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Is this good / bad / ok....

by brit16
22 replies
I signed up with aweber the first of the month (february) and had it up and running within a day or so. Since then, (about 20 days) I have had 45 people subscribe. I am pretty happy with that, but of those 45 only 31 have confirmed. A couple of them may still confirm, but most have been sitting for a while.

Is this a bad sign or is it normal????? Also, do all of you have your subscribers confirm? Could someone explain the benefits of having them confirm? I have highly targeted viewers so I don't think anyone would consider my emails to be spam or anything like that.
#bad #good
  • Profile picture of the author MichaelSJohn
    It's pretty normal, and that's why I don't use confirm. Confirming your email with aweber will your subscribers substantially. If you are aiming to be a personality on your site you should use confirmed opt-ins, but if you are just wanted to build a list they will hinder your list size.
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    • Profile picture of the author brit16
      Originally Posted by MichaelSJohn View Post

      It's pretty normal, and that's why I don't use confirm. Confirming your email with aweber will your subscribers substantially. If you are aiming to be a personality on your site you should use confirmed opt-ins, but if you are just wanted to build a list they will hinder your list size.
      Not sure what you mean by "building a personality" but I don't just want to build a list for the sake of building it. I want to make affiliate sales through the list and get return visitors to my site. My big goal is to have my site be an authority in my niche. Thanks.
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  • Profile picture of the author Shaun OReilly
    The benefit of having people confirm is that you know
    that the e-mail address belongs to them and they've
    given you their permission to receive the e-mails.

    If they haven't confirmed their e-mail address within
    24-hours then they're unlikely to do so at a later date.

    If only 31 are confirming their e-mail out of 45 potential
    subscribers, then take a look at your confirmation process
    to see if you're giving them clear instructions on what to
    do.

    Your market may (or may not) be as familiar with the idea
    of confirming their e-mail address as we Internet Marketers
    are.

    Also, make them an irresistable offer so that they really want
    to confirm their e-mail to get it.

    Another option is to test out a single opt-in process.

    Dedicated to mutual success,

    Shaun
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  • Profile picture of the author the_icon
    I personally dont use Aweber, I use Mailchimp and when I am building lists to market to I always have them confirm in, otherwise whats the point in having them subscribe?

    I also am unsure as to what you mean by they subscribe but not confirm? As far as I am concerned if they subscribe them they have confirmed. No? Or is this just an aweber thing?
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    • Profile picture of the author davejug1
      Originally Posted by the_icon View Post

      I personally dont use Aweber, I use Mailchimp and when I am building lists to market to I always have them confirm in, otherwise whats the point in having them subscribe?

      I also am unsure as to what you mean by they subscribe but not confirm? As far as I am concerned if they subscribe them they have confirmed. No? Or is this just an aweber thing?
      Aweber does a double opt-in where they confirm firstly by completing the form, then a confirmation email is sent and they have to confirm by clicking a link.

      Otherwise I could opt 10,000 members to you all fake and you would get charged for it, with Aweber, if they don't confirm, they are not charged for.
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    • Profile picture of the author brit16
      Originally Posted by the_icon View Post

      I personally dont use Aweber, I use Mailchimp and when I am building lists to market to I always have them confirm in, otherwise whats the point in having them subscribe?

      I also am unsure as to what you mean by they subscribe but not confirm? As far as I am concerned if they subscribe them they have confirmed. No? Or is this just an aweber thing?

      Sorry I guess I wasn't clear. They signed up on my blog, but then did not click the link in the first email to confirm.
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  • Profile picture of the author itsjordan
    I think that's fine. You can't expect everybody on your site to follow up with it and click their confirm email.

    Perhaps delete them from the list after a few weeks if they don't confirm? Who knows, some might later on.

    The benefit of the opt-in is that it guarantees the email doesn't go to a junk mail filter. It means your list took an active step to become a member of your site and definitely want to know what you have to say/sell.

    Be sure to give them a clear sign of what they're to do.
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  • Profile picture of the author davejug1
    Yep the actual benefit of them confirming is that you can add them to your list.

    If you take their email from inside Aweber and send them an email they can report you as spam and Aweber might not look to kindly on it unless it was a gentle reminder to them.
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    • Profile picture of the author brit16
      Originally Posted by davejug1 View Post

      Yep the actual benefit of them confirming is that you can add them to your list.

      If you take their email from inside Aweber and send them an email they can report you as spam and Aweber might not look to kindly on it unless it was a gentle reminder to them.
      Not sure what you mean. The people are signing up on my blog, so they are showing that they wanted to be on the list. But then are not following through.
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      • Profile picture of the author davejug1
        Originally Posted by brit16 View Post

        Not sure what you mean. The people are signing up on my blog, so they are showing that they wanted to be on the list. But then are not following through.
        If the last message shows as "confirmation" it means they haven't clicked the confirmation link in their email.

