, and you’re looking for email lists that fit with your niche. So in other words, if you’ve got an offer about how to make money investing in stock, then you probably are better off going after a financial newsletter list. So hitting up a website such as Investopedia, for example, where people go seeking investment advice. Now, this is where you’re really setting up yourself for success. Because what could be better than a person who subscribes to email lists as a customer, only a person who subscribes to a really targeted email list about the very thing that you’re selling, and a person who’s also investing time, effort and energy and hopefully money into learning and improving themselves in that particular area. So in other words, an educated email subscriber is worth more money to you than a non-educated email subscriber than just an email subscriber versus Of course, somewhere over there, there’s just a click, you know, from a social media website, so that’s pretty much worthless. Because if you really take like 1000 fans to an investor PDF fan page versus 1000 email subscribers on their list, this 1000 actually has the potential to make at least four to $5,000 a month to its owner. And this has very little potential at all because of all the tricky things that Facebook does to keep your message away from the people who want to hear from you, right now it’s like what less than 3% only get to see your post. So point being is that you go and you look for a targeted list to which you are going to advertise that offer. And once you found that list, the next step is to approach the list owner and tell them basically make an offer to say hey, I’m so and so and I got this course. I got this broad Got the service, I got this Shopify story, got this t-shirt, brand, whatever. And you say, I noticed that your audience would be a great fit for this product. And they will really benefit because of XYZ reasons. And it’s really important to do that, because most of these listeners are very protective of their biggest asset, their list. And they will not just let anyone come in and run the ads, it’s not gonna work like that, even if you give them money for it, which of course you will. So once you’ve done that and reached out and you initiate the conversation, now it’s a matter of what they feel that promotion is worth. So if their list is any good, chances are, they will charge you a premium price, because they know they could just email something to their list. And they could make more money than if you were to pay them for one off promotion, even though mailing your promotion has no risk for them whatsoever, because all they’re doing is just blasting out and getting paid upfront for the fee. Now, some of you may be wondering, why would they even do that? Right? Why would they even let you email their list? Well, I’ll tell you why. There’s actually many different reasons for that, I’ll give you just the biggest ones. First and foremost, people are lazy, they could have a million person list, they could have 1000 person list, I assure you, they don’t mail that list nearly as often as they should, because they’re lazy, busy, distracted, or because they just don’t realize the value of the list, which of course is a great advantage to you, because you can then negotiate a much lower price for your promotion. And not a thing. Another reason why people know will give you the opportunity to promote to their list is of course the predictability of the cash. Because for them to make money, they have to mail an offer. And that offer actually has to work. Now if that offer doesn’t work, that means they just wasted a melee. But if you approach them and you give them a guaranteed money for promoting your offer, that’s just certainty, which is you know why I eventually ended up moving away from affiliate marketing. I started doing less of that and more, you know, solo ads, because I know how to nurture my list. And I knew how to promote other people’s offers already because I was doing affiliate marketing, but you know, the idea of getting paid Commission per sale, versus predictable money per sale, as long as they could get the predictable amount of money up to a certain level of earning per subscriber per month. That was acceptable. To me. That was great. Because, you know, there’s really two types of people out there, right. And I don’t know which type for you, Jason. But there’s the people who will always strive for more, like more and more and more than they will like, doesn’t matter. It’s like football players, it doesn’t matter how much they make, you know, next year, they are going to renegotiate that contract to get more money. And there’s also the people who want to have enough. Now I personally, I usually go from war, call it greed, call it ambition, whatever you want, I want to improve. So obviously, I’m always going for more. But you know, at some level in different parts of my business, I was like, Okay, enough is enough. And I’ve had these strategically placed, so I didn’t have to worry about anything from that point forward. So that’s why they would actually do it. And once they agree to the promo and you paid them, then what you’re doing is you then ask them, whether they want to write the email themselves, or would they like to use an email you’re going to give them now this is where you’re going to notice. There’s no one size fits all here, it will really depend on the person who’s running the app, some of them will be very protective of the voice that they use with their list. And they will say, Okay, I will write my own, and which is what we do at the Solar Winds we write our own. On the other hand, some of them will be lazy. And they will say just give me an email to send out and I’ll send it and they’ll send it. So in terms of results, I would assume that the better results will come from the lists, which get emailed in the exact same way that they used to be emailed. But at the end of the day, as long as you get that click and get the transfer of credibility from the list owner, right, that does have an effect. But you know, we’re talking now 10-20%. So if you want to go from good to great trying to negotiate, so they write the email, if you’re just getting started, you can actually do it later. Keep it simple for now, you know, have the email on standby. And if they don’t want to write it, just give them an email.

09:16

Are there any best practices for that email swipe? And I guess there’s two parts to this question. Let’s say for instance, there, they don’t have the reputation of your solo ads, right? Let’s just say they want to write the email, right? They’re like, No, no, I’ll write the email as the solo ads vendor, as a customer, should we be able to see the swipe that they’re sending out to make sure that it’s congruent with what we’re looking for? Is that something we should ask for? And then also, if you’re writing the swipe, what are some of the elements I guess, in the solo ad swipe, that if we are writing it, we should be cognizant of and use based on the your experience in terms of what gets the most sort of opens and clicks and those types of things?

09:51

Okay, sure. These are two really good questions. So the first one, whether you should be able to see this white Well, naturally, you’d want to take a look and I don’t I think you get to have a say in it. But you definitely want to take a look at it just to make sure it’s congruent. And maybe point out if it’s not most, most solid providers should be able to show you the most wide no problem. The other question is how to write one, if you want to write one, to give you the general rules of thumb, the things that matter in your email. And remember, with the solid email, it will be going out from the person who owns the list. Again, huge, huge thing blood, people forget that. They’re not emailing their list with your name. They’re emailing their list with their name. So it has to come from them. And the swipe needs to address a pain point. So what you’re doing is you’re addressing a problem that’s stuck, right here, the back of your mind, right? The problem that they think about all day long, but it’s so it’s like the hum of an engine when you’re driving a car. It’s right there. But when it’s gone, you notice, right? So that’s what you want to focus on, find that one problem. And then what do you want to do is you want to almost twist a knife. So describe to them how they feel. In other words, right? If they were writing a diary about that problem, describe to them exactly what the diary would have said. And once you’ve done that, tell them about a new solution that they haven’t tried before, and make a call to action to go check it out. Now, this is also very important when it comes to driving solo in traffic. Although you do get some pre-sales with the email, don’t expect it to do all the selling for you. Your website needs to be the one carrying the load. Right? So you know, the capture page, the sales page, the webinar, whatever, whatever you’re selling, sending that traffic, most of the sale, and most of the sales materials shouldn’t be there. But the pre frame should get them curious enough to go. Okay, okay, I’ll just click the link. Okay. Okay, fine. I’m clicking. So you have to basically steer up that pain a little bit, and then tell them okay, go here, check out the solution. Thank you for listening to the list building lifestyle, give access to the previous episodes transcript of today’s show, as well as other exclusive content at listbuildinglifestyleshow.com. Also, remember to clean your free copy of my bestselling book at www.igorsbook.com. It explains how I made millions with list building starting from scratch. Plus, I’ll give you $3,000 worth of free bonuses, including my best landing page templates, email, swipe files, and traffic blueprints. Go to www.igorsbook.com. Now to claim your free package.