Email Optin Lists – Heaven or Hell?

It’s a well known fact that email optin lists are the lifeblood of many successful Internet marketers. They represent ‘customers on demand’ and, according to the industry, have a ‘rate of return’ of $1 per subscriber per month.

So, if you have 1,000 subscribers you can earn $1,000 per month. Or if you have $50,000 subscribers you can earn $50,000 per month.

But let me tell you a story.

In August 2010 I purchased a year’s worth of Solo Ads. This is where you pay someone with a large list, in this case 60,000, to mail out your promotion each month. I paid $995 for a year’s worth of monthly mail outs.

I saw this as an excellent way to rapidly accelerate my list building so I was prepared to pay the fee.

I did the maths. Even if the click through rate was as little as 2%, this would represent 1200 clicks per month. My Squeeze pages usually convert to over 50%. So, to be conservative and use 40% as the guide this would mean 5760 subscribers for the year.

So, in future that’s an extra $5,760 per month. Easily worth the $995 initial investment you would think. This was using very conservative figures.

I eagerly prepared my first set of Solo Ads. After payment I did not hear from the marketer for weeks. After many emails and follow-ups the first Solo Ad did go out.

I received 87 subscriptions from a mail out to 60,000 people using a squeeze page that is proven to convert at 60%.

The results since the first Solo Ad have been similar, regardless of the offer being used. Why would this be?

It could be that my mail out is not going to 60,000 people at all and that I am being lied to. I have no way of proving this.

It is more likely that the marketer concerned, much like many others, promote products, paid and unpaid, every day of the week. Sometimes twice a day.

Their list is burnt out and useless apart from a few initial sales every day. They rely on the newcomers to create a steady daily income.

People on these lists soon start to ignore the endless barrage of emails and promotions as they essentially offer no value at all. The majority unsubscribe or simply ignore.

The lesson from this story?

If you are thinking of investing in Solo Ads you should:

1) Ask for proof of open and click rates for the last 10 broadcast emails.
2) Set up a schedule for when your ads will go out.
3) Ask for targets for the Solo Ad campaign. There is no reason why you cannot ask for a guarantee that ‘X’ number of subscriptions will be achieved.
4) Ask for proof that your Solo Ad went out to the number of people it said it would.
5) Look to see what kind of promotions and emails get sent out from the person offering the Solo Ad. If they mail out every day with en endless stream of offers then you can be sure that response rates will be very low.

Email Optin Lists Are Gold

Email optin lists are gold dust for marketers and Solo Ads can be an excellent way to accelerate  your list building efforts. But if you want to avoid the over promotion hell then do your due diligence and double check who you are going into business with.

Have you had experience with Solo Ads? It would be great to hear other peoples experiences with using Solo Ads – leave your comments below.