DKSP EP15: How to Successfully Build a Profitable SOLO Ad Business – Part 2

The DKSpeaks Internet Marketing and Blogging Podcast

Welcome to Episode 15 of The DKSpeaks Podcast. This is DK. In this episode we will be continuing with our discussion on Building a SOLO ad business.

I am assuming, you have completed the actionables that we discussed in the last episode and you are ready with selling SOLO ads.

One of the minimum requirements that you need in order to sell SOLO ads is to have a list. And some of the strategies that we will be discussing today will help you in building you list while you sell SOLO ads.

Understanding the Basics of a SOLO Ads Business

Clickbanking – Clickbanking basically involves trading clicks. In clickbanking what you do is, you reach out to others who are interested in trading clicks. Basis what ever you agree upon, either you send them the clicks first or, they will send it to you. Once the first person has sent you the clicks, you start sending them the click in return.

In a way, Clickbanking helps you build your list without actually paying in cash for the clicks that you are ordering. If you have a small list and can send over about 50 clicks, I will recommend that you start clickbanking and build your list. You will find a lot of people who might want to clickbank with you and it will not be difficult to start one.

Gradually over a period of time, you will see that your list is growing and once you have a list size that can comfortably send about 100 clicks, you can start selling small solos.

While clickbanking ensure that you are doing it with people who are reliable and have some credibility in the SOLO ads market. Else you might just end up sending your side of the clicks and not getting anything in return.

Funnel Clicks – Funnel clicks are the clicks that you get as people go through the different points in a funnel. To put that into perspective let me give you an example.

Let’s assume you are a subscriber on a list and you get an email which is a SOLO ad. You click on the link in the email and are taken to a squeeze page. There are 2 things that can happen. You either enter your email address into the optin box or, browse away from the page. If you browse away from the page, you are presented with an alternative option which is another squeeze page. Let us call this squeeze page 2.

Now, If you opted into the squeeze page, you will be taken to a front-end offer which will be a paid offer which you can choose to buy. But let us assume that you exit the offer. You might then be taken to a thank-you page where you will be given the instructions on how to download the product that you opted in for.

On this page, you might also see some banner ads or, even text ads.

Similarly, once you have opted in you will receive an email with a link from where you can download the free product that you opted in for. When you click on that link you will be taken to a download page where again you will find banner ads and text ads.

The 3 offers that we saw in this entire funnel – the Squeeze page 2, Banner ads on thank you page and Banner ads on Download page, all of these will be offers from others. These are all called Funnel Clicks.

These clicks are sold at a different price, lesser than the normal SOLO clicks. There are people who even clickbank funnel clicks. Funnel clicks are not bad and if you get a chance to trade such clicks or, buy these clicks, I would recommend that you go ahead. These also help you build your list pretty fast at an extremely low cost.

And if you are able to create a nice banner that then talks to your squeeze page, you can see some massive conversions from these funnel clicks. Whenever I find someone selling these funnel clicks, I ensure that I grab them. I have seen conversions upto 48% from these clicks and that is pretty good as far as I am concerned.

Something that you might want to keep in mind in this is the fact that the conversions on the squeeze page 2 that we discussed above will be pretty low. Because that’s and exit squeeze page and since most people are already in an exit mode when they are taken to this page, they will just end up browsing away. This will hence count as a click and yet might not convert. These clicks are hence very poor and my recommendation is to stay away from them unless it is priced so low that you have a reason to buy these.

Now that you have understood some of the basics of the SOLO ads business, you are ready to take the plunge. Assuming that you have a list that can deliver about 50-100 clicks in a single mailing, start off pitching for your first sale.

If you are wondering as to what “single mailing” means, then let me explain that to you.

When you send out a solo ad email to your list, there are some metrics that you might want to look for – the open rates and the click through rates. The open rates is the number of people opening an email and the click through rates is the number of people clicking on the links in your email.

Now what is more important to you as a seller is the Click through rate because you are selling clicks and you want as many people to click on the links in the email as possible.

When mailing for a solo ad, what we generally do is send out an email first to our entire list. Then if we are not able to generate the desired number of clicks from that first email, we send another email only to the people who did not click in our first email. You have a choice of sending this email to the people who did not open your first email or, to the people who did not click – whichever you think works for your list. But you need to keep one thing in mind. If you send out multiple emails and that too frequently to your list, you might end up burning your list and gradually your open rates and click through rates will drop.

It is hence that I said that, if you are able to generate about 50-100 clicks in a single mailing, only then start selling SOLOs.

Let me tell you about some basic statistics that you can keep in mind. An average solo sellers list performs at about 8-9% open rates and about 2-3% click through rates. So if you are to generate about 100 clicks in a single mailing assuming you will get about 2% Click through rates, you will need a list of about 5000 subscribers.

Another tip to ensure that your list performs well is to keep it warm at all times. Send them emails regularly – intersperse your emails with offers and valuable free content. On that point, keep in mind that you don’t overdo selling SOLO ads. Sell only as much as it doesn’t burn your list. Keep building it gradually and once you have enough subscribers you can become a regular at selling SOLOs from your list.

So that’s it in today’s episode. Before we wrap up, I have a few actionables for you.

• Start a small click-banking transaction and assess your squeeze page and the funnel to see how it performs
• Sell your first SOLO for about 50 Clicks
• Analyze your open rates and Click through rates so you know when to sell your first 100 Click SOLO.

Resources and Transcript

We would recommend that you store your list with a reliable auto-responder. And we have found that not all autoresponder providers are reliable when it comes to running a SOLO ads business.

Hence our recommended provider is Aweber. You can get your first month free at this link.

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