Solo Ad Broker vs Solo Ad Vendor: What’s The Difference?

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Hi, my name is Igor Kheifets and this is the List Building Lifestyle, the only podcast
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Jonathan: Welcome back to another edition of the List Building Lifestyle show.
Here is the Daddy of Solo Ads, Mr. Igor Kheifets.

Igor: And daddy’s got a brand new bag. [laughter]

Jonathan: [laughter] Nice, nice, nice. So what’s up, Igor? What do we have today
for the List Builders?

Igor: Jonathan, I know you’re not buying solo ads right now if you were you could
be over paying by as much as 50% for the solo ads you’re buying like unnecessarily
overpaying, seriously.

Jonathan: Isn’t that just if I were to buy solo ads from the people who were just
buying them from you and reselling?

Igor: But that is exactly that. I mean it seems to you to be common sense because
we’ve been chatting about this but brokering is a huge frickin’ issue in the solo
ads space. A lot of times, when you’re thinking you’re working with a solo ad
provider that is charging a lot of money because he’s “quality” what is actually
happening, they are putting up a huge margin on their clicks in order to
successfully resell those clicks to other solo ad providers that are charging less
than they do; providers that you, yourself, can easily reach by Googling the term
solo ads or by going on Facebook or something. In fact, there is specific groups
like you know how there are Facebook groups that are designed for the buyers and
sellers to come in and kind of buy and sell clicks.

Jonathan: Yeah.

Igor: Those are like usually 20,000 people big and there are some collaboration
going on like some customer versus seller relationship. Now there are other groups
where there are only sellers and they hang out there and resell clicks to each
other so you often see somebody coming in as like I got 1000 clicks, I need to be
sent today or tomorrow, like pronto and here’s what I’m willing to pay. Usually
that’s because they just sold the package and now they are now going to look for
people to resell it to. So without even knowing you maybe overpaying from as
little as 10-20% to as much as 50% to people who are not solo ad providers. So
there is an actual difference between somebody who is a solo ad provider and a
solo ad broker. Now this is not to say that all solo ad brokers are bad people not
all in fact some solo ad brokers are super frickin’ cool and they got legit
clicks. Now the difference between a legit broker and a non-legit broker is a
legit broker actually says “Hey we are a solo ad broker and we have publisher,
they call them publisher that are able to deliver traffic for you.” So what you do
is buy traffic from them knowing that there is a markup in the whole transaction
because they are brokered but you get the benefit of having unique clicks. For
example, my friend, Harris Fellman from Traffic For Me is a guy like that who
brokers clicks but he is legit. He’s legit and you should work with him. You
should reach out to him. He’s got several tiers of different types of publishers
and there is lower quality, there’s higher quality, lower priced and higher priced
but Harris is always making the same markup which is actually not that big in my
opinion and I’ve told him that from each transaction. But that’s an honest way to
do it, right? Most solo ad brokers are fuckin’ shady; they are really giving all
of us a bad name.

Jonathan: Now, Igor, how they giving you guys a bad name if they are reselling
your traffic even if they are marking it up, how does that effect you as the
actual solo ad provider?

Igor: Well, the thing is while they do sell other people’s traffic, now just for
the record, I just want to tell you that nobody resells our clicks. What happens
we have an affiliate program where we allow people to promote the agency but we
never allow people to directly sell our clicks just like that because we want to
review your offer, we want to make sure it’s a good fit without it; we simply
refuse to do business with you. Now the way that a broker gives a bad name to solo
ad providers in general is because if something goes wrong, if the traffic isn’t
quality, if anything goes wrong, the broker is usually taking responsibility and
what happens is they really do a bad job at their customer service and they never
are brokering your clicks based on the quality. They never kind of breakdown their
publisher list, no, they just go for the cheapest frickin’ dude or dudette that is
willing to send clicks that day, that’s it. You’re basically gambling. You’re
playing Russian roulette with your advertising dollars. That’s what you’re doing
when you use brokers.

