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Double Opt in is a Killer!

by mark.r
23 replies
Hello all, I'm new to the industry.
I have a 3rd party list not bought or rented of 5k. Every time I try to drop it into emal service provider, IE Constant Contact, Aweber ETC, they force me to request everyone to opt back in. I know that I'll loose 90% of them if I do that. Does anyone have an email provider that won't force my customers to opt back into my list.
Thanks for your help.
Mark
#double #killer #opt
  • Profile picture of the author BenFromSoMo
    I don't know about the other ones, but Aweber, does not FORCE double opt in. It's just the default. You can go without it.
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    • Profile picture of the author lsheckell
      Email Aces used to allow you to do this, not sure if they still do, though. May be worth looking into.
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    • Profile picture of the author Chris Chicas
      Originally Posted by BenFromSoMo View Post

      I don't know about the other ones, but Aweber, does not FORCE double opt in. It's just the default. You can go without it.
      Actually Aweber makes you believe that you have this option - but what they say and what they do are two different things.

      I was bothered by this contradiction and when I called them I was explained that they have their own algorithms by which they themselves will decide if your email addresses merrit a single or double optin.

      And guess which one they will use 99 percent of the time regardless of your default?

      Yep, double opt in.
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      • Profile picture of the author mark.r
        Hi Christiani,
        That's really interesting about Aweber. I wonder how many companies have the same policy.

        All good ideas, thank you all for your help.
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        • Profile picture of the author Chris Chicas
          Originally Posted by mark.r View Post

          Hi Christiani,
          That's really interesting about Aweber. I wonder how many companies have the same policy.

          All good ideas, thank you all for your help.

          Thanks. The big issue with me has been that 30 percent of my subscribers never checked their emails OR never got their emails in order to do a double opt in - and this meant that Aweber would only keep them on my list for a month before deleting them.

          After I complained things seemed to get better - now it's only 20 - 15 percent that don't do a double opt in - which I see as being more workable.

          I don't think there is a perfect company out there. I also have GetResponse but their service went down for a few hours recently.

          So this is still an on going issue as to what would be best.
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          • Profile picture of the author JimDucharme
            Hi Mark,

            With GetRepsonse you can contact our support team if you have concerns about the the re-opt in process. They will explain how our compliance team will test the list and if all is good, the balance of it can be imported with no re-opt in message.

            Christiani - There was a very rare brief downtime on a Sunday recently due to a HW failure at host data center.

            What's right is the solution which fits your needs best. Good ESPs such as ourselves work every single day to be that solution.

            Regards,
            jim
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            • Profile picture of the author mark.r
              Hi Jim,
              I'm currently set up with constant contact. If that doesn't work out, I'll call you.

              Regards,
              Mark R
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    • Profile picture of the author Alan Petersen
      Originally Posted by BenFromSoMo View Post

      I don't know about the other ones, but Aweber, does not FORCE double opt in. It's just the default. You can go without it.
      The OP is talking about importing a list from another source. Aweber and most other email service providers will require those subscribers to opt-in again during the import process.

      You can start warming them up well before the switch to salvage more of the subscribers.
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      • Profile picture of the author Joe Mobley
        Yep. Also offer a freeby for there continued support.

        "... and as our way of saying Thank You, we will send you..."

        Joe Mobley

        Originally Posted by Alan Petersen View Post

        The OP is talking about importing a list from another source. Aweber and most other email service providers will require those subscribers to opt-in again during the import process.

        You can start warming them up well before the switch to salvage more of the subscribers.
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      • Profile picture of the author Global Warrior
        Hi,

        Sorry if this sounds really controversial, but we're all beginners once and I remember feeling like that at the time too...and then I had to do something really hard...... I had to ask myself if I wanted to receive what I was sending out....and the answer eventually was a BIG FAT NO. If you offer a free handout as part of the opt in OR the promise of GREAT content, double opt in is NOT a problem and actually filters out the time wasters. Having a list of 5k time wasters is MUCH worse than a list of 500 interested people.

        Good luck

        GW
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by BenFromSoMo View Post

      I don't know about the other ones, but Aweber, does not FORCE double opt in. It's just the default. You can go without it.
      You're confusing two different things, Ben. Mark is talking about importing a list.

      I certainly wouldn't want to be a customer of an autoresponder company that didn't normally make people importing lists start with a confirmation-request: their deliverability wouldn't be very reliable, would it?!
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    • Profile picture of the author mark.r
      Yes this it true. However not when you are loading a new list.

      Thanks for your reply.
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  • Profile picture of the author TryBPO
    I've wondered about this...

    Our blog/site is in the IM space, so I figured it was better to Double Opt-In. We've built up over 2,300 double opt-in subscribers in the last 6 months which is great...but I wonder if we would have had quite a bit more if it was single opt-in.

    We're not at all spammy in our emails, don't push products, don't do list swaps, etc...so I was thinking it might be good to switch...but I'd worry I couldn't carry that list over to somewhere else later if I needed to? Maybe it would be better to leave the current subscribers as double opt-in but make all new subscribers single opt-in?

    I don't know...I guess if they can't click on an email they get in a few seconds then we probably don't want them anyway right? hehe
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  • Profile picture of the author asimbawany
    I think, if you can prove to aweber that your list is indeed double optin already, you may not have to do it again. Try calling them...
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  • Profile picture of the author Andyhenry
    If you think you'll lose 90% by asking them to re-sign up then they're probably not as good a list as you want to believe.
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    nothing to see here.

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  • Profile picture of the author Coby
    I've imported up to 15K into Constant Contact and was only required to do a "list review" by phone...

    I actually did this two different times...

    but I already had an established account with good history so that likely helped...
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  • Profile picture of the author robnoble
    If you believe the list has value, you could go the self hosted route with autoresponderplus or similar.
    I did this years ago. You will likely need dedicated hosting as shared hosting will throttle your email send.
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  • Profile picture of the author MatthewNeer
    What you need to be using is a service called iContact.

    They will let you preload all your contacts without having confirmed opt in.

    Hope that helps.
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  • Profile picture of the author GalFriedman
    Hi,

    You can use this one, but they are very expensive so make sure your list converts and cover the fees

    Email Marketing Software - YMLP
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    • Profile picture of the author tampaprogrammer
      Originally Posted by GalFriedman View Post

      Hi,

      You can use this one, but they are very expensive so make sure your list converts and cover the fees

      Email Marketing Software - YMLP
      That doesn't look expensive at all!
      However, it does go by individual emails sent, not your contact list size.
      But then, I don't mass email on a daily basis either, maybe once a week.
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    • Profile picture of the author mark.r
      Hi Gal,
      Thanks for the tip on YMLP. I may give them a shot if I don't have any success with my
      current company.

      Regards,
      Mark R
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  • Profile picture of the author GetKane
    Banned
    With Aweber you can turn off the double opt-in feature. I've done PPC campaigns where turning it off meant an additional 50-100 emails added to a mailing list.
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  • Profile picture of the author vegaskev
    I too am looking for a good company that isn't so stringent. I have purchased a list of opt-in emails, however, who knows how well they would pass an algorithmic test through one of these providers. It's tough to find a provider that doesn't do this test. Does anyone else have any suggestions?
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