The last few weeks I’ve been experimenting with a new traffic source. It’s not actually new, but it’s something I haven’t used much before.
It added an extra 893 subscribers to my list and produced a significant amount of revenue. Plus, now that I have these subscribers they will continue to produce more revenue for many months to come.
The method I used was: paid solo ads.
A solo ad is a full length email that is delivered to another person’s opt-in email list. It essentially enables you to “borrow” a fellow marketer’s mailing list for one email. The job of your solo ad is to get as many people to your offer as possible, and to get as many of them as possible to take your offer.
I’ve been using this marketing tactic fairly aggressively in the last few weeks. It’s given some great rewards, but also some massive failures.
In this blog post I’ll reveal how I did it, what I did right and what I did wrong – massively wrong!
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Firstly, I found prospective partners through The Warrior Forum. The WF plays a massive part in my marketing. It’s where I learn the majority of the techniques I use in my business, it’s where I find joint venture partners who have generated tens of thousands of dollars for me and them selling my products and it’s where I found my solo ad partners.
I simply started a thread asking if anyone would sell me a solo email to their subscribers. I asked for only a few details:
1. Their list size.
2. Their typical response rates (number of click thrus) for an email.
3. The price they would charge for a solo email.
A lot of people sent me emails and I had a number of partners I could choose from.
Partner 1 had an email list of 50,000 and was charging $600.
Partner 2 had an email list of 17,000 and was charging $130.
Partner 3 had an email list of 17,000 and was charging $197.
Partner 4 had an email list of 16,000 and was charging $120.
Partner 5 had an email list of 11,000 and was charging $47.
Partner 6 had an email list of 5,000 and was charging $100 but was guaranteeing 250 clicks.
Partner 7 had a Facebook group with 1,100 members. Because I wasn’t sure how this would perform we agreed a fee of $0.50 per confirmed opt-in plus a $5 upfront fee.
I’ll reveal how each of these performed in a minute, but first I’ll let you know the mistakes I made.
Mistake #1
Not Tracking Properly
For the first solo ads that were delivered I didn’t track the number of clicks each marketer sent me. This meant I couldn’t measure the performance and work out whether a solo ad with this marketer was a good investment.
I learned my lesson eventually and set up a new page for each marketer I used with a new web form so that I could track the conversion rate and number of subscribers from each marketer.
Mistake #2
Not Trusting My Instinct
I had my doubts about the integrity of Partner 6. I should have trusted my gut as I’ll reveal in a minute.
Mistake #3
Get Proof
Partner 3 promised 600-1000 clicks from his email. I got 93. I should have asked each marketer for screenshot proof of their list size and their typical click through rate.
Those are the three main mistakes I made and it cost me a fair bit of money, but despite some of these emails performing so poorly, I assume I’ll profit from this venture (if I had tracked I’d know if it was profitable or not) – and I’ve learned a hell of a lot.
The Results
Like I’ve already said, a lot of the emails underperformed, but some did fantastically – here are my results. Some are only estimates due to lack of tracking!
Partner 1 – 300-350 new subscribers. That’s about $2 per subscriber, but I’m fairly confident that I’ve made my investment back already and any revenue these subscribers produce now will be pure profit.
Partner 2 – This resulted in at least 180-200 subscribers which is less than $1 per subscriber. It’s fair to say I’ll definitely be using this marketer again.
Partner 3 – Like I’ve already mentioned I only got 93 clicks from this email and 48 subscribers. I expect to make a loss here. This is one of the emails I tracked.
Partner 4 – This mailing produced about 120 subscribers which is just about $1 per subscriber. A definite profit has been made here.
Partner 5 – At only $47, this was perhaps the most profitable mailing resulting in 150 subscribers and a subscriber cost of $0.30.
Partner 6 – The mailing was due to be delivered on the 4th February. When it wasn’t delivered by the 5th I contacted her. I haven’t had any response and have therefore filed a Paypal dispute. I should have trusted my gut instinct on this woman.
UPDATE: I didn’t get my money back so I politely commented on her blog asking why the mailing hadn’t gone out yet. She accused me of being a scammer and then all her blog readers did the same. It’s frustrating to see your name tarnished when you’ve done nothing wrong. Anyway, this woman was banned from the Warrior Forum shortly after (and I didn’t report her) so I assume she conned lots of other members.
Partner 7 – This was the most interesting of all the mailings. I knew I couldn’t lose out on much money because I was paying $0.50 per subscriber so it was performance related. This was a mailing to a Facebook group and produced 15 new subscribers. It may not sound like much but it’s educated me on the potential of mailings to Facebook groups.
In total I received about 893 subscribers based on my estimations for a cost of $1,114. < I worked that out in my head so I might be wrong.
