Why do we need traffic?
If you want passive income working from anywhere you want, any time, you need the traffic to buy your products and services. There are many forms of traffic. This post is going to focus on what to do after buying solo ads traffic and how to get the best return for your money.
Traffic to an internet offer is like a walk-up customer is to Starbucks. For Starbucks is to stay in business they need paying customers.
Email marketing is the number one way to sell on the internet
What are solo ads?
Solo ads are a form of traffic delivery to get potential buyers to look at your stuff. There are many ways to generate traffic, like running ads, banner ads, and YT ads.
The most significant difference is solo ads are delivered via email to real individual people who asked to receive emails. [You can skip right to my buy page for solo ads here.]
For example, I like gardening so I signed up for a gardening newsletter. I get regular emails in the gardening niche and these emails recommend fertilizer, water filters, seeds, etc. All this stuff is there for me to buy and someone is making money off me. I’m happy I get notified about cool stuff, I buy sometimes, and I love it!
Thousands of emails being sent to a buyers list
What to expect when running solo ads for the first time
Every time you buy and run solo ads you will provide an affiliate link to your offer. The solo ads provider will have a custom email that is proper with your landing page and promotion. Check your links to make sure they are secure like https.
What you don’t see is the solo ad provider will select certain people from their list that have an interest in your products, similar to me and gardening stuff.
The emails are placed in the queue and waiting to be sent out. Keep in mind that email traffic can be like a line at the gas pump. Sometimes there is a wait and we can’t just “spam” our list, so be patient.
Sometimes there are occasions when solo ad providers may share lists with other providers. This is good news because the reach of potential customers you can market to is not limited to just one solo ad vendor.
Monitor, Measure, Adjust, and Control
After buying solo ads we want to start out with MMAC, and as the acronym suggests can be explained as an easy logical process. I learned this years ago when I was heavily into network marketing. My good friend Mark Janezeuski taught me this technique so I could improve my sales and ultimately make more money.
- Monitor - First we monitor by watching what is going on with the campaign, clicks, country, day we did it etc.
- Measure - statistics here… we write down, spreadsheet, and track what happened.
- Adjust - Make adjustments to our funnel, landing page, date we sent campaign, but adjust only one thing and run it again.
- Control - we control the outcome by making changes that get us more clicks, more opt-ins, and ultimately more money.
Then we repeat this, over and over, just don’t stop.
Monitor & Measure your email performance
What do we monitor?
Monitoring is watching what is going on… are people opening our emails? Is it possible some are going to spam? Did the visitor click on the link?
We’re all very curious and excited when we launch a new project or lead capture funnel. Everyone wants 100% opt-in but in reality, it’s not like that. Sharing data with other funnel hackers (Russell Brunson and Clickfunnels) is key so you know what you should expect when everything is going well.
What gets measured?
Measuring can get complex but let’s keep it simple here. We want to measure our email open rate, click-through rate if someone clicks our link and the signups from our opt-in form.
Measuring way more of course like which country are they in, male/female, income levels, job, interests, and way more. We're going keep it simple for this article.
Measure your solo ad performance, continue to improve
Later in the funnel when someone does opt-in are they opening the email drip series? Are they unsubscribing? And what about sales?
Ultimately we want to make sales. Some people like to say this is a numbers game, including me. So the more people that see my offer, the more money I should be able to make.
What should be adjusted?
Adjusting the right factors at the right time with just enough adjustment is where the money is. Yes, the money is in the list. However we’re talking about adjusting your solo ad campaign, or affiliate campaign however you want to call it.
There are adjustments that you can make and I warn you that only adjust one thing at a time. Pick something that is easy to change like a headline. This is where split testing comes in so you can run more than one variation of a title during the same campaign run.
- Colors can sometimes have an effect on what a consumer thinks or does. Blue is associated with cold, Red hot, Green money, etc. The best is to google a color wheel if you’re interested.
- Font size and length of sentences. If there is way too much information the viewer could get confused. Everyone knows a confused mind does nothing (says no!)
- The “Free Bee”. What of value are you giving away if anything. For someone to give their email they want something in return and it better be worth it for them or they’re gone!
- Buttons have many sizes and shapes. What’s more important than that is the text inside the button. “Sign-up Now” may be kind of scary and some people may just exit out. “Download Your Free Guide” or “Access Free Training” sounds much better doesn’t it?
- There are still more adjustments we could geek out on but this is good enough for today.
How to control the outcome
The outcome is ultimately what happens. All online affiliate marketers want to make money and live a laptop lifestyle (most anyway). Controlling the outcome is controlling our income and lifestyle.
Nobody wants to invest money and time in their business to only fall short of their goals. Starting with realistic goals and a timeline that is acceptable is a necessary first step along with a proper mindset for success. Keep in mind of how many businesses fail because they’re undercapitalized, or they don’t have enough money to invest in traffic.
Let’s talk about investing in traffic first… Over the years I have paid ten’s of thousands of dollars for online courses, programs, coaching and live events since 1995. The one thing that stands out the most is I always needed someone to show my product(s) or business to.
I always went cheap on traffic, spending thousands of hours on organic traffic, making videos and produced them, and much more, just to get people to see what I have. Reality showed the result that was nobody saw my stuff…
The outcome is to get as many people to see your business as fast as possible. Money loves speed is another article where you can find how other entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk used “fast as possible” to get on top. In today’s world we only have our customer’s attention for a few seconds and they’re gone.
How do we control who and how much time they spend considering your product?
- Make it interesting
- Tell real stories
- Talk to ONE person not everyone in your written materials
- Be original
George's solo ads certified by Igor Kheifets
Summary
When buying solo ads you are buying a real person viewing your product and sales pitch. Ask questions as there is always a learning curve when starting a new business venture. Be patient because the solo ad provider has spent years building and emailing their list, they know what they are doing.
Commit for the long run. Rome was not built in a day, neither was any of the Guru’s lifestyles. They worked hard for years to get what they have today. Understand that it’s rare for your first run of solo ads to be a complete success.
Have a traffic budget and put that towards your business thoughtfully. An example is to run an ad campaign once a week for 8 weeks. Sounds like a lot? For some people, it might be, however, consider the lifelong benefit of passive income for you and your family… what is that worth?