double or single opt-in?

I just got tired of seeing too many unconfirmed opt ins so I'm currently trying single to see how it goes. If those stats are correct though, double might still be the way to go as I only lose about 10 - 15% of people because they never confirm.

Thing is these people who don't even bother to confirm are probable never going to buy anyway, so I guess you don't really lose anything.

Anyways, I'll test and see!

I am surprised by those stats, so may change what I do , when I use aweber I have no choice but double optin, however most of my stuff is now with GR and I have always chosed the single optin, may review this now......thanks for the info

And the single opted-in ones didn't "choose to subscribe to your list"?! This doesn't make much sense, does it? And even if it were true, using single opt-in would still leave you with all the same people who would have confirmed, if you were using confirmation, wouldn't it? It's not as if using single opt-in instead of confirmed opt-in loses you one single person? So this "reasoning" isn't too impressive.


This is no more logical, either: whether someone "remembers" has nothing to do with whether they confirmed their address at the time of the opt-in. Seriously, who's going to remember that, months later? Whether people complain to your autoresponder company depends on what you send them, not on whether you got them to confirm their email addresses.

For me, this was simply untrue. I had no better CTR's with confirmed opt-in than I now have with single opt-in.

Why do you "gain higher-value customers"?! I don't believe a word of this.

Which customers do you lose by using single opt-in instead of confirmed opt-in? Now, let me see ... ah, yes, that's right: the answer would be none at all!

And "fewer unsubscribes" isn't an advantage at all, is it?

I want to make it as easy as possible for people who don't want to be on my list to unsubscribe. There's no point at all in sending email to people who have changed their mind about wanting to receive it, is there?

This is what I always find, in discussions of "single and confirmed opt-ins": the arguments and "evidence" adduced in favor of the confirmation (it isn't really "evidence" at all, of course - it's only unsubstantiated personal beliefs) simply don't stand up to examination at all, to anyone with much experience of actually earning most of their living this way.

I switched a long time ago from confirmed opt-in to single opt-in, and benefited significantly from it, in all of my niches.

I don't acknowledge that risk: the reality is that they're no less likely to open my emails just because they haven't been through email-address confirmation at the time of their original subscription! Like many other experienced email marketers here who use single opt-in, I've done both and seen for myself. Some of your reasoning is mistaken, here: you're assuming that an individual subscriber's prospects can somehow be "improved", from your perspective, by having him confirm his email address - and that just isn't so.

Collectively, they may be a little different, but that's because there are more of them, when you don't ask for confirmation: it isn't because you've lost any of the good ones! You've just added more people - some good and some bad. If the few "bad" ones lower the "average quality", it still increases your income.

There are invariably more subscribers to start with, when you use single opt-in.

If you use opt-in confirmation, absolutely everyone successfully subscribed to your list would also have been subscribed to the same list if you'd used single opt-in instead. Not a single person would have been "lost" by using single opt-in instead. This much is pretty unarguable, it seems to me. Their open-rates aren't any higher just because you asked them to confirm their email addresses at the time they originally opted in. The additional subscribers you'll have by using single opt-in instead may, overall, be "of lower average quality" than the first group and may open fewer emails, I suppose. Some people apparently mind that, while others don't. I don't. They're only "additional" people, anyway - it's not as if anything's actually been lost.

Using single opt-in instead doesn't - and can't - somehow reduce the "quality" of the people who would successfully have confirmed their email addresses anyway. They're all still there.

To me - and this is point I admit is purely a subjective one - it's also very telling that in all the WF threads dicussing "Single or Confirmed Opt-In?" almost all the marketers I trust and respect and think are highly successful are the ones consistently speaking out in favor of single opt-in.

For myself, I'm unreservedly pleased that I switched to single opt-in, and I've gained significantly from having done so.

Thanks a lot for your feedback, especially to Alexa, always a pleasure to see your comments.
I'm glad that you go for single opt-in. I was always doing this because most of the eboosk/WSOs and so on teach this.... then I saw those stats of getresponse and was wondering what others are using, if there is a trend to change to double opt-in or not....
So I think I will also stay with single opt-in and completely agree that in the end what matters is the content of the mail you send out (like subject, header, content of the mail and so on....)

There are two very important words in email marketing: "It depends." Double opt-in is a best practice which is a standard for ESPs. We aren't writing the bible here, we are giving people something to think about. We regularly do analysis of such things and post the results and our conclusions. Those conclusions may jive with your experience or they may not. We can only go by the data we collect. The only absolute I can give you is that you should consider such conclusions and test to see what works best for you as the individual marketer.

Test, test and test.

Regards,
jim

Interesting statistics, but I've always got a lot more optins using single optin than with double. In the early stages the relationship is rather tenuous, so I think its not a good idea to make them jump through too many hoops.

I believe these stats but they are completely misleading. If we delete your whole list except for the handful of people who open every email and click in every email, then your opens and clicks will be 100%, so should we tell everyone they should delete almost their entire lists to get 100% open rates? This is basically the exact same logic that is done in this article.

