* Additional Clarification - The tactic discussed here is certainly not something that "everyone" uses. This post was intended as a general clarification for specific circumstances. NOT ALL SELLERS USE THIS TACTIC.
excellent post, Cliff
Awesome thanks for that.
Very well said Cliff.
Yeah i think i just got that done to me today. I usually get about 10-15% of the subs from the solo to sign up for my PPL. With this latest seller, I got ZERO sign-ups... first time this has happened. Thanks for the post, I will stay away from this seller from now on...
Folks, this is why you need to scrutinize the heck out of feedback! This behavior is shameful.
Well it's impossible to give negative feedback here. I gave this seller neg feedback, but it will not show until he gives me feedback in return (it's my guess he never will!)
Awesome post, Cliff! But regardless if they're real leads or not, you can't call it a 'solo ad' and get asked to pay for a solo ad price if they're software-generated optins.
There is a psychology behind the visitor actually opting in to a squeeze page before receiving any emails from you that affects followup sales in a big way. It's a micro-commitment thing.
Most of us buy solos because we expect to get paid UPFRONT while we're building our lists which is why we drive our traffic to a sales funnel instead of a blog post. Bottom line is, I want to get ROI now, not 2 weeks from now. In the case of software-generated optins though, those subs don't get see any one time offer page so it's impossible for any buyer to get his ad spend back (or even a portion of it) on the first day.
Software-generated optins of real email addresses should only cost 5-10 cents per email. This is just my .02.
Anyway, the most frustrating thing though is when these shady sellers feed bot generated email addresses in to your optin form. Email addresses that doesn't have any real person behind them. You feel awesome because you had fantastic optin rate, but you check your stats and see that not even one person out of a few hundred optins opened your first followup email.
It's hard to catch this kind of stuff because if you try to validate some of the addresses you got, you can see that they are real accounts or valid addresses, just that they're not accounts of real people.
I actually had a guy before contacted me on Skype asking if I wanted to buy 5k yahoo/hotmail email accounts. I just thought to myself.. this is probably where they're getting the email addresses that they feed our forms.
Angelo, I agree with you man. I just made the post to help clarify the situation for people and give them an open perspective to work from.
Jon Mon - The udimi system is still pretty new, and I see them making tweaks and enhancements all of the time. So i'm sure that eventually they will address the rating issue.
Great post Cliff and great responses. I'd just like to add also that most auto responders charge more the bigger your list grows. If some of that list is bot generated and doesn't respond to follow up messages it's a good idea to develop a sensible unsubscribe policy. That way if you are getting some dodgy subscribers included in your bought clicks they won't be costing you money on both ends.
Another potential problem I could see this causing is with complaints against your autoresponder account. I know AWeber in particular does not like complaints at all, and a bunch of people auto-submitted to your list who have no idea who you are or why you're emailing them could easily get an account flagged, or in extreme cases even shut down.
Excellent information. I see that most of the clicks are from Web OR Direct. But I hope that it has to be from Mail..
wow. I don't even know who to buy from now.....geeze.
most clicks will say no referrer or mail the rest will be filtered out I presume....
WOW Un believable. Here is what I thought... I order from someones list for my target niche in the mlm health and wellness industry.... but most say internet marketing.... so please define IM? I assumed that this seller had a list of such and sent an email to this list... I would consider getting an un solicited email would be spam if this form is true. On one solo ad I did get a bunch of opt-ins that did have fake numbers, fake emails...only 1 sign up in my business. Thank Goodness no hate email... lol I will have to think about buying a solo ad now... from not only ppl here but anywhere... I did try to leave a negative rating on one person, however its not set up right, because the seller controls the feedback... I got no opt-ins from this nice size solo ad... I never even got a reply from him...interesting to say the least.
After looking around here a bit, and seeing some of the questions, comments, and complaints, I decided to give a little clarification for those who want it.
After you have purchased a solo ad and you start getting angry messages from new subscribers demanding that you unsubscribe them immediately and that they never asked you for information in any way, don't panic!
While it really isn't likely that they signed up for your list and then magically forgot about it a few minutes later, it is possible... Unlikely but possible.
In most cases (not always - but often) what has happened is that your solo ad seller is using a software program that basically subscribes people to your list for you.
They load a list of niche specific contacts that they have purchased from a list broker into their software, and then the software subscribes them to your autoresponder, thus filling the solo ad order.
This is often done in a mix. Their real list has some clicks in it, but not enough to fill your order, so they supplement their list with the purchased list in order to complete your order.
Ultimately you end up getting real/actual subscribers as well as people who have never seen your offer before on any level.
Underhanded? Cheating? Unfair? ... Well, that depends on your own perspective.
The reality is that most of the people who end up on your list have really interacted with your niche on some level at some point, and so they really are niche targeted even though they didn't necessarily subscribe to your offer specifically.
So, being specific, you didn't actually get what you paid for because you paid for the solo ad seller to send you real subscribers (clicks) from his real email list, and he hasn't done that entirely.
On the other hand, you now have people subscribed to your list who are interested in your niche (with the exception of the few who complain).
So although they landed on your list under less than perfect circumstances, they still landed on your list, and it has been my own experience that with some relationship building you can convert the same percentage of those subscribers into buyers as you can the ones that were legitimate.
What can you do to protect yourself from this? Nothing. As long as you are buying solo ads, there will always be risk of getting this tactic used on you.
The only way to protect yourself fully is to truly do your own list building using more traditional (and costly) advertising venues.
So, before you send your next complain, or damage your own reputation and your solo ad providers reputation, take a moment to ask yourself this...
Was my true intention to get niche specific subscribers into my list, or was my intention to only get subscribers from this one specific person/seller?
Don't be too quick to answer - Take a moment to put aside your moral standing on the issue and look only at the end result. - Once you have answered that question for yourself, you'll know if you want to continue using solo ads to build your list, or if you want to use the much more expensive and time consuming approach and built it yourself.
*For the record. I am not a solo ad seller, and I do not represent this website, it's owners, or it's affiliates in any capacity. I am simply offering clarification for those who want it.