TBH: Single or double opt-in?

Single opt-in all the way for me.

I lose a load of prospects through aweber using double particularly those on Yahoo and similar...

It doesn't have to do with single vs. double.

It has to do with a few other things
1) The subject line of the email
2) How long its been after they first opted in (did they forget about you?)
3) The fact that lots of people on solo ads get a RIDICULOUS amount of emails every day

Now you said they aren't getting opened- what's your open rate? The industry standard is probably a lot lower than you were expecting.

Well, sometimes it can be due to a variety of reasons:

- your squeeze page might not be very attractive
- the solo ad vendor's list might not be very responsive to your product
- the solo ad vendor's list might be packed with freebies seekers

Buying Solo ads is somewhat like a gamble. You just gotta keep trying with different solo ad vendors

Me personally, I LOVE single opt-in When someone opt's through my squeeze page, they don't have to confirm anything, taking away so much barriers from them actually getting to the email.

They go straight to my Thank You page telling them to check their email and while there on the Thank You page, I have 1 or 2 similar offers they may be interested in. I've been using this with success for a long time.

I've never really got any complaints on the autoresponder side, as long as you're treating your list like you should, you don't have to worry about complaints when you send them a broadcast etc.

The only upside to double opt-in is just incase this happens, it gives you more leeway and your autoresponder company won't take it so personal because it shows that they opted-in through double opt-in.

BUT, I rather keep all of my subscribers through single opt-in especially when doing expensive solo ads.

There has to be continuity in the ad to get the subscriber, the text on your optin form, and the content of the emails. Without all of these, emails will go unread. Also, some words trigger spam filters so maybe your message had some hot words in it.

I always use single opt-in. When I first started I used double opin and only about 30% went through and verified their email. One problem with the single optin is that people often will enter a fake email to see if they can get straight to the download page or whatever the offer is. I think your problem in this exact example is the solo ad service you used. I once had a banner ad campaign that I did not set to specific countries. I ended up with lots of overseas subscribers and got very little out of it. The product I was selling was kind of expensive for that part of the world. So I had lots of people on the list but only US and Canada people were buying so I made a simple change and bang I was in profit. I would try different ways to get people on your list and try testing different offers and headlines.

I say that if you are getting a truck load of traffic such as over 2k, than I would go for double opt, but for less than that I go for single.

I agree with others. I have used single opt-in successfully and been able to engage the list. I would say as long as you are getting 10% + open rates you are doing pretty good. Test, test, test until you find the right combination of traffic + offer.

Thank you guys for all the tips and information.
I think I'll have to keep testing then...... (

I use single opt and always include the following info on my squeeze pages:

"Just enter your Best email address below NOW and we'll send the access link instantly to your inbox..." This lets them know that if they enter a phony address they won't get their freebie.

"If you don't see the email from Internet Marketing Newbie Zone in 10 minutes be sure to check your spam folder and add InternetMarketingNewbieZone@gmail to your contacts." Many people would never think to check their spam folder. Just because your email is important to you doesn't mean it will carry the same weight with your subscriber. If they add you to their contacts it will ensure they get future emails.

It’s not a simple matter to deal with an email list. There are many important details in the process. The reasons why you are not selling your products to your email list can be many. I believe that the single or double opt-in is irrelevant. What really matters is your organization.

You have to prepare a series of engaging messages, which must have attractive headlines, and a lot more.

You'll find free information giving you guidance if you'll look for it. This is time consuming, but if you want to work based on email marketing, you have to study and learn all the important details.

Hi Ellie, if you're using single opt-in, and your emails are not getting opened after the initial one, then something's going very wrong at a very early stage. I suspect from what you've said that either your traffic's no good, or you're not providing enough credibility-building and interest-building stuff to "make your mark" so that people are looking forward to hearing from you, or that your first email isn't specifically designed to maximize your subsequent open-rate? All essential! Otherwise you end up becoming one of those people whose open rate is never above 25% and trying to convince yourself that "that's ok, the average for the industry is nearly as bad as that".

This thread may help/interest you? http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post6123982

The issues you need to be thinking about here, IMO, probably aren't to do with "single or confirmed opt-in" at all. Especially not if you're already using single opt-in.

i have been using single opt in for a long time now, double you lose too many in the process
and i have tested both single and double

if your not making enough sales from your campaign then you have to look at your sales page and look at why your conversions are so low and why people are not opening up your emails

for starters in my opinion $17 is too high for a OTO

i usually try to keep around $5 - $11

also if you give your subscribers a good enough reason to open there next email from you then
they will open it

it all just comes down to your marketing with your open rates

Paul

Hey Ellie Days,

For a person that you meet in 5 seconds, would you be
motivated to pick up a phone-call from him/her? The chances
are, not really.

Not unless there is a vested interest in picking up that
call.

Look - technology doesn't remove the element of human
interest. When two humans interact, they contribute value to
each other. They build rapport, and they internally decide
whether or not to interact more with you or not.

