Email: Single vs. Double Opt-in

Wikus Engelbrecht — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 17:37:17 +0000

GRAPHICMAIL – Newcomers to email marketing often don’t understand the difference between opt-ins and double opt-ins. If you’re wondering what opt-in email marketing actually means, then this is all the information you need.

The point of having people give you their addresses is for your email marketing message to be anticipated, delivered properly and maybe even shared. But these emails mean nothing if the recipient doesn’t understand why they’re receiving it – in which case your mailing will be disregarded or even worse, marked as spam.

So you really want to communicate to people who have opted in to your campaign? You can only consider an address opted-in if someone gave it to you by submitting a signup form or by otherwise indicating that they wish to be added to your list.

There are two main ways to let people subscribe to your emails:

Single opt-in: This means people are only added to an email list if they actually fill out your registration form. While this is a standard practice; one problem here is that people can sign up friends, family members, colleagues or just anyone they know to lists without their permission - which means you could end up sending emails to people who’ve never heard of you.

If you take that idea one step further: some people only consider an email address to be opted in if it has been confirmed twice.

Double Opt-in: When someone signs up for your email list, you send a confirmation email with a link that they must click before they’re added to your list. And if they don’t click the link, they don’t get added to the list. This is likely the best way to handle your email list, and has many advantages such as that:

Your response rates will be much higher because only the people who are truly interested in hearing from you will double opt-in.
Nobody can report you for spamming because you have proof that they’ve double opted in.
If you sell any advertising space within your email newsletters, you can charge more for it because your audience truly wants to hear from you.

Building a great relationship with your audience starts with giving them a choice. You can enable a double opt-in on your subscription form with GraphicMail. When someone subscribes to your newsletter they will receive a generic email asking them to click on a link to confirm their subscription.

Cross-published at the GraphicMail blog. Check out more email marketing insight from GraphicMail’s Wikus Engelbrecht.

Email Fashion, Double Opt-in Is The New Black

Marilyn Latham — Wed, 30 May 2007 13:47:42 +0000

You’re a hip email marketer, always up on the latest trends. Your newsletter is multipart-MIME, baby, and your list segmented nine different ways and twice on Tuesday. In short, you’re the bees’ knees of email — or so you thought.Then, one day, reading the latest glossy magazine, Vague, on the hottest trends in marketing — you discover to your horror something that makes you so last week, so analog instead of digital, so web 1.0. You’re the Jan Brady of email marketing, and you didn’t even know it! Your email fashion crime? Your list is not double opt-in.Because the reality is, we’re in the new millennium. Email marketing is an established, respected medium for promoting your products and services. Everyone has an email list these days. But what separates the Kate Moss’s from the Ugly Betty’s is their sign-up process. Your list MUST be double opt-in, or you’ll suffer the ridicule and derision of the email runway goddesses, your reputation in tatters, your voicemail without messages, your Saturday nights dateless.Double opt-in is the new black. It’s “fashion forward.” As a matter of fact, it’s more than this season’s trend. It’s the one email trend that without question will never go out of style. Despite all the vagaries of the digital marketplace, the internet as superhighway, the ways of Web 2.0, double opt-in is a mainstay. The little black dress of your email closet.

It is only through double opt-in that we can be sure that our list members truly want us. No fickle subscribers there, taunting us by signing up for our list when they’re really not sure. No bargain basement, remnant email addresses for us! No! Our double opt-in policy assures us instead of only the most devoted subscribers, committed to our newsletter, awaiting our next mailing with taut anticipation.

In short, double opt-in is what makes us legit and what assures us that our subscribers are true devotees. It’s what puts our picture on the cover, so to speak, of email marketers, never in the “what was she thinking” section, anonymous, with a black mark covering our eyes.

Now that I’ve convinced you to jump on my bandwagon and join the rest of us email trend-setters, how exactly do you go about it? First of all, you never — I repeat never — buy or rent email addresses. Don’t even think about it. Like wearing dirty sneakers to a black tie event, it will not help your cause. You want your subscribers to come to you. So, market your newsletter if you have to. Market it on your own site and buy ads on related sites. Make sure your SEO program is all that it can be, and be patient.

When someone subscribes, there’s an additional step. Don’t just take their email. No, not yet. You have to send them a confirmation email. Only when they reply to this email do you add them to your list. This is double opt-in. Live it, learn it, be it.

Why is this so important? Because not only is it the gold standard when it comes to email marketing — setting you apart from those that will take an email address in order to send out a confirmation of an order, then add that person to their regular email list without their permission! — it helps to ensure that those people who are on your list are there because they truly want to be there. Not only did they take the initiative to sign up for your list, they took the next step of confirming their opt-in request. It helps to ensure that people are accidentally signed up, due to a typo in submitting an email address.

And all this helps to keep your lists clean. Fewer bounce backs, fewer unsubscribes, fewer spam complaints. And like the perfect handbag to go with the perfect strappy sandals that match the most fabulous little cocktail dress you’ve ever found on a sale rack… cleaner lists and more engaged subscribers are what we as hipper-than-thou email marketers want!

Adotas » double-opt-in

Email: Single vs. Double Opt-in

Email Fashion, Double Opt-in Is The New Black