How to Write Effective Solo Ads? Here’s a Case Study on What’s What.

Image by Jeffrey James Pacres

Did you know that 66% of consumers have made purchases from email marketing?

The email is a very powerful tool, considered you use it right because if not, you might lose your subscribers instead.

The use of email marketing is growing so strong today that people are also starting to consider its counterpart – the controversial solo ads.

What is a Solo Ad?

A solo ad is simply another form of email marketing whereby you promote your offer to an email list.

However it differs from the modern-day mainstream email ads which are larger scale as they are meant to target a broader audience.

Here’s how your average everyday email ad would like…

Nandos email ad

The email above is an ad from Nandos and these types of emails are usually done by established companies.

Solo ads however, are made by singular people promoting a product they wish to see which is why it is more targeted to a specific audience and the email copies (Also known as swipe file in the Internet Marketing industry) are usually in text format instead of html.

Here’s an example of a solo ad I received earlier today to help you get a clearer view…

An example of a good solo ad

Can you see the difference between these 2 email ads?

Commercial email marketing is more colourful compared to solo ads which are more of a plain text because you want to make you message more personal as your audience is smaller and more targeted.

How does a Solo Ad work?

We know that commercial email ads blast their emails to you as they have access to our email address which we might have given when we registered for their special offers.

Solo ads on the other hand, work a bit differently because you DON’T have an email list.

So now you might be wondering, HOW do you get a list then?

To get a list, you need to find solo ad vendors and these people are usually website owners which means that their email list is their own list of subscribers.

These list owners are willing to send the solo ad that you want to promote in exchange for a fee which is usually somewhere around $40-$100 per 100 clicks (Yes, they are costly).

So why the term ‘solo’ ads then?

That’s because with every email ad that they send for you, they risk losing their own subscribers as well which is why list owners only allow you to send ONE email ad per campaign.

Makes sense?

Good, because here’s the tricky part.

Did you know that these solo ad vendors WON’T give you their list of email subscribers?

This further shows how risky solo ads can be because you can simply lose money just like that, without the opportunity of sending another email.

Because of that, the idea of solo ads is to get the target audience to GIVE you their email by making an offer they can’t refuse.

If you look back at the solo ad example, you might have noticed that there is a link or two, right?

Well this link will lead you to a squeeze page which is simply a sign up page to get you to hand in your email ethically.

Fun fact: The act of ‘trading’ a free eBook in exchange for a person’s email address is actually called an “Ethical Bribe”.

Maybe you’ve heard of a squeeze page, a landing page, even an opt-in page but worry not because these are all sign up pages, just with different names.

Here’s an example of a well-made sign-up page (I’m biased because Wealthy Affiliate is in fact my #1 recommended program 😉 )

The landing page I use for the program I’m promoting

How to Write Effective Solo Ads? – Learn From Real Examples.

Writing effective solo ads are simple, you just need to write as though you’re writing to a friend – no need to be so formal, just try to be casual… and polite.

Often times people get too carried away by writing casually that they get a bit too comfortable than they should be.

Here’s what I mean by that…

At this rate, this isn’t a solo ad. It’s a spam!

NEVER write a solo ad like this!

I’m sure that if this were to arrive in your inbox, you might mark it as spam as well, would you not?

Here’s my analysis as to why this solo ad is wrong in so many ways…

• Terrible greeting – If you don’t want to say the person’s name after that, you’re better off NOT giving a greeting at all. How would you feel if someone writes you an email with just “Hi” or “Hey”? It is a rude thing to do and not at all polite to start your email with.
• Misleading title – It is NEVER good to trick the reader because they are not as stupid as you may think. Once they click on your misleading title, they will leave your offer straightaway. Wouldn’t you do the same?
• No elaboration – The body is too short and doesn’t explain what the offer is about. Why would anyone click on a random link without any reason to? Speaking of links…
• Cloaked link – Nowadays there are many links with viruses so it’s always best if you show the full URL. Cloaking isn’t wrong and if you are going to use it, make sure you do it right by cloaking only your affiliate link to make the overall URL much nicer.

Here’s an example of an excellent solo ad made by Patric Chan…

An example of a great solo ad. Very readable!

It looks more readable, don’t you think?

Here’s why…

• Great title! – Not only is that title decent-looking, it is also made in a way to spark curiosity which I would say, is cleverly made.
• Elaborate on the offer – You don’t have to write everything about what you’re offering but enough to help give your reader an idea on what your offer is about. Sure, your readers might not want to click on that link if your offer does not interest them but for those that do, you are going to get a much higher conversion rate.
• Clever placing of URL – As I’ve mentioned before, showing where your link will lead to will instill trust in your readers.

Patric’s solo ad looks simple but he had been split-testing that for many times over which is no surprise as he’s one of the leading Internet Marketers out there.

From those case studies, you can know that to write an impactful solo ad, you need to consider these few things…

1. Proper greetings – If you do not want to greet your readers by the name, it is better to not greet at all.
2. Proper use of links – Showing your URL destination is important as it will instill more trust from your readers to click on that.
3. Proper use of Title – You know what they say, titles are your first chance to impress someone so don’t misuse this opportunity by writing a misleading title JUST to get your readers to click on it. It won’t work!
4. Message elaboration – Make sure you elaborate on your offer as that will further attract readers to click on your link on their own accord.
5. Call-to-Action – Doing offers are a great way to boost your conversion rates faster as this will make your readers take action as they would not want to miss out on your awesome gift or discount.

Increase Your Conversions! – Build a Blog to Compliment Your Offer.

Imagine your reader Googling out your offer and finding you on the first page of Google, wouldn’t that be an impressive feat?

Having a blog is a great way to further boost your solo ad conversions because your audience will trust you more when they see how established you are.

When they see your offer, they would surely Google you out to find out more about your product or even more about yourself before buying which means that it is actually a hidden opportunity to further build trust.

Take a look at this…

Google search results for “Lead Generation Mastery Review”

As you can see, one of my blog reviews on “Lead Generation Mastery” managed to go all the way up on the first page of Google and you can do the same for your offer as well.

Although I wrote that particular review as a scam, I was surprised that I still managed to make some sales from that offer!

Having a blog is a great way for you to further boost a campaign you’re working at, or even make sales from a completely unrelated offer because people can relate to you better.

And don’t worry about the costs, building a blog is free and you can start by watching this video…

Conclusion

Writing a solo ad is actually pretty fun and rewarding.

As long as you bear in mind as to share more details on your email swipe, use proper placing of links and avoid trying to trick your readers just for the sake of increasing click-though, your solo ad would be highly readable and will surely gobble up clicks!

If you’re interested in learning more about Internet Marketing, check out my #1 recommended program here.

Thanks for reading, do share your thoughts below as I’ll be more than happy to reply.