Email List Building Techniques List Building Techniques How to Grow Your Mailing List With Solo Ads

How to Grow Your Mailing List With Solo Ads

How to Grow Your Mailing List With Solo Ads post thumbnail image

Updated: October 13th, 2024

If you’re new to the email marketing game, or maybe just reassessing how it’s going so far, you’ve probably noticed that one of the biggest challenges is getting a lot of subscribers.

And not just any subscribers, either; I’m talking about people who want to be on your mailing list.

People who will open your emails, click on your links, and buy products that you recommend.

Solo ads allow you to get more of these fantastic subscribers, and fast. So let’s look at how it’s done…

1. Make Sure You Have a Well-Optimized Squeeze Page

Free Training Resources
Do you have a squeeze page (also known as an optin page or landing page)?

If not, work on getting one set up.

If you don’t have a page builder, LeadsLeap and Systeme both offer lifetime free accounts that let you build these pages.

If you do create an optin/squeeze page, make sure you’ve optimized the following elements:

  • An Enticing Opt-In Bribe: Give them a reason to sign up to your list right there and then. Have something like a free e-book or report that they will receive when they sign up. Make sure it’s something of high quality that your niche audience would find useful. Don’t just throw up any old random thing.
  • A Compelling Headline: If the headline on your squeeze page falls flat, so will your opt-in rate. Make sure to ask yourself: What do they want? What am I offering them? How can I get the main benefit across quickly but effectively? Try out this free headline generator.
  • A Benefit-Focused Description: Make a list of all the benefits that come from your opt-in bribe. If it’s an ebook or a free video, outline what’s taught in it, what they’ll be able to do with it. This is your chance to convince them that they need to sign up and get it.
  • Social Proof: If you’ve managed to get any social praise for your giveaway (comments or reviews on Facebook for example) include a screenshot of that on your squeeze page. If you don’t have that yet, start by putting social sharing buttons on the squeeze page. This makes it look more trustworthy, and sets you up to have some social proof down the line.

Recommended Tools For Building Squeeze Pages

2. Find Other Marketers With Relevant Subscriber Lists

Find Other Internet Marketers
Look at other websites in your niche, and keep an eye out for opt-in forms.

If you see an opt-in form, it means that website has its own mailing list.

The best part is: Because that website is in the same niche as you, it’s highly likely that their subscribers are already interested in your niche.

These are the subscribers you want, all in one place.

You can also find Solo Ad sellers on Facebook – just do a search.

TrafficZest is a platform that gathers all the best solo ad sellers in one place and click prices are usually lower than on Udimi.

You bid for clicks and the ad sellers you pick will send ads out for you, assuming your bid is within their price range.

The only down-side with TrafficZest is that you have to lodge at least $100 on the platform before you can start buying clicks and top-ups must be at least $100 each.

Another place to find safelists to advertise on is the M3 inner Circle.

This has hundreds of top-quality safelists incorporated into its platform and when you send out a solo ad, the ad is automatically sent to all the safelists you sign up with.

It offers a lot more than that, so definitely check out what it offers instead of dismissing it out of hand – the link takes you to a very special offer that will save you hundreds of dollars a month in advertising costs.

Setup will take some time, but add a few safelists per day and your email reach will just grow and grow.

3. Ask About Their List

Ask About Their Mailing Lists

If you find a Solo Ad seller on line through your research, message the site owner or manager to ask about their list.

Ask if they sell solo ads, or if they would consider it.

If they’re not interested, no biggie; just move on and try another. If they are interested, ask them about their list.

How responsive is their audience? What’s the open rate? How much would they charge to run an ad?

Another route to take is to ask if they would be interested in doing an ad swap – you send an email to their list and they send an email to yours.

4. Decide Whether It’s A Good Deal

Is It A Good Deal Or A Bad Deal?

Once you know how responsive their list is and how much they’d charge (if you’re buying traffic), think about how much you make from your own newsletter series.

Do you think you’re likely to get a decent return on this investment?

Your goal is to get as many of their subscribers as you can to click through to your page, sign up for your mailing list, and eventually buy something you promote in your email series.

If your newsletter series isn’t set up to make money well yet, focus on that first.

Do you have an ongoing series that promotes products? Or do you send an email every now and then promoting special deals?

If you think you could make more from these subscribers than you’d spend getting them, it’s time to give it a go.

Your initial goal should be to break even. When you can do this, then you can get as much traffic as you want as the ad costs will be recouped in sales.

This way you can continue to build your list for no additional out-of-pocket expenses. If you do make profit, then that gives you an opportunity to take that profit for yourself or reinvest it in buying more traffic and scaling up your list building efforts.

5. Write a Killer Ad

How To Write Killer Ad Copy
If you decide to go ahead with a solo ad, make sure your ad is up to scratch.

If it fails to excite the readers, you could come out short.

With some solo ad services like Udimi, you only need to submit the URL (web address) you want to promote and the list owner will create the email for you.

I talked about using Udimi in this post.

Really get into the head of your audience. Include a relatable statement that outlines problems they could be facing.

Then, entice them by leading up to the solution.

Give them a strong call to action, telling them they can get the full solution for free on your page.

Be sure to give them a clear link to follow.

Once again, make sure the benefits of your freebie have been thoroughly outlined.

You want them to WANT to come and join your list.

Like anything that you’re putting money into, solo ads can be a risk.

It can take you a couple of tries to get it right. Some lists are more responsive or cheaper than others.

Some opt-in pages convert better than others.

It’s about figuring out what will work best for you.

If you’re still not too sure about paid traffic and want to get into affiliate marketing the easy way, then AffiloBlueprint offers you the ultimate step-by-step outline for getting started.

