Udimi is one of the top solo ad providers to date. While it gets good reviews, let me explain the risks of it and why you can get better leads, for less.
Firstly, allow me to explain what this place is, in case you’re new:
What is Udimi?
Udimi is a solo ad network which connects people, firstly, group A who have email lists (mainly pertaining to make money online type audiences) with group B, that are people seeking to collect email lists.
The group A people can charge whatever they like per click and if person B likes the deal, they can order an X amount of clicks and get those audiences to their websites.
There is a common rumor that using solo ad networks is one of the best ways to get targeted traffic to your website and collect an email list quickly. From what I’ve seen though, realistically, things turn out opposite in most cases, and this is what I’ll be discussing in this article.
Also before I go further, I’d love to hear from any Udimi users or anyone who has used a solo ad network in the past or present and to please share your experience below.
My experience with Udimi:
So let me just say that I am not a user of this network (for the GOOD reasons below).
However, I am an expert on traffic generation, more importantly laser targeted traffic generation so I know about this subject very deeply, and I will be giving you my personal thoughts on how to get even better traffic, for less, to your site instead of using this network further below.
However, I am discussing Udimi in this article, because I often see it being recommended to me through the make money online programs I review. It’s recommended so often, that either you get the impression that it must be good or perhaps they just don’t know any better, so everyone says the same thing.
My experience in this matter is mixed, and the reason why is because the same programs which recommend I use Udimi are generally very poorly set up and don’t get into enough details about how to use solo ads properly, so just recommending this network isn’t enough to get results, odds are, you’ll probably lose money if you don’t know what you’re doing.
But just because I stumble onto bad programs which recommend this network shouldn’t mean that the network itself is bad. Therefore, I want to give you positives about it, as well as the negatives, but first:
The good things about Udimi:
At least based on their own words, they do make sure to filter out who is allowed to sell clicks on their network (group A), meaning they make sure you don’t buy fake clicks or bot clicks (also fake). I’m glad to see this as click fraud is very rampant in the solo ad network world.
Generally, the reviews are favorable from the people I’ve seen, meaning the above statement about them selling you legit clicks is real.
The other good thing is that the sellers (group A people) have ratings associated with their account, meaning you can pick out the most favorable sellers with the most positive reviews to buy clicks from and therefore feel you are making a safe investment.
The bad things:
1) There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Udimi has the same core issues any other solo ad provider does, meaning that the traffic, while marketed as being targeted may not exactly be that.
2) Generally, from what I know, solo ad traffic is NOT an instant converter so if you buy from even the best sellers, do not try to sell them on something immediately.
You are probably better off getting their email first and giving them a ton of value before you even consider a sales pitch. This means sales come down the line, not right away.
3) You have to understand that people who sell their email list through networks like these are basically (and I’ve said this before) “pimping it away” to anyone who will pay for it and the people who are on the person’s list are going to get bombarded with offers like crazy, meaning it’ll make them either unsubscribe or look at your list or offer with mass skepticism because they are so used to seeing “get rich quick offers”.
4) I deal with people who sell my email to solo ad providers and let me tell you, I look at them all as spammers and it’s not because they are actually that, it’s because I get so many offers about how “this system” is the on that’ll work that the message is lost and I look at everything like it’s a scam.
You can bet most people who are on email lists of those who sell that list on Udimi are skeptical too, so it’s tougher to break through that as someone who seeks to make sales off that.
5) I’m skeptical about the reviews sellers have on Udimi, not because I doubt their authenticity, but because most people can’t really gauge the real value of a seller. Sure if you buy 300 clicks and get 100 opt ins, you’ll be happy and give the seller a thumbs up, but I’m sure most of those 100 clicks will not get you anywhere down the line, so that positive review is really not accurate.
The more likely a seller (group A) is to sell their email list to a buyer, the more I doubt the seller’s credibility. Why? Because anyone who has an email list knows the value of it and won’t just give away those emails, it’s like giving away trust in some cases (if it leads to the person on the other end getting spammed with get rich quick schemes).
And all of these cons CANNOT be monitored by even the best solo ad providers, not Udimi, not anyone else. It’s just a system with core issues that cannot be regulated. You can only keep these cons in mind if you’re considering buying the solo ad, so you’re careful and don’t waste money.
They also have a referral network, meaning people can promote Udimi. And I suspect this is a big reason why so many blogs are recommending it. It makes me less likely to believe this works.
Let me give you my approach to targeted traffic.
Generally speaking, to make money online, you want to get the most targeted visitors you can to your site. But most
people cannot even understand this simple concept and if you’re in this group, you have no business doing solo ads.
Let me explain it like this. Consider 5 categories of traffic:
Category 1: Junk traffic.
This is the one you never want to get. Usually this comes from traffic exchange websites and sites which are unregulated. You can end up getting mass amounts of click fraud and traffic that just doesn’t buy at all. More info on junk traffic here.
Category 2: Cold traffic.