Jonathan: That’s interesting, man. So you recommended one broker but is it really
better to go through brokers or is it better to go direct to the person selling
the actual traffic?

Igor: Now from a Jewish standpoint of course, it’s better to go directly to the
person selling simply because you’re talking to the source, no middleman, you’re
not overpaying for anything and that’s of course you’re overpaying for something
else when you work with that person. However brokers do have their benefits like
if you’re working with somebody like Harris for instance and he’s probably the
only broker I would recommend and then if you do want to get a discount, you
should actually contact us and get a link from us. We have a special affiliate
link that allows you to get a special offer from Harris, just hit us up at
[email protected] for that. If you’re working with Harris for example, the
benefit of doing that is because he understands the quality of the traffic from
the different publishers and when you show him your offer, he will tell you, “Okay
for this offer, I would use this dude and for this offer, I would use this
person.” That would be the conversation you would have with Harris. He would know
who is best to promote your offer. Now that’s the only benefit, only if you’re
working with legit brokers otherwise, you should go directly to the sources and
you should always test before you scale. That’s why I always recommend getting
anywhere between a 300-500 clicks per order with a solo ad provider because it
gives you a really clear idea of the kind of list you’re dealing with. For
example, if the provider can’t handle a 500 click order that means that their list
isn’t even big enough for you to consider. You can’t even scale that so you don’t
do business with them. If you run 100 clicks instead of 500 then it’s not enough
data because you could have hit a really small segment that worked well and the
rest is crap. So there are all these things and you should definitely test
directly as your first option but should you work with the brokers? Like I said
only with legit brokers like Harris and I understand that it seems like I’m kind
of pushing Harris here but honestly guys, I’m a realist about the fact that if
you’re buying traffic from me, you’re buying traffic from other sources. I don’t
think you should ever stick to one traffic source as your marketing strategy
that’s just not smart, okay? So you know if you’re buying with other sources I’d
suggest you check Harris out. Okay, I suggest you should check him out because
he’s legit. He’s not going to scam you. He’s going to send you good clicks, not
sure about your conversions because it depends on your offer and everything else
but he’s a legitimate business person to work with. He’s honest about the fact
that he is a brokering your order to a traffic provider that’s his business. He’s
been in business for probably longer than I have, probably, I think more than a
decade now, he’s been in this business, and everybody knows him. You mention his
name, people say, “Oh yeah, yeah, I know Harris.” So he’s a legit dude. So if
you’re considering a broker, go and work with Harris. But again, I highly
recommend going directly to the sources. No middleman, directly to the sources and
you’ll get a better deal, you’ll get better quality, and you’ll basically be
talking to the person who owns the list. This is a big deal.

Jonathan: It’s interesting I just spent a couple days in a mastermind and there
were people from Agora there and that’s actually how they do a lot of their
initial stuff or when they are scaling. They actually talk to list brokers and
they gave us a couple different list brokers but they do the same thing. Give me a
list of these kinds of people who bought this kind of product in the last 30 days,
that’s who I want to mail to and they are able to do that. So I wonder, are these
solo ad brokers able to give that same quality or that same granular-ness to the
clicks they are selling?

Igor: No, usually it’s not possible, usually they are able to give you like an
approximation of interest, but not that detailed. Now just to clarify the brokers
you’re mentioning are these direct mail brokers or email brokers?

Jonathan: Yeah, well I think it goes; the main stuff that we were talking about
was direct mail so like Macromark and the other big guys in the direct mail game.

Igor: Right so in that case, yeah, when it comes to direct mail and I’m sure that
Ben Settle and Doberman Dan will back me up on this if they actually listen to my
show. In direct mail, you better be working with a broker. You better be otherwise
you’re dead in the water. But with email, with solo ads specifically, it pays to
go direct. There’s less of a need to try and use a broker.

Jonathan: Yeah, so when you’re selling these packages of clicks what do you look
for from your buyers like how do you get them the best traffic is my question?

