Do solo ads work for ecommerce and are they spam?

I would recommend Google Shopping Product Ads for eCommerce stores selling product inventories.

Hi tbk125,

Funny you mention this. We've been investigating solo ads for promoting one of our stores, so I clicked on the thread to see if you had anything to say about it.

A while ago, I asked one of my employees to research and then compile a list of solo ad sellers. He also emailed each of them to get prices.

Here's a link to the spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

I have no idea whether any of them will deliver any type of quality. We are still finalising our squeeze page so haven't tried yet.

From what I understand, you won't get penalise for spam as the email comes from the solo ad seller's domain??

What have you found out?

Let's say you pick 10,000 random people from around the world who are desperate enough for money to have signed up for some MMO e-mail list. Now you pay that list owner to send out an ad for some ecommerce website of yours. What are the chances that person is (a) actively shopping for one of the products you're selling, (b) will click through a link to a store they've never heard of in an e-mail, (c) will navigate your store enough to find something they happened to be looking to buy, and (d) will trust this store they've never heard of with their payment information over just going to Amazon to buy whatever it is you're selling.

I'd imagine the number of people to go through all those mental hoops will be zero. There's a reason "solo ads" won't be found in the glossary of any traditional marketing book you'll find at the book store, nor in the textbooks of marketing programs in universities. It's a term that only exists within the IM/AM/MMO sphere, and the only ads that generally do well are those that sound like the promises of independence and easy wealth the list builder made to get those people on the list in the first place.

Focus on getting in front of the people looking for what you sell. They're probably not on the lists of people selling solo ads. Just IMHO.