I’ll definitely be doing this again but much more effectively next time.
It’s definitely a strategy I recommend, but first make sure you have a plan to monetize your subscribers. I know that each subscriber is worth a certain figure to me and can therefore pay accordingly.
Work out your numbers before you dive into this method of list building.
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If paid marketing isn’t your thing but you want to build a list fast using free methods, then take a look at my best selling report 100 Subscribers Per Day.
Leave a Reply
12/15/2010
Hi James, great info thanks for the share.
It would be interesting to know what alerted you to the potential lack of intergrity to partner 6 – this si something we could all learn from.
Sam
Hi James
Thanks for sharing! Great information. I agree with the other poster – what alerted you to partner 6 being a potential problem?
Rebecca
Rebecca’s Resource
James,
Sam is spot on. What did alert you to the lack of integrity of this partner? An old boss once told me
to trust my gut instincts more than my head. So I would really like to know what put your radar up.
James:
Same as all the others… How did you knew? I believe that the “gut” gets more experienced as you practice (Mine has improved over the years), but its always useful to know how somebody else’s gut works.
Best regards
I enjoyed the post and it is very generous of you to share this information, James. I used to run offline businesses and tested a lot of classified ads in newspapers and once I found a winner I would advertise there all year. But it is costly and losses suck. One way to keep track is to only run one solo ad a month or fortnight. I wouldn’t want to pay more than $0.50 per subscriber since you can never be 100% sure they are truly targeted and when they will opt out.
Although this is a great way to get subscribers fast there are so many free options out there and I believe a subscriber who finds you through your content is truly targeted whereas a subscriber that cost you money, well, you can’t be so sure!
Response matters to me more than numbers so I will try solo ads in the new year, maybe one every month, but I’ll be getting most of my subscribers through keyword targeted traffic (for free) – yes it’s slower, but we’re not in a race, are we?
Thank you all for your comments.
In response to your questions about how I came to suspect the integrity of Partner 6 I can’t really explain.
She turned up at the Warrior Forum one day and started making post after post after post (quite useful one’s I might add) but lots of her posts consisted of dramatic claims.
One of her claims I remember involved her making some ridiculous figure for each of her subscribers per month – something like $30 per subscriber per month. (If only!)
Then when I saw her advertising solo ads to her list for $100 I became very, very sceptical.
If she had a list of 11,000 and was claiming to make $30 per subscriber then she would be one very wealthy lady and not be selling solo ad spots for $100.
I think I purchased an ad more to prove my doubts correct than anything, which was a very unwise business decision but one I took nonetheless and one that has probably saved me a few hundred dollars in subsequent months.
It was certainly a mistake I learned from and one I won’t repeat. That kind of training is invaluable.
James
Hey James,
This is great advice! I have used solo ads to quickly build my list as well. I also made some of the same mistakes as you.
I’d say you were right about tracking! It’s easy to just trust someone and think they will pull through and not take the time it take to set up a tracking link.
I have always used the WF for finding solo ads and I wouldn’t recommend anywhere else. In fact, I wouldn’t even know where to look besides the WF.
One problem I had was not getting the guaranteed number of clicks. I paid $100 for a reputable WF member to send to his 11,000 list and only got 82 clicks. Luckily since I had tracked it I contacted him and he sent it again and I got more clicks.
After I started tracking, I had this come up several times. Sometimes you might have the contact them a few extra times to get them to resend it.
In conclusion, I agree with James! If you have the money and want to build your list super fast then solo ads are the answer!
Good Luck,
Coby Wright
[...] I talked about paid solo ads in my last post and how I was able to add 893 new subscribers in 14 days. [...]
Great information.
I do have a questions. You said you profited from the list once they got on it.
What kind of list are you billing?
What are you mailing them to make these additional profits?
I am trying to figure out how to profit from a list once you have it.
Thanks
For Mistake #1, can you exactly tell how do you exactly track the number of clicks each marketer sent you? Are there any tools that can monitor that? appreciate your advise James.
Thanks -
Hi Mike
What I did for the one’s I tracked was set up a unique page for each partner. So if I was paying for an ad from John Smith – I would create a page at mywebsite.com/john.html
I’d then set up a new webform in my Aweber account called “john” put it on the unique page and then aweber will track the impressions and submits for that webform.
Hope this helps.
James
Hi James,
Once again, a great post with a great case study. That why I open your email every time, coz I know I can learn some great tips and strategies from you.
I’m new to IM and I have just joined a couple of giveaway events as a contributor.
Do you recommend to set up individual pages for each of the giveaway along with a new web form to track the results?
Also, how exactly I can do that? As in create a new page, does it only can be applied if u r using wordpress?
Many thanx