1312 pending subscribers :(

14 years ago

I personally use AWeber and I had a few people who hadn't confirm their subscription so I chatted with a guy from AWeber customer service and I asked him whether I could send them a reminder and he told me that it was not possible. That's too bad.

Maybe with iContact there's something you can do. I hope 'cause 1312 people, that's a lot!

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Rich Struck

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Louise M.

I personally use AWeber and I had a few people who hadn't confirm their subscription so I chatted with a guy from AWeber customer service and I asked him whether I could send them a reminder and he told me that it was not possible. That's too bad.

Maybe with iContact there's something you can do. I hope 'cause 1312 people, that's a lot!

I'll ask iContact tomorrow. And yeah, 1312 is a lot! It's very, very annoying. I always make sure to tell them to confirm their subscriptions but I guess I need to look at how I'm doing that.

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CharismaticAuthority

Banned 14 years ago

[DELETED]

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philrry

14 years ago

Originally Posted by CharismaticAuthority

on the confirmation page, try to convince them to whitelist your email. Or have a video explaining how to confirm their subscription on your thank you page, before they get the download details

Should not really need a video to tell someone how to confirm a subscription its not really 'rocket science' :rolleyes:

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Rich Struck 14 years ago

Originally Posted by philrry

Should not really need a video to tell someone how to confirm a subscription its not really 'rocket science' :rolleyes:

You know that and I know that but apparently my surfers don't. *bangs head on desk*
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- philrry 14 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Rich Struck
  
  You know that and I know that but apparently my surfers don't. *bangs head on desk*
  
  Yes and its a pain to have to do it as it will detract from your main site theme I guess.
  
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Troy_Phillips

14 years ago

Double opt in.. got to love it .

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Rich Struck 14 years ago

Originally Posted by Troy_Phillips

Double opt in.. got to love it .

Yup, this is the part that sucks.
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CiroColonna

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Rich Struck

I use iContact for my email lists. I have 1312 people who have signed up but not confirmed their subscriptions. Most of them seem to be using Yahoo, Hotmail, & AOL so I suspect that the confirmation emails are ending up in their spam folders. Is there any way to fix this? Is it okay (or even possible) to send out a reminder email to the people with pending subscriptions?

With the double opt-in, you'll "lose" some subscribers in the process. That's unavoidable. But, in terms of percentage, what do 1,312 unconfirmed subscribers represent vs. the number of confirmed subscribers? Your numbers might not be that bad after all...

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Rich Struck

14 years ago

Originally Posted by CiroColonna

With the double opt-in, you'll "lose" some subscribers in the process. That's unavoidable. But, in terms of percentage, what do 1,312 unconfirmed subscribers represent vs. the number of confirmed subscribers? Your numbers might not be that bad after all...

I have about 900 subscribers so I'm losing more than half of them.

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VegasGreg

14 years ago

Have you noticed the emails to see if they appear to be "fake" or "duplicates"?

Sometimes people will just enter a bogus email to try and get to the download page for free. If they aren't directed there immediately, they may go back and enter a real email or just leave.

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Rich Struck

14 years ago

Originally Posted by VegasGreg

Have you noticed the emails to see if they appear to be "fake" or "duplicates"?

Sometimes people will just enter a bogus email to try and get to the download page for free. If they aren't directed there immediately, they may go back and enter a real email or just leave.

I looked through the other night and they mostly look pretty good. I didn't see any like NOWAY@NOSPAM.com etc. I did notice that many of them are from Hotmail, AOL, or Yahoo so I think the confirmation emails are vanishing into their spam folders.

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Paul Myers 14 years ago

Phil,

Should not really need a video to tell someone how to confirm a subscription its not really 'rocket science'

Not when you know how it works. Most people don't know it's needed, so they don't look for it.

Do not confuse lack of specific knowledge with lack of intelligence.

Rich,

I did notice that many of them are from Hotmail, AOL, or Yahoo so I think the confirmation emails are vanishing into their spam folders.

It's easy to think that. Are any of the confirmed subscribers from those domains? If so, the odds are good the problem lies somewhere else.

Paul
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Rikki_Fawkes 14 years ago

Hey,

I don't know how iContact works, but does the form allow you to specify the landing page after the user subscribes?

When people sign up through my AWeber form, I take them to a page where I say "Please whitelist the "@getpaidwriting.org" domain, and check your spam folders". Okay, so not quite like that, but you get the picture. Just inform them that they MUST confirm their subscription by checking their email and clicking on the link before they can benefit from your newsletters.

That might help
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GR Marketing

14 years ago

No sense in wasting your precious time mulling this over Rich.

I personally think that you really only a few options:

1) Switch to single opt-in. Think about this, if double opt-in is so key, how come all of the big name gurus use single opt-in. I've never seen a big product launch require double opt-in.

Result = Opt-in rate increases, risk of getting spam complaints increases.

2) If you want to keep double, make the lander page after opt-in an instructional page showing them how to confirm their subscription, with video and text instructions.

The thing is though, if you have to tell people to check their spam folders for your initial marketing materials, they are automatically going to associate your from name with spam. No matter how much explaining you do. Just doesn't look good in my opinion.

You could maybe offer a mystery bonus or bribe in addition to your opt-in bait if they confirm. I would tell them its a surprise, in the hopes that intrigue will get them to open my mail.

Anticipated Result = Maybe confirmation rate increases a lot or a little.

3) Tell them on your squeeze page not to use a free email.

Anticipated Result = Opt-in rate decreases, and the emails you do get may be fake ones, since a lot of people only have email provided through free email hosts.

I can't really think of anything else you can do. Switching to a single opt-in is your best bet in my opinion. If you're afraid of them accusing you of spam, simply make it quite clear in your first email to them that they signed up to your list at such and such URL, and that they can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link at the bottom of your email if they no longer want to hear from you.

I do it this way, and many others as well, and I haven't heard of any big spamming problems in my adventures online.

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thadbong

14 years ago

Hi Rich,

I would simply disable the double opt-in. Ever since I implemented this one change, I haven't experienced ANY issues in deliverability nor have I seen a rise in spam complaints. Double opt-in is simply unnecessary.

Thad

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Rich Struck

14 years ago

Rikki - It's been a while since I set it up but I think that yes, they are directed to a page that tells them to look for it in their spam folder. I don't think I used the term "whitelist" because I doubt any of them know what it means. This might be worth double checking though.

Paul - I just looked and I guess that a lot of AOL & Hotmail types are getting confirmed after all.

I think I'm going to have to go through the sign up process (again) and see if there is something that is broken somewhere. I'm getting a lot more sign ups than usual lately so it can't all be bad, I just hate losing so many.

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Rich Struck

14 years ago

Thad & GR - I think you guys are on to something, I'm going to look into losing the double opt-in. I really don't think my site is the type to generate a lot of fake sign ups anyway so I think I've been worrying too much about possible spam complaints.

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Paul Myers

14 years ago

Rich,

I think I'm going to have to go through the sign up process (again) and see if there is something that is broken somewhere. I'm getting a lot more sign ups than usual lately so it can't all be bad, I just hate losing so many.

Might be the niche. If they're not technically sophisticated enough, there may be a tendency there that's hard to overcome.

It's probably a process problem, though. The single biggest factor is the headline on the page they get after subscribing that reminds them to confirm.

One other thing to check: Are those subscriptions coming in strictly from a web form, or are there sign-ups via email, too? If there are email sign-ups, there's going to be some spam in the stew. If that's the case, you want to think more than twice about dropping the confirmation step.

Paul