Solo ads

Solo ads for affiliate offers

The link is not the page. What you send readers to decides whether the order pays for itself.

Most people who buy their first solo ad are promoting someone else's product: a ClickBank or WarriorPlus launch, a CPA offer, a software trial. The traffic is the easy part. The part that decides whether the order pays for itself is what you send the readers to.

Send them to your page, not to the raw link

A seller's readers have seen a lot of emails. If the link drops them straight on a sales page they have never heard of, most leave and you keep nothing. If it drops them on a short page of yours with an email box first, you keep the address, and you can mail them about the offer again next week and about the next offer after that. That is the difference between renting a list and building one, and it is why every experienced buyer puts an opt-in page between the solo ad and the offer.

The checklist for that page is short: one headline that matches the email the seller will send, one box, one button, and the offer behind it. Keep the affiliate link on the thank-you page or in the first email, not on the opt-in page itself.

Match the seller's list to the offer

Sellers publish which countries their readers are in. A US-only software trial sent to a list that is mostly outside the US is money spent on people who cannot buy. Read the country breakdown on the listing before you look at the price, and if your offer only pays for certain countries, filter the marketplace to sellers whose traffic matches.

The same goes for the topic. Lists on the marketplace are built around online business, making money online, and working from home. An offer in that lane converts; an offer far outside it usually does not, however good the seller is.

See the marketplace and its seller stats

What to check before you pay

1. Got sales. The share of previous buyers who reported a sale. It is self-reported, so treat it as a signal, not a promise, and prefer sellers with a history of it.
2. Repeat orders. The share of buyers who came back. Nobody pays a second time out of politeness. This is the number to read first.
3. Traffic countries. Where the readers are, published by the seller. Match it to where your offer pays.
4. Price per click. Read it last. A cheap click to the wrong country costs more than an expensive click to the right one.

All four are on the listing before you pay, and the seller stats page walks through how each one misleads.

Size the first order to learn, not to win

Buy the smallest lot that gives you a readable result on your opt-in page. The point of the first order is to find out whether the seller's readers sign up on your page at all. If they do, you have a list and a second order to place; if they do not, you have spent a small amount finding out, which is the whole idea.

If you are still deciding whether solo ads suit your offer, start with what you are actually buying, then the three numbers to check.