With cold traffic you’ll probably get real people clicking and visiting your site, but their interest and trust in your and your content is null, meaning you have to work to convince the to trust you, sign up to you or buy from you. This is also traffic I would avoid getting to your site.
Category 3: Warm traffic.
Here you get visitors to your site who somewhat know about you, your content and are somewhat open to your offer. You won’t get rid of them quickly, but you will still have to work to get them to become buyers. This traffic is better to collect an email list through.
Category 4: Hot traffic.
Here people know who you are. Maybe they got a recommendation from someone they trust to visit your site, maybe they found your site through Google, or an ad that perfectly fits their search query. Either way, this is great traffic to get to your site, and you can consider it laser targeted, which is also a subject in traffic generation you need to understand in order to make money online.
Category 5: Buyer traffic.
This is a mix of hot traffic but specifically hot traffic that KNOWS what they want and they come to your site ready to buy it. For example, say I have an email list and I warm up subscribers in it to an offer I eventually pitch. I also call it laser targeted traffic, but more on the buying end.
I make it so good that the expectation of buying the product is a must for them. Then when I send out the promotion to my email list, they buy it in droves.
I’ve had this happen before when I had an email list that was giving away diet tips and I had a very loyal list. Eventually when I pitched a new diet program I had found, which I liked, many of them bought it on day 1 when I sent out the email. I made $1,000’s in a few days.
I’ve also utilized this buyer traffic examples to make nearly $200,000 from a one page site explained here.
When it comes to solo ads, you’ll get traffic from categories 1-3 (cold-junk).
In most solo ad networks, you’re likely to get this kind of low quality traffic in most place, while in good, rare places, you’ll get a minority of WARM, category 3 traffic, but you’ll also pay a ton more for it.
What I’m trying to say here is that it’s tough to convert solo ad traffic, especially when you don’t know where it’s coming from. And even if you do somehow find a good solo ad provider, I assure you, the person selling that list out isn’t going to do it for cheap.
But overall, no matter how good a solo ad provider is or how good the deal a person is offering, I don’t know their list, I don’t know their wants, their history, their expectation and what I’ll be getting, so when I make the order and they come to my site, and don’t convert, only then will I know if it’s truly workable.
In addition, you also need to understand how to make your own landing/squeeze pages that can turn even cold traffic into subscribers and that’s another tough deal.
What I advise doing for traffic generation will ensure that:
You get at worst a category 3 (warm visitor) to your site and at best a category 4 visitor (hot). You can then turn them into category 5’s (buyers) and my tactics do NOT involve using solo ads.
Instead here is what I do. There are 2 ways I get traffic to my site, all of which is warm traffic and up:
In situation 1 (organic traffic), it’s very targeted, warm and free, so that right there saves me money and risk from buying from a solo ad provider I don’t know.
In situation 2, I am paying to get traffic, but because I understand the whole concept of targeted traffic, I’ll ALWAYS get the warm and up audience from this and the money I spend for each visit is usually under $0.10, which is several times LESS than what I’d spend for a solo ad click (which usually is $0.30 and up).
Because I’ve had so much success with these approaches to getting traffic, I’ve never found the need to risk doing solo ads, including through Udimi and that is why I don’t use them.
My final thoughts:
The fact of the matter is that solo ad traffic, regardless of which legit provider it comes from still falls under the same rules as any other solo ad network, and that is, it involves people with email lists pimping out offers to their leads from whoever pays them money, and that itself tarnishes the trust of the lead.
They are (rightfully so) going to be more defensive about ANY offer they get sent, no matter how good, and that will likely, at best make them a COLD lead, so the person who spends to get those clicks and sign ups may end up paying more than they need.
It’s far better that a potential lead or someone who buys from you, finds you instead of you finding them and through my options, that is exactly what happens.
And as a result, when they land on your site, they aren’t on the defensive, they are more open to your offers, your email list and your promotions, and that makes the chances of a sale and success far better.
Hi Vitaliy, very good post. I have had a lot of personal experience with Udimi. Both good and bad. However, this platform I have found is a way to get leads quickly to your email list. There are a lot of good vendors on there that are willing to help you with your campaigns.
At the same time, there are some that really don’t care and seem shady in the delivery of their clicks.
Lately, I have been using a vendor that came from Udimi named Glen Fedourk. He is pretty amazing when it comes to the quality of his traffic. He also makes suggestions and helps to get you sales. Have you ever tried him?
Hi Steven, I have never heard of Glen but in the solo ads world, there are good (but very rare) click vendors and it sounds like you found one of them. I personally do not seek to do business with solo ad vendors simply because of the cons in the business overall, and I’d rather spend my money on PPC clicks vs solo ad clicks any day.
What is the name of this other solo ad provider you mentioned as an alternative to Udimi?
Great post and good info.
Honestly, I would never pay a Solo Ad company, for those reasons, it is pricey, and you’re not sure if it works. Also, be very careful not to fall into a scam.