        I don't know if you've done this but on your forms menu, settings option you have a thank you page, you should nominate a page saying something like "thank you for subscribing, please check your email and confirm your request by pressing the link.

        It's good practice as some people don't know.
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        • Profile picture of the author brit16
          I do have a thank you page and all of that. It seems pretty clear to me what they are supposed to do. I had my mom sign up and she said everything appears to be working and "looks" like it should. She signs up with blogs all the time (I don't )

          I was really asking about the whole spam thing. How can it be considered spam if they sign up on my blog?
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          • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
            Banned
            Hi Brit,

            Your figures (for lack of confirmation) are probably a little worse than average, I suspect, but your sample-size is very small and that may change.

            You can (probably) improve them, to some extent, by giving people more explanation up-front, reminding them to check their spam/junk folder in case the first message goes there because their software doesn't "recognize" you and so on. But all of this is academic, anyway.

            In your niche, there's absolutely no reason to use confirmed opt-in, in my opinion. You'll be far better off with single opt-in.

            I strongly prefer single opt-in, for all sorts of reasons.

            The usual argument advanced in favour of confirmed opt-in is that it can reduce spam complaints. Frankly, I think it's just an urban myth. :p

            The proportion of spam complaints you get depends on what you send and how you send it and the expectations of the recipients, all of which you can control. If someone's going to forget who you are, six months later, and "report spam", having confirmed their email address at the time they originally opted in isn't going to make the slightest difference.

            I find the idea that confirmed opt-in will necessarily somehow "protect your business" just silly. That's my perspective, anyway.

            The idea that if you use confirmed opt-in, the ones who don't manage (for whichever one of a collection of varied, possible reasons) to confirm are somehow, magically "lower quality prospects" and that you're not "therefore" really losing much strikes me as equally silly: it just has no logic behind it at all. But it can be interesting, in a macabre kind of way, to see the "clutching-at-straws" attempts at logic that confirmation enthusiasts will sometimes go to, to try to defend their corner.

            Call me a skepchick, but I suspect that some of them are people who know, really, because of what they're sending out, that whatever they do, they're going to get some complaints, and they just want to try to be better-placed in the inevitable subsequent argument with their autoresponder companies over that, "when" it happens. :p

            Across 8 different niches I have 5 single opt-in and 3 confirmed opt-in lists (each also further segregated). I wish with hindsight that I'd built 7 single opt-in lists and only 1 confirmed opt-in list.

            Just my perspective.
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            • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
              Alexa said:
              The usual argument advanced in favour of confirmed opt-in is that it can reduce spam complaints. Frankly, I think it's just an urban myth.
              Absolutely. It's a myth.

              However... There are some very good reasons to use COI in many situations. For example, if you offer people some bonus for signing up, using a simple opt-in system (what most call "single") is just begging for trouble. The number of fake addresses that get entered into the form will increase substantially, and some of those addresses may end up being deliverable.
              I find the idea that confirmed opt-in will necessarily somehow "protect your business" just silly. That's my perspective, anyway.
              You're wrong on this part. It's not some sort of magical cloak of invulnerability, but it does add significant protection in many instances.

              The simplest: Someone enters a spamtrap address into your sign-up form, and you send them a confirmation email. They ignore it, and get no further email from you. You're usually okay.

              Same situation with simple opt-in, and you start sending regular mail to that address. You're blacklisted.

              MANY providers will have your back if you've got confirmation data they can verify in case of complaints, but will either dump you or nuke the list (if it's hosted with them) if you don't have those records. Or, if you have faked data, which is usually easy to spot if you've dealt with this stuff much.

              Then there's the issue of complaints to an affiliate network, like Clickbank. They will nuke spamming affiliates, and it doesn't take a lot of properly formed complaints. But, if you can prove the person confirmed the subscription, they downgrade the seriousness they apply to the complaint significantly.
              The idea that if you use confirmed opt-in, the ones who don't manage (for whichever one of a collection of varied, possible reasons) to confirm are somehow, magically "lower quality prospects" and that you're not "therefore" really losing much strikes me as equally silly
              You're right on this one. I heard it for years from spamfighters, in various forms. It wasn't until a lot of the folks in the game went to work for marketing firms that they realized how silly the notion was.

              The flip side is the folks who play fast and loose in their subscription process. They claim it's for one thing and use the address for stuff they didn't disclose. That will get you shut down almost anywhere that cares about delivery of email, confirmation or no.

              Back to the OP...

              70% confirmation rate doesn't suck. It tells me that you're clear on what they're doing when they sign up. You can probably increase that some by sending them to a simple page like this one after they fill in the form and hit Submit.