DOI is an invention by email services to benefit email services by protecting them against newbie list builders who may try risky behaviors such as misleading for opt ins for example, purchasing bad traffic, etc.

Aweber & mailchimp experience less spam, so win for them, they could care less if your list is less profitable.

DOI should ONLY be considered when you are paying on CPA for your traffic. And even then, you will still want to mail the SOI that have not DOI.

I collect contacts with an optin form to an sql database, and send a welcome message. I export the contacts to an excel file and import them into mailchimp.
All this to avoid double optin.
Is there an easier way to do this?

I agree with Alexa on this.

Personally, I'm on the side of confirmed opt-in. I want to make sure that we stay completely above board and ethical and confirmed opt-in is just taking that extra step to make sure we do.

HOWEVER, then I started doing PPC purely to build a list. It was working well too... until 2/3 of my opt-ins did NOT confirm! I'm paying hard $$$ to acquire those subscribers and I can't communicate with most of them because they can't be bothered to confirm their subscription. Grrrr!

It's a good example of "You are not your subscriber/customer" because I ALWAYS confirm when asked to do so. Of course, not everyone understands the process or lives their entire life online like I do...

But when I'm using PPC to build a subscriber list and 2/3 DON'T confirm... I may as well be throwing that money in the trash -- literally.

I use AWeber and have been with them a long time (over 10 years), since BEFORE they allowed single opt-in. I didn't even have the option to turn on/off single opt-in -- until I called AWeber recently, screeching about all the money I was losing...

They were ale to give me the option to use single or confirmed opt-in, but ONLY for future lists -- NOT for any current lists. Good thing I caught this early in my PPC ventures, BEFORE I spent a lot and built up significant list numbers.

I quickly created a NEW list (and new opt-in form) to replace my main list and put the new form on my website. (My website is heavily customized, so finding the correct places in the PHP templates was a bit challenging and time-consuming, but I got it done.)

I also collect snail mail and phone info on the backend via my 1 Shopping Cart account. Now, instead of being re-directed to a "Please confirm your subscription" page, they're immediately re-directed to my 1SC page and asked for all of their info. (I consider that my confirmation.) Anyone who submits their complete contact info is much more interested and committed.

The first time out of the gate, I THOUGHT I got just 8 subscriptions after a day of FB PPC, judging by the 1SC notifications I got. It was very disappointing -- UNTIL I logged into AWeber and discovered a total of 23 MORE subscriptions, most of whom had never confirmed! I was THRILLED to find out that my ad had NOT been a failure, but was instead a huge success. The breakdown was in the subscription process.

I quickly changed it. I called AWeber, got the option to switch to single opt-in, created a new list, redirecting them to the 1SC page for their full info (instead of a "please confirm" page). Then I tested the SAME ad. I made no changes to the ad itself, only to the subscription process.

Ironically, I got EXACTLY 23 new subscribers that second day, but this time, my numbers flipped: more than 2/3 filled out the 1SC form -- AND I can communicate with ALL of my subscribers now.

I was one happy camper after seeing the results of my changes. The good news is that I caught the problem early and fixed it without wasting much time or money.

I may turn double opt-in back on later, if I become large and well-known and want to protect myself against spam accusations. But for now, when I'm just starting this and want to grow my subscriber base quickly, single opt-in is a great choice.

Hope that helps!

Michelle

simple solution, use single opt in and on your squeeze page have this text "as we have not met before, pls check your junk/spam for my message"

I recon a lot of these autoresponder stats come from traditional e-Commerce sites rather than IM users. The clients of some of the big e-commerce sites will be very different from those that IM'ers deal with. So, these stats wont be applicable across the board.

Your response rates for double opt-in will be lower, especially if you are promoting an IM, mass market, free ticket item on your squeeze page. This is because of the type of traffic you're attracting with your opt-in offer.

Contrast this with say the e-newsletter from USA Today. You are not comparing apples with apples. Each market is different and I don't know that extrapolating anything from a Get Response industry report will necessarily tell you anything useful about your own market except in the broadest possible terms e.g. does email marketing still work???

(1) If I am not mistaken AWeber still allows single opt-in for new accounts.
Only if you have turned on confirmed opt-in or AWeber has forced you to, then you cannot go back (easily).

(2) Open Rates, Click Thru Rates, … all bogus metrics. What counts is your money earned!

(3) Have you observed big launches in the guru internet marketing space? All single opt-in with only a few exceptions! Why do you think is that? Full inbox, little attention span, ... people might not notice your single "Please confirm" email but may act once they have a couple of messages from you in the box. Confirmed opt-in takes away that opportunity.

BTW: EU regulations require confirmed opt-in.

@AlisonM - What difference does it make if you are paying cash for a banner ad or not. That is immaterial. The simple fact of the matter here is that if you choose double opt-in and your subscriber does not confirm (for *whatever* reason), you've lost them. Period.

