Are Solo Ads Traffic Good For Business Growth In 2021?

Table of Contents

I want to share with you my FIVE reasons why I think Solo Ads traffic is not a suitable option for newbie online marketers. I will discuss each reason in the order that they are listed below. This information is only my personal experience and opinion.

You Are Spamming Peoples Inboxes
Your List Will Be Unresponsive
There Is No Relationship Building
It Gives You Unstable Growth Overtime
Solo Ads Can Be Very Expensive

Before I dive into my FIVE reasons, let us establish what a Solo Ad is.

What is a Solo Ad?

A Solo Ad is an email blast sent out on behalf of an online marketer by a vendor with a large email list. This agreement is between the vendor with an email list and an online marketer. There is usually a fee attached to the agreement.

Now that you know what a Solo Ad is, let’s get to the meat of the matter.

Are Solo Ads Traffic Good For Business Growth In 2021?

So you’ve got your business up and you’re ready to go. Your offer is ready and you have your landing page ready, but you need traffic because that’s how you make sales. Isn’t it? Traffic is that necessary ingredient that you need to make money online but as a newbie, you don’t have any traffic sources in place yet.

You probably don’t have an established blog with a satisfactory following. Maybe you have a blog but you’ve only got a few articles up and things are moving a little slow. It could also be that you do not even have a youtube channel or any social media following either.

Passivemove Solo Ads — Photo by Gabby K from Pexels

These Platforms can take a while to build up as well, but you might have heard others talking about solo ads. Am I right? You heard that it’s a great way to get traffic to your offer. Now, solo ads can be a viable and quick way to get traffic to your offer and I’m sure you’ve heard many gurus saying that it’s quick and easy to make sales on your first day.

The problem is, you would have to know how to create a proper funnel to capture those subscribers and nurture relationships before you start to make significant sales. Engagement with the people on your list is very important. You also need to know how to segment that list, keep it clean and most of all, know how to create a positive return on investment. In the long run, do you know how to do this?

The problem with beginners is that they have no experience, knowledge, or training on how to use these leads effectively. They’re led to believe what the gurus tell them that this is the best way to grow an email list and make quick sales. Let’s now look at my five reasons why solo ads might not be good for you if you are just starting out online.

1. You Are spamming Peoples’ Inboxes

When you purchase solo ads from a vendor, do you know who that vendor is? Even if it looks like they have a good rating or good stats, do you know where their traffic is coming from to their list? Many vendors will tell you that they get five to six hundred fresh leads every day but if they’re getting that many leads every day, I reckon they’re using some questionable methods for building up their Solo Ads email list.

The issue is, when you purchase a number of clicks it’s your personal or business information that is getting sent to these email addresses, so you’re basically spamming peoples’ inboxes because they haven’t personally opted into your list, so when you’re spamming like this, it’s your reputation that is on the line. Have you ever been on a list like this where you’re suddenly receiving emails from someone you don’t know or for products you’ve never heard of before?

The follow-up question is, would you buy something from a total stranger, or would you just unsubscribe and delete the message? That’s the most likely response you’re going to get from your Solo Ad subscribers. They will unsubscribe or simply ignore you, so can you see why it might be difficult to make sales this way?

In reality, this is a hard way to get sales. People are not just going to flash out their credit cards and buy from a total stranger and that’s why they call these, cold leads because these people don’t know you from Adams.

2. Your List Will Be Unresponsive:

The people who receive your emails don’t know who you are and the source who sent your email wasn’t organic meaning that it came from the vendor’s list. It’s not something they requested on their own. They might not even know the vendor. They opened the email saw a form and said who the heck is this and that’s when they’ll most likely ignore you or just delete your email or worse yet sent you to their spam folder.

If they’ve never heard of you before then why would they be interested in what you have to say? Actually, when I’m not sure about an offer but I want to check out the sales page, I would put in a test email address and it’s something that I do to simply protect myself. More often than not, if you opt into an unknown email list your inbox gets spammed with email after email and offer after offer and I don’t want my business inbox getting spammed like this.

3. There Is No Relationship Building:

There is no relationship building when a beginner builds an email list like this. They’re not sure what to do with the list. They don’t know how to nurture that list and build relationships with the people on that list. You need to build trust with the people on your list, as well as engage with them.

Unfortunately, if you’re a newbie and you are told to build your email list this way, you might be told to buy a thousand clicks for a thousand dollars, and that you’ll make loads of sales and wallah, you’re rich, but that’s never the case. You’ll be lucky to earn 50% of those clicks from subscribers to your list and you might end up making just a couple of sales.

Passivemove solo ad — Photo by Gabby K from Pexels

That is not enough to cover the cost of those solo ads and to top it off, the gurus will tell you that you have to use your list now and send them daily emails with offer after offer after offer. You’re playing the odds really. You’re hoping that eventually, someone will buy.

So the larger the list the higher the odds. Can you see what ends up happening? Instead, they either ignore you, unsubscribe from your list or send you to the spam folder. Is this the type of email list you want for your business?

4. It Gives You Unstable Growth Overtime:

Every Solo Ad you buy is a huge gamble. The vendor may tell you he’ll send out your email today, tomorrow, or whatever time you specified, but can you be certain that he will fulfill his obligation? What else has he been using that email list for?

For example, the vendor may have just released his own product and gotten hundreds of fresh new leads added to his list. When he sends your email out, you have access to hundreds of hungry new buyers looking at your offer so you are saying to yourself, “Wow this guy is really good, I got a really good ROI on my sales and my leads”.

So, what do you do next week? You go back to this guy, buy double maybe even triple the number of clicks for so much, and guess what, it’s unresponsive. You got probably 30 new leads and no sales. This is the gamble you take when you buy Solo Ads and this is why it’s such an unstable way to build your list. In my opinion, you need nerves of steel to pump money into solo ad traffic.

5. Solo Ads Can Be Very Expensive:

This is a very expensive way to grow your email list. You end up spending thousands of dollars and probably end up with 100 people on your subscriber list. You will probably be told to buy high-quality clicks, which are called top-tier clicks. These are usually from English-speaking countries like the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and maybe New Zealand.

These top-tier clicks usually end up costing about a dollar a click. Now, if you buy five hundred clicks, that means you’re spending $500. Right? So, if you’re using a high converting opt-in page, you might get 30 to 50% opt-in. Let’s go with say 30%. So, out of those 500 clicks, you get about 150 opt-ins and maybe three sales. I know it doesn’t sound like much but actually, that’s pretty good for the industry average.

Now let’s say you’re promoting one of those cheap products that are popular online. What if you make three sales and made about $50, and that’s if you’re lucky, and maybe one or two upsells?

Can you see what I mean? Quite expensive! You’ve spent $500 on your Solo Ads and made $50. Guess what! You’ve just lost $450. If you thought you were going to make a thousand dollars in sales you’d be pretty disappointed. I would think even $500 would at least break even but it doesn’t work that way.

Even the very experienced marketers online don’t make that good return on investment. Now you know my five reasons why I believe Solo Ads are quite dangerous for beginners. You want a healthy list of people who found you organically. That means they opted into your list themselves because they found you online. They liked what you had to say, or they connected with you in some way.

Over time, you’ll learn to engage with that list and you’ll build trust with the people on that list. That’s how this list can be profitable for you in the long run. You’ll learn to provide that list with value. You’re not going to push offer after offer and annoy them until they unsubscribe.