AffiloBlueprint covers solo ads in the advanced part of the course, as well as a variety of other proven marketing strategies, so you really can’t go wrong making money this way.

Of course, getting people to join your list is just the first step. You need to keep marketing to them so that you make sales and income.

If you don’t want to write emails yourself or feel you don’t have the copywriting skills needed to craft emails that will get a good response from your subscribers, you could always buy a collection of done-for-you emails.

The emails are written by one of the top marketers in the business.

Alternatively, since AI is now a thing, you can ask ChatGPT to write the email for you.

Just ask it to write the email/ad as an expert copywriter!

Or you can use multi-AI platform services like MagAI or OneAI to write ads, emails, content and create images for you.

Here are some additional Solo Ad resources for getting leads:

European Safelist and European Safelist ViralMailer are interconnected and you should join both rather than just one of them.

If you want to upgrade to one of their paid plans, upgrade in European Safelist ViralMailer.

Once your upgrade has been processed, your European Safelist account will also be upgraded to the same level plan.

Your fee covers the upgrades on both platforms.

I’d appreciate any feedback you have on using solo ads for traffic and any suggestions for tools you’ve come across that you think I should include in the above list. Just sound off in the comments…

 

 

All the best,

Gary Nugent

Check out my Instagram posts and reels here:

Follow me (@garynugentmentoring) on Instagram

 

P.S.: Don't forget, if you want to create an internet income of your own, here's one of my recommended ways to do that:

 

8 thoughts on “How to Grow Your Mailing List With Solo Ads”

  1. I often use solo ads and ezine marketing for list building. I especially like the points you make about adding social proof and sharing buttons to the page. The main thing I have found is don’t use free domains in list building as they get less than 1/4 as many new list subscribers. What email marketing software do you use? I use RocketResonder and love it there but have also used MailChimp and Aweber.

    1. Hi Andy. Right now I’m using Aweber. I did use MailChimp until they closed my account (I was building lists in the Internet Marketing niche which they don’t like).

      I also use a standalone email software called MailPrimo. Most of the autoresponder services don’t allow you to import lists of email addresses. They’ve no way of validating if they signed up with you on another service or if you bought them, possibly from a questionable source. There’s no such restriction in MailPrimo. Any leads I buy, I mail through MailPrimo and try to get them to sign up to one of my mailing lists on Aweber.

  2. Hello Gary!
    Wow what a great article. I am going to have to come back and read this again. to grasp all the information you gave us.
    In peace and gratitude, ariel

  3. Very comprehensive Gary! A real tutorial. I have bookmarked for reviewing! It is a lot to assimilate if you haven’t started a list yet, but time would be well spent taking these steps carefully.

    1. Always have a plan, Dianne! When you try to wing it, you often go off track and get distracted. List building’s no different. On its surface, list building and email marketing look simple. What to do is the easy part. How to do it is where all the nuances lie.

  4. Hi Gary. Do you have any advice on what to do if you just started and don’t have any social proof yet? What’s the best way to ask people to leave a review?

    1. Hi Meina, if you’ve just started and don’t have the budget for advertising, I recommend you learn the ins and outs of advertising first. That way, you’re less likely to blow money on paid ads because you’re advertising in the wrong way.

      A great place to start is with a lifetime free LeadsLeap account. This is an all-in-one platform that lets you create optin/squeeze pages, create link trackers (so you can see where your traffic is coming from, create popups and link rotators and do email marketing.

      A paid plan is $27/mth but you can get this discounted to $23/mth if you upgrade withing 24 hours of setting up your free account.

      The paid plan lets you advertise up to 10 offers to the LeadsLeap membership and each offer will typically get 100-150 clicks per week. You can also create a lot more assets on the platform as well.

      The European Safelist and European Safelist ViralMailer are also free to join and you can send emails to their membership every few days. The two platforms are linked, so join both.

      There are $3/mth and $7/mth upgrades to look at as they offer more features. I went with the $7/mth plan as it allows me to email the membership twice a day (HTML rather than plain text emails).

      And it lets me send out 1 solo ad per month plus I receive 500 leads per month on this plan. The only downside is that you can only use these leads in European Safelist’s own autoresponder – you are forbidden from importing them into any other autoresponder.

      Both platforms also let you set up text and banner ads that are promoted on site to the other members.

      European Safelist is one of the better safelists but don’t expect to be inundated with leads. You’re a seller competing with other sellers so you need a compelling offer to get the attention of other members.

      But it is a cheap way of getting paid traffic.

      Another safelist to look at is ViralURL. Like most safelists, being a member lets you post emails to other members and place text and banner ads on the site.

      If you’re happy being on camera, then creating a TikTok and/or Instagram where you post videos regularly (at least 2 per day) can be a great way to go.

      You can potentially reach a huge audience over time and there are no ongoing fees involved.

      These platforms expose you to a wider variety of people than you’ll find on safelists or through paid solo ads.

      However, as I mentioned earlier, you do need to remain consistent in making and posting videos. Not everyone is willing to do that, especially when they don’t see results as fast as they’d like and they get discouraged.

      You need to post every day for at least 30 days before you start getting any real traction.

      And then you have to keep posting, day in, day out, come rain, shine, sickness, etc.

      It can be incredibly financially rewarding, especially if you resonate with your audience.

      But there’s also the possibility that your video content won’t take off and you might be better off creating a totally new account with different content and a different marketing strategy.

      There’s always Pinterest as well for posting images and videos. The demographic there is mostly female so if you’re promoting to that audience that’s a good place to go.

      If you’d like some free training on Email Marketing, AI Marketing and Solo Ads Training, click here.

      Hope that info helps.

      Cheers,
      Gary

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