About the mention of Wealthy Affiliate, I’m a member for a while now, and this platform is all what you need.
They teach you how to rank, how to earn, how to use ads in a FREE way, so really, join that instead of considering paying those kinds of companies.
Thanks for sharing it!
Hi Emmanuel, I’d like to clarify that WA teaches various forms of advertising, and the free ones would be SEO and social media, and there are paid ones, but they teach you to spend very little money on those.
Hey there,
Udimi seems like interesting and unique but a bit confusing concept nonetheless, although it’s not something that attracts my attention due to some problems that it has, like being restricted in terms of niches and it having to solely depend on a user’s selected niche.
I’ve heard that it mostly focuses on the ”Make Money Online” niche, therefore it’s not going to work for a lot of people. Is this statement correct?
However, I really like the whole idea of sellers having ratings associated with their account, meaning that buyers will be able to do some research and find for themselves the best sellers for their niche, which is cool!
I really admire the fact that there is protection from scammers and bad content in general, this is very important! I was also pleased to learn that Udimi offers good tech support, great stuff! How are the sales metrics, are they somewhat accurate?
Typically most solo ad networks have people selling clicks and leads in the make money online niche, but I do believe Udimi offers more than just that niche topic to buy solo ads from. There’s nothing really confusing about this place though, you simply find a topic for which you wish to buy traffic for to send to your site, then you order it and the person on the other end sends out an email blast to their list linking to the page.
The problem though like I said is that you don’t really know the quality of that traffic. Sure if I have a squeeze page talking about making money online and I order clicks from Udimi from someone who has even the highest ratings to send me MMO traffic, I am almost certain that traffic will at best in category 2 with a minority being in the 3rd category, meaning in most cases, I’ll have to blast through a lot of money to get some quality leads, so overall my ROI will be low at first.
The truth is that through solo ads, you will likely never know the TRUE kind of click and visitor that’s coming to your site and what their intent is, and this lack of information makes spending money on this stuff very risky.
It is far better to go about traffic the other ways I listed because the value (in the 1-5 categories) is far more on the higher end, and what you TRULY want and NEED to attract to your site.
I used solo ads years ago,but only a few times and back than it was a huge waste of time and resources. It sounds like they have not changed much over the years. I often thought of them as junk addresses, so it was refreshing to read in your article that Udimi at least makes sure or tries to make sure you are not buying fake clicks.
Well I’m positive you aren’t going to get fake clicks or bot clicks, but that doesn’t mean most of the clicks will be quality ones either Cathy. By just simple logic alone, you cannot expect to get high quality traffic from solo ads. Let me offer an example…
Suppose I collect 1,000 emails of people interested in making money online fast (the most common offers in solo ad networks) and then I put up an ad within the solo ad network saying I’ll send you those 1,000 clicks for $100.
You pay me the $100 and I send those visitors. But there’s SO many negative factors that go on afterwards that you need to consider:
1) How much does my list of 1,000 people trust me? If I send out an email blast pitching your site, how many clicks will I get? Probably far less than the 1,000.
In my experience, anyone who possesses a HIGH value email list will NEVER sell it and will keep it for themselves to pitch their own offers. This is logical because if that person starts to blast out pitches to join other programs, the list will start eroding in their trust.
2) It’s a safe bet to assume that a MAJORITY those 1,000 people that I email your site to will NOT sign up or join your site, because what I tell them and what you say on your site will likely not align with what they expect, so you may get a few 100 opt ins or clicks at best.
3) You’ll likely be out a $100 and I’ll probably have less trust from my list in the process.
Now I’m giving you the most likely scenarios (and most of them are negative unfortunately).
But there are positives though. For example, if you and I are good friends and we both produce high quality products for making money online, then this exchange could work, BUT…
With solo ads, this type of relationship doesn’t exist. I’m buying clicks from someone I don’t know, with an email list I am not familiar with. It’s like making a blind bet and more likely than not, it will not produce good results. That’s why in essence, solo ads are a bad investment.
I’ve never used solo ad’s but it has been on my mind for some time. I’m still in the process of building up a website to gain organic traffic. Glad you recommend this approach! I assume there’s a cost involved at Udimi? What makes Bing ad’s so different to, I assume there’s a cost there also?
Yes Udimi costs money Nigel, you have to buy solo ads from one or more of their members, as they are the people with their own email lists who send your site/squeeze page traffic. Bing Ads also costs money, but you pay individually per click and you WILL pay less for better quality visitors IF you know how to do that.
The program I recommend does teach the Bing Ads strategy the way it should be done, but it is at an advanced training level, before that people learn what I honestly consider to be even more important, which is getting organic, free traffic.
I believe based on what you said in your comment, that you’re still fairly new to all of these things, in which case, my advice would be this:
Do not buy solo ads.
Do not start with Bing Ads.
Start with Wealthy Affiliate, and let their training help you build a site and experience to be ready for Bing Ads which they will properly prep you for.