I personally prefer single opt-in. They already agree to receive emails from me once, that's good enough for me. If they decide against it, they can always unsubscribe, which would be exactly the same if they agreed to be on my list twice.

I manage an e-commerce site and I acutally use both. If the customer buys a plugin or theme from my site and opt-in to my mailing list, I use single opt-in because I consider it more important for them to get emails from me (updates, support, new products, etc.). They'll also be more likely to remember purchasing from my site and know that that's why they're receiving the email.

On the other hand, I have an opt-in on some of my site's forms (contact, WordPress support, etc.) that utilizes the double opt-in. This is because people are less likely to need emails from me and to remember why they're getting them.

So, in my opinion, I'd consider using both depending on the situation.

I say double

@steflove - Did your keyboard run out of virtual ink? ;-)

I think most of the experts recommend double. I had the same issue recently and did some investigating. Double provides better quality leads who dont unsubscribe as easily.

I think that's really easy to decide. I am a subscriber on many list and I think I will open an email as long as it has great info for me, no matter it's double or single opt-in.

People only opt-in because they "WANT" what you offer or giveaway, report, if they are good and you let them know there are more great useful content on the way, they will wait to open your next email.

I'm agree 100% with Alexa on this list building subject. It does not matter if you use double optin instead of single optin if you don't instill the know you, like you, trust you priciples.

I always use single optin and have very few spam complaints. Maybe one every 2 years. I have my autoresponders set up to remove email bounces if the email bounces two times. This is one way to help keep my list cleaner.

The problem I worry about more than anything is email spoofing.

This is where a spammer uses your email address as their sending address and then I get blamed for the spamming and start recieving a lot of bounced emails to my server. I had to delete one of my email addresses to stop one spoofing attack.

I hope this has been helpful,
Steve Yakim

I always used double and switched to single recently.
What stops me going back to double is the recent Gmail update.
Can't imagine people bothering to look through their tabs to confirm.
Maybe though double will become the law at some point.

Advising them on your thank you page makes no difference at all.
Some people barely use email.
People have better things to do in the grand scheme of their day than to go fiddling with their tabs.
Keep it simple, that's all they ask for.

Ive always used DOUBLE OPT IN!

The qulaity of the list is much better than SINGLE OPT IN.

I changed to single opt in recnetly so i think its for the best

Well how many times do you check your spam and bin folders?
Me - hardly.
The promotios tab is just the equivalent of those.
If it does not drop in my inbox then I'm not desperate for an IM mail.
Could that be why read rates have dropped?
Clever chaps those people at Google I'd say

Always single if you can!

I'm glad it's working for you and Alexa.
I'm probably doing it wrong so whatever I can learn all the better.

For all the "obvious" reasons... double opt-in's get more opens and much higher clicks. You'll also save by cutting down your email marketing list subscribers. Why keep non active subscribers on the list and pay more money?

A new service that has been in development for 18 months called ListStream.NET -- offers no single opt-in in the control panel. The reason? Single optin catches literally hundreds of spam trap email accounts (expired accounts on Yahoo! and other major ESP) and is reported for spam. Single opt-in is borderline illegal according to spam laws. Opt-In Laws in the USA and EU

I am in agreement. A single opt ensures the same amount of quality leads as a double opt in. The fact that single opt ins also encourage more bad leads just gives you a chance to convert them with good quality content. You wouldn't have had this option should you have started out at double opt in.

Double opt in does have it's place. It depends what you type of subscriber is on your list. If you have a free newsletter typically it is a good thing to do double opt in. If you are in this business mostly to market products I prefer single opt when marketing as most people don't care to "confirm" from my experience thus resulting in less leads and less $.

I just have to say that both Lexy and John McCabe have made excellent points in this thread. I always learn a new trick here or a new idea.

I have tried both and my results were that I got greater opt-ins on the single but I was concerned due to the issue of truly getting a valid email. I don't want to get in a Honey Pot with a bunch of stolen emails in it and then I find out it is now a setup for a fine. So I switched to a dbl opt-in. I am likely going back to a single opt-in after thinking about the logic and my wording in my opt-in message including the needed opt-out required by the AHJs.(Authority Having Jurisdiction)

I would think twice though of hosting my own Campaign off my own SMTP or ISP especially if on a shared server account. For (1) your limited to how many you can send in one campaign from your own ISP due to a possible high bounce rate ( maybe a 100 or so) and (2) if you have a newly acquired "bad list" you could be responsible on getting your site shutdown or having the IP address Blacklisted ( bad news for other sites on a shared IP/ISP site) .

I would search for a SMTP provider with remote relay forwarding or an A/R built in the service.

Respectfully...Just my two cents.
Steve aka Afreeman

That said, I would consider single opt-in

When you use single opt in you the opurtunity to reach more people. The trick is to clean your list of people who havn't open an email in X period of time.