Problem with double opt-in (people aren't confirming!)

If you're getting a low number of people confirming their
opt-in, then you may want to consider the following...

1. Is Your Opt-in Gift Highly Desirable?

Has the copy on your squeeze page sold your gift so well
that people really, really, really WANT to get your gift NOW?

2. What's Your Confirm Process?

If you want people to confirm their e-mail then you need
to tell them clearly what to do and remind them what they'll
get if they confirm their e-mail.

So, take a look at what you've got on your confirm page
and the text that's written in your confirmation e-mail.

Don't just use the default confirmation e-mail. Tailor it to
your own gift.

3. Offer an Added Bonus

To push your confirmation opt-in rates further, give an
unadvertised bonus on the confirmation page to give people
an added incentive for confirming their subscription.

Dedicated to mutual success,

Shaun

50% confirmed is definitely normal. But you can boost that rate by doing a couple things...

1) Give them something that they REALLY want.

2) Make a customized page where they land after opting in, with very good instructions to complete the opt-in, and reminder of your bribe.

Edit: I see I was typing at the same time as Shaun, and he gave great advice. Ditto what he said.

That is low, certainly.

But you're measuring a small number, so far: your sample-size may not be statistically significant. (On the other hand, with about a 50% strike-rate for the confirmation, you shouldn't need a huge sample-size as the standard deviations are lowest that way).

Do you explain to them clearly about checking their junk/spam folders for your email, and so on, so they know what's going on?

Are you using a reliable and trusted autoresponder (i.e. not some free one)?

Personally, I err increasingly on the side of single opt-in rather than confirmed, but I judge it according to the niche.

I have 8 lists, of which only 3 are confirmed opt-in. I've never yet had any problem caused by using single opt-in, and of course one builds bigger lists that way. I don't for a moment believe the nonsense people talk along the lines that "If they don't confirm their opt-in, they were never going to buy anything anyway".

Edited to add: sorry, I was typing (slowly) while both the gentlemen above replied, and I agree with Sean's points, too!

Hi,
I would say if you are using aweber this is probably a bit low but don't worry to much about that (but stay with double opt-in) just keep doing what you're doing and build that list.

Dont be surprised, it's normal that a percentage of your opt-in wont confirm for a number of reasons:

1) They opted-in while at work and their intranet blocks access to facebook, gmail, hotmail, etc. This is very common now a days.

2) They opted-in, they went to their email address and got distracted by another incoming mail from a friend, relative, girlfriend, etc, so they forget about your email.

3) They opted-in and the confirmation email lands on the spam folder.

4) They opted-in, go to their email address and the confirmation link looks spammy and dodgy. Aweber confirmation emails look very spammy to those who're not internet savvy.

There are many reasons as of why double optin usually generate lower subscription rates no matter how carefully you tell them what to do upon opting in.

PS: I personally always go for single opt-ins due to this reason. I've been over 3 years in this business and never had any problem due to single opt-ins. If you dont spam and you treat your list nicely, you shouldnt have any problems.

By the way, I wish Aweber allowed you to fully customize the confirmation link like Infusion does.

When I used double optin I noticed a lot of the unconfirmed emails were people who submitted their email but when Aweber went to send the confirmation message, this message was undeliverable.

If this is the case then you may want to make it clearer on your squeeze page that you will be delivering the free item via email. That way you shouldn't get as many people entering bogus emails.

Double opt in doesn't get you 100% because the email goes to thier junk folder. You need to make it clear that its crucial they confirm the opt in. Use a bonus and video or aweber has a few options you can try.
You can always email them with a plain text message asking them to confirm by finding the email

In my tests I used single and double opt-in lists (I have several Italian niches)...

The single opt-in option is good, but you can receive tons of blatant spam. Double opt-ins are verified, so you get less subscriptions but REAL people aboard. Remember:

1) Test and verify your market (your subscribers)
2) Change something and re-control your results
3) Advise people to bookmark your email address (it prevents killer email-filters)
4) In your landing page advise people (again) to confirm their subscriptions

Have a good business!

use double opt-ins... and use aweber's video confirmation message that shows them exactly how to confirm

If you're using Aweber I would use their smart video version confirmation page. It really increased my double opt-in rate.

Also keep in mind that a certain % of those are not real people or people typing in their email address incorrectly. They could be spambots and other types of malicious software. During a recent test of 78,000 opts in from a paid advertising campaign, over 34% of our opt-ins were not real e-mail addresses. This could range from people not typing in their e-mail addresses correctly to spambots trying to get the opt in. This was only one test done through out a 60 day period as one example.

We run tests like this at least once a quarter and numbers have ranged from 22% all the way up to 58%. So there is a lot of variance because there are so many variables such as the traffic source, the opt in form used, is there a give away, the autoresponder service or software used, the number of servers the e-mail has to go through, the type of spam filtering the end user uses, etc.

RoD

I get about a solid 19 % sign up rate and I never use double optin. I guess it just depends on what you are trying to do with your list, but that's the way I've always done it.

<3 Abby