              Please confirm your subscription

              My confirmation rate runs between 83% and 86%, consistently. Without that page, it drops a lot.


              Paul
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            • Profile picture of the author brit16
              Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post


              In your niche, there's absolutely no reason to use confirmed opt-in, in my opinion. You'll be far better off with single opt-in.

              I strongly prefer single opt-in, for all sorts of reasons.
              Thanks again Alexa . I am so suprised to hear you say this, but it really re-affirms what I was already feeling. I had initially set it up for a "single" opt-in where they did not have to confirm by clicking, but after reading this forum.....I felt like everyone was having them confirm and that there must be some good reason.

              I will not be sending them anything that they do not want. The people who are signing up to be on my list are signing up for one of two reasons.... they want to get updates from my blog, and / or they want a copy of the "free guide". Thanks for the re-assurance!!
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  • Profile picture of the author MichaelSJohn
    By building a personality or personal brand some people will do confirmed opt-in because if people fall in love with your personality they will confirm the opt-in.

    Look at most internet pros and most of them never do confirmed opt-in. Very few of them do so do what the big guys are doing.

    Also, if you are using aweber the confirmation page can just tell them to confirm their email, or it can go to an offer. Just think, someone just signed up to see what you are about and then they go to a "confirm email page" when it should be an offer of something you have for sale. It's completely lost real-estate.

    If you want a great example of how to build web pages that are Google friendly, and know how to sell to you after you put in your email look up Mind Valley on google. They have many websites and they are an 8 figure a year business.
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  • Profile picture of the author jaybenoit
    This is such a bitter back and forth discussion on Single Optin vs. Double Optin.

    There are good points on both side, although what I have done is used Single optin and then also I purge subscribers from my list that have not opened or clicked a link within a few months.

    Depending on how your sales funnel is structured, if they subscribe and then are taken to another page that is showing a OTO or other kinds of links, banners, etc.. the person can just overlook receiving a confirmation email and just end up deleting it in the future. So I just did the single optin to try to get the individuals to read my follow up emails I was sending, that they wouldn't have received if they did not confirm.

    It really is personal preference. i am sure you will find people on both side of this.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kom
    That really Good on my opinion in one month you have people believe what you said !

    That can be more and more every month,

    I dont use anymore aweber to expenseve for me end less you have good thing to make money !
    just my opinion
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  • Profile picture of the author PhilippaWrites
    If you are enticing people to sign up with a freebie, do check at what stage the download is offered.

    If the download is offered after the email address has been confirmed, more people will confirm.

    If, however, the freebie download is offered after entering their email address but before confirming it, they might quite often not bother confirming, if they were just after the download.
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    • Profile picture of the author fin
      Regarding more sign-ups, I'd probably change your opt-in form a little.

      It isn't quite clear, to me anyway, that you need to subscribe for the sign-up bonus.

      It's just an unclickable book cover, with an opt-in box which only mentions "subscribe to my blog".

      I'm no expert, and I'm sure someone can give you proper advice, but I'm sure your opt-in rate would improve if you changed it.
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      • Profile picture of the author brit16
        Originally Posted by fin View Post

        Regarding more sign-ups, I'd probably change your opt-in form a little.

        It isn't quite clear, to me anyway, that you need to subscribe for the sign-up bonus.

        It's just an unclickable book cover, with an opt-in box which only mentions "subscribe to my blog".

        I'm no expert, and I'm sure someone can give you proper advice, but I'm sure your opt-in rate would improve if you changed it.
        Thanks, I was wondering about this before. I don't like the way it looks either, but not real sure of the changes I should make. Any suggestions?
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        • Profile picture of the author Shaun OReilly
          For a start, if you want to get more people signing up
          to your list from your blog, then you need to make some
          changes.

          For example...

          Place your opt-in form higher up in your sidbar and above
          your 'Search' function. At the moment, people need to
          scroll to see your opt-in form in the sidebar and this will
          likely be losing you opt-ins.

          The ecover graphic and opt-in form are two different
          elements at the moment.

          I'd test just the opt-in form in the sidebar with a headline
          that covers the specific incentive that you're offering.

          Dedicated to mutual success,

          Shaun
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        • Profile picture of the author fin
          Firstly, I'd move the search box: it's distracting the attention away from the sign up form. I'd have the sign up form as the first thing in the top right.

          If it was me, and to make it a little more professional, I'd try and find a coder (maybe on WF) to do my sign up form.

          At the top, I'd have your "free IVF guide" heading but I'd add font/color to make it stand out. It's good you mention they get it for free when they subscribe to your list.

          In the middle, I'd have the guide image.

          At the bottom, I'd have 2 boxes for name and e-mail, with a submit button and respect privacy statement.

          It would all be one continuous opt-in box. At the moment, yours is 2 separate entities with far to much space in-between.
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