Igor: Oh that’s good question. It really depends but if we break it down to
general terms, I would say that the biggest impact comes from segmentation and we
mentioned this quite a few times on the show where emotional engagement with the
offer not just the targeting is really, really important. So my best traffic, the
kind of traffic that the other day, a friend of mine, Brian Edison who labeled it
as the best cold traffic that he ever purchased that is something I attribute to
emotionally engaging my clicks on the level that no other solo ad provider is
willing to do.

Jonathan: Yeah, I got to argue here though because I don’t believe what you are
selling is cold traffic. There is no way because you’ve already done some vetting
so isn’t it really like at least lukewarm traffic?

Igor: Yeah, you can say that. You can say it’s lukewarm traffic, lukewarm solo
ads.

Jonathan: [laughter]

Igor: It doesn’t sound as well on the banner ad you know but yeah you can say that
for sure. When he says cold traffic, cold is anything that he buys. Cold is
anything he pays dollars for clicks. If he is talking about JV traffic which is
another big portion of his business, joint venture traffic people who are
investing a lot of time to warm their list and to warm their audiences, get the
people on the phone sometimes, you know that sort of level because we don’t call
up the email lead on the phone. We’re like we’re going to send you something, I
mean it’s the best thing ever and we just called to tell you. We don’t do any of
that but you know when it comes to joint venture traffic, usually just like we
mentioned in one of the previous episodes about the buyer list and the affiliate
marketing, JV traffic is often better than cold you can ever buy. But the downside
is when you get started you don’t have access to the JV traffic and any JV traffic
ever is always limited. There is no unlimited pool, there is no giant pool of JV
traffic, it is always severely limited. The higher it is, the less it is because
you know it’s kind of like climbing up the mountain. So when it comes to scaling,
scaling on JV traffic alone is really difficult. That’s why people who are
involved in the launch game, when they launch info products.

Jonathan: Yeah.

Igor: They have to do it every month. They have to launch a new thing every month
because they need the same joint venture partners that promoted them last month to
mail again.

Jonathan: That sounds very un-fun to me. So Igor, I got maybe a personal question
here. And it sounds like for JVs you do it but when you’re selling solos are you
ever selling ads to your buyers’ list?

Igor: Sometimes. Sometimes. The last time I did it, I received a testimonial from
my friend, who has a giant team in a company called Carrot Bars which is a
business opportunity that promotes financial education by showing you and helping
you invest in gold so you’re basically building up your savings in gold and not in
money so it doesn’t deteriorate over time. So I sent out a promo to my buyer list
for him and he paid for that just so I remember ñ it was two years ago. I think it
was 450 bucks. I got him only 200 clicks but he made 10 grand.

Jonathan: Wow.

Igor: [laughter]

Jonathan: [laughter] Wow!

Igor: But it’s really hard, you really have to make me an offer that I can’t
refuse to get me to mail to my buyers list. It’s virtually impossible to do. I
need to know that first off the product is super top notch, it has to be world
class product, you have to have a world class funnel, and you’ll have to create a
custom offer just for my buyers. Like I’m working out an offer with a friend of
mine who has an email marketing program and we actually have been going back and
forth for three weeks now and he’s pretty famous person. He’s an established
marketer. We’re going back and forth because he needs to craft an offer that is
the absolute best fit with my buyers for me to promote it. You know so the buyers’
list right now is off limits to just a plain old solo ad. This is funny ñ it’s
funny that you mention the buyers’ list because a lot of marketers out there that
want to sell with solo ads especially the shady people, they are like buy my
buyers’ clicks.

Jonathan: Hmm

Igor: They are like selling 200 clicks from their usual list and supposedly 200
clicks from their buyers’ list. That’s bullshit. They don’t have a buyers’ list.

Jonathan: [laughter]

Igor: They don’t have a buyers’ list that can produce that. Are you kidding me?
It’s takes years to build it, it takes years to build a buyers’ list to get
several hundred clicks. I remember I told you about that promotion I had done for
Daniel Levis.

Jonathan: Yeah.

Igor: So that promotion, I’ve done it over the course of at least three or four
days and I mailed more than 10 times over the course of those days and all I could
pull was only 900 clicks from that list.