Chances are, you haven't given the right kind of value they
were looking for. Or, you weren't seen as someone
significantly different from the rest of the lists they have opted
into.

Attention is scarce - economists are already labelling attention
as a valid resource in markets.

What happens when you use double opt-in?

You give them an excuse to divert their attention away from
you. It's like someone else coming into your conversation and
stealing away your conversation partner with a more
entertaining conversation.

When you use single opt-in, you have a different kind of
leverage. You immediately send them to a thank you page, and
this is where you start to build rapport with them.

How?

1) Leave them craving - agitate, but don't solve. Leave them
waiting for your next email by telling them to expect it. Pre-
sell the next step in your marketing.

2) Lock them into an isolated environment where you can
converse with them with no distractions - like a PDF, video,
etc. Make the value shocking and hit the nail on the head.

3) Many suggested this and I agree - your email subject lines
and lead copy are very important. Imagine an inbox like this:


The Science of creating massive traffic
Just for you from Youtube: Daily Update
The 'Art' Factor in online marketing
>> $1,000+ EVERY Single Month Like Clockwork... <<

So many messages... And so little attention. At any one point,
your prospect can only choose one out of the whole pile of
emails. That's why your email sub line needs to be good.

I've seen recently cases of marketers using unique names. I
thought it caught my attention pretty well. You could sub to
Ben Settle for some swipes - he has some examples of
"offensive" marketing. Gets under the skin, but definitely gets
read.

Besides, even if it's single opt-in, you can go through your sub list
and clean it every once in a while to remove the spam, or segment
your list to those who opened specific messages.

I know this is a slightly older post, but seeing as its still very relevant months later and will probably always be relevant, I would like to chime in...

Someone who has been mentoring me recently explained the who single vs double conundrum in his view, and made PERFECT sense...

If someone has just said, "yes, i'm willing to exchange my e-mail for your product", why would you give that person an opportunity to second guess themselves?

Thats like saying, "Ok, so you want to to buy the sedan, you've just signed the contract, you're now in debt, are you sure you made the right decision?... Because if you aren't, you don't have to go through with it.."

How many car's do you think you would end up selling?
A LOT less than if you just let them take their new car home... One and done.


"I invested in a $110 solo ad for 200 clicks, got one sale of $17 back from the sales funnel, nothing from sending emails, who said the money is in the list ?"

Do you see what just happened here? You spent $0.55 per click, for 200 clicks.
Using some simple math, we'll say the solo ad seller helped with the swipe copy and managed to get a 20% open rate and from there, a 20% click-through rate.. And they can probably get these numbers mailing their list once per day, with a couple days a week of rapport building emails.. "how are you doing, jim?"

Reverse engineering the math
200 clicks = 20% of 1000 opened e-mails.
1000 opened e-mails = 20% of 5000 sent messages (contacts)

^^^semi-conservative numbers^^^

So if that person selling solo ads has an IM niche list of 15,000 subscribers..
They can very conservatively make $300.00 a day 5-7 days a week. and will probably never again in their life see a month where they make less than 6K.
Mind you, some of this revenue will have to be spent on advertising, or purchasing solo's from other lists... And there will be days when you can't book a solo sale (probably not happening any time soon), but when this happens, you use that OPPORTUNITY to do an ad-swap. Essentially, growing your list even bigger. True story, the money IS in the list.

As far as getting your e-mails open... Look at all the list building learning material you can, you'll find that the contents of the subject line are VITAL to get opens.. This just as much as important as the sales copy (email swipe) in order to get click through traffic to your offer.

Each of the truly successful internet marketing people I've known all have the same things in common. They all have ever growing lists. And each one of them leverage these lists multiple ways. A personal friend of mine has his income down to a science... Each e-mail subscriber is literally worth $1.20 per month to him. In which he spends, $0.24 per subscriber, on the 1st of every month, on ppc and solo ads for the month. His list grows monthly, his revenue grows monthly, and his profit grows monthly.

Hope this helps in getting your belief in "the list" back to where it needs to be..

Cheers,
Dustin

Double opt-in will decrease the conversion. For solo-ads, I uses single opt-in. Cos I am looking at generating my list.
I suggest improve the squeeze page such as adding a video, etc.. The offer must be good enough for them to take actions.
The follow-up mail need to further emphasize the urgency to take up your offer.

Kind of difficult to create loyal subscribers with so much solo ads running around.

The people who didn't follow up with the double opt-in either didn't get the confirmation email (that's the part most people are concerned about), or weren't really all that engaged or smart (also important) or were spam bots just submitting fake email addresses (which can result in some of the worst deliverability problems).

I've seen customers' signup forms get hit by spambots, and suddenly thousands of email addresses -- some of them spamtraps -- are submitted to their list. In the last scenario, using double opt-in can help you prevent blacklisting by admins.