Jonathan: Only, only got it. [laughter]

Igor: Only I mean what is 900 clicks. Jonathan, what is 900 clicks? It’s nothing.

Jonathan: It’s not a lot in your game.

Igor: My average order is 500 clicks. Yeah but 900 clicks is all I was able to
pull from it because it small, it is fairly small but it packs a punch. So a
buyers’ list is worth having and it’s your most precious asset. I can’t stress
this hard enough.

Jonathan: Yeah. I brought you back into that but what are some other things or are
there any other tips you want to give us in using the brokers for solo ads versus
going straight to Igor’s Solo Ads?

Igor: Yeah another thing that’s a really big benefit when you’re dealing directly
with a person who sells solo ads is often times you can get them to lower their
price because the broker is already operating on a very slim margin and for them
to give you a discount is like chopping their right arm off. It’s virtually
impossible. So when you’re talking to the person that owns the list, you have way
more margin for that sort of stuff. So again, you’re not only paying more but you
can’t really get them to lower their prices. You know there are so many benefits
dealing directly with the person selling rather than going to a broker but here’s
the thing, Jonathan, it’s not really a question of who do I deal with the broker
or the vendor, the point I was trying to make since the beginning of this episode
was that the brokers, the shady brokers do not tell you they broker traffic.
That’s the thing, they never tell you that. They understand that if they say that
they are brokers, they will not get any business because anyone with a brain
understands how to get a solo ad provider. You just go to one of those ñ I mean we
have an episode about that, like you should Google that like Nine Places You Can
Buy Solo Ads or Nine Solo Ad Hotspots You Need To Check Out.

Jonathan: Yeah.

Igor: So that’s all you have to do, right? But the broker, the shady broker does
not tell you he or she is a broker that’s why also these same people will start
fly by night accounts like I call them, they will start a Facebook account that is
called something like John Glick’s Solo Ads.

Jonathan: Oh I see those.

Igor: You know what I mean?

Jonathan: All the time, yeah.

Igor: Right? Right, they add you as a friend because you took interest in solo ads
or you’re a member of some group or something. They will try to sell you solo ads
but trust me those are the brokers; those are the people that have no list. And
actually I’ve just released a training which you can get at
www.IgorSoloAds.com/HTBS okay that is for letters HTBS, www.IgorSoloAds/HTBS you
can get a training where I give you seven questions to ask a solo ad provider to
determine whether or not you should work with them. Because a couple of those
questions will put the broker in the position where they will have to give it up,
they will have no choice but to give it up. They will have to either tell you that
yes, I broker your traffic and at the very least give you a really sweet deal, or
they will simply disappear. I promise you that’s exactly what’s going to happen.
They will figure out that they are talking to somebody who understands the game;
they will either disappear if they are shady or they will admit that they are
brokering your clicks and then you can make a wise decision, an informed decision
based on whether or not you want to work with them.

Jonathan: Alright, www.IgorSoloAds.com/HTBS is that where they go?

Igor: Yes. That’s right, that’s right.

Jonathan: Okay and so really quickly because we are going a little long here,
episode #158 is where Igor talks about Nine Places Where You Can Buy Solo Ads. So
anything else or can we wrap this one up?

Igor: Yeah, let’s wrap it up because I think we made the point. The point is you
may be overpaying for your traffic and it pays to take the time to understand the
difference between a broker and a vendor.

Jonathan: Excellent. So that is a wrap for another List Building Lifestyle show,
we’ll be back in your earbuds next time. Thank you for tuning in.

Thank you for listening to The List Building Lifestyle Show, make sure to
subscribe on iTunes or Google Play to never miss an episode because who knows just
one conversion tactic we share on the show might double your list and double your
business. Download the transcript of today’s episode and all future episodes at
listbuilderslifestyleshow.com and don’t forget to claim your complimentary copy
of “The Wealthy List Builder’s Survival Guide” at listbuildinglifestyleshow.com/survival .
This is Igor Kheifets until next time we talk, have a good one.

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