Confirmed opt in on or off?

If you want to have lots of fake emails in your database go for single opt-in - but why would you pay for such leads to your auto-responder service?

Marian

This thread may help you, Benny. A careful reading of it will explain to you, in detail, why so many successful members here are using single opt-in, and why most of the "reasons" commonly offered in favor of opt-in comfirmation, in such threads here, are actually fallacious and mistaken: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post8554418

(There have been probably 20-30 very similar threads, just over the last year or so, but that one's a starting-point, anyway ).

The perennial question!

As others have said – it depends.

It is true – why clutter up your list with people who have given new false email addresses – or who never read your emails? But then you can deal with that by deleting all those who haven't opened a single email for six months.

The thing with single opt in is that you have to watch your unsubscribe and your spam complaint rates.

If these go too high your email service will complain to you big time.

Apart from that, you really need to test and see what makes you most money.

Unless you are with Aweber when you will usually be hooked in to double opt in anyway.

If you have the option, then test single and double and see what works best for you.

Malc

That's a popular view among people who haven't done both and compared accurately over an extended period, Will. People who test it for themselves seem to end up believing the opposite. And there are reasons for that.

In a whole range of niches, as far as I could tell, I never found any specific correlation whatsoever between those who will confirm and those who later convert into customers. Switching from confirmed opt-in to single opt-in was just "all gain", for my business - and no downside at all. And there are countless others here, building big businesses, who say exactly the same.

This specific thread's very unusual, atypical and unrepresentative in that it seems to contain quite a few consecutive posts from members who say they prefer to use opt-in confirmation (though - as ever - some of the "reasons" offered for their views don't actually stand up to examination at all). "Just saying".

This just isn't so.

First, the evidence (if you actually check it out for yourself, by testing instead of just repeating what you've seen other people - equally mistakenly - saying) doesn't suggest that at all: whether people report you for spamming for them depends on what you send them, not on whether you asked them to confirm their email address at the time they originally opted in.

Secondly, it you think about it, it doesn't actually stand up to examination at all: surely you can't seriously imagine that people who are likely to "report" you for spamming them are actually going to remember whether they confirmed their email address on opt-in, maybe weeks/months earlier and (even if they do remember) whether that's going to make the slightest difference to them?! Your assertion doesn't really make too much sense, does it?

(By the way, guys: call me pedantic, but there's no such thing as "double" opt-in. Nobody has to opt in twice! It's actually called "confirmed opt-in", if they have to confirm their email address in order to be added to the list. "Just saying" ).

Thanks for this feedback. It helps to know what experience others are having with double opt ins. And, I think many people won't do double opt ins as they see it as a barrier between themselves and the person signing up. But really that person is more willing to hear what you have to say if they took the trouble to actually click on the link in the double opt in email.

Good point about some of the benefits of using confirmed opt in, Chris.

However, I doubt your open rate of 75% is going to persist all that long! Unless you are using some sort of magic LOL

The problem you mention of your list getting ever bigger and bigger if you use single opt in there is another way to deal with this problem which is well worth mentioning.

And that is, deleting all your users who don't open or click in an email in, say, six months.

This method will unfortunately delete a small number of people who are opening or clicking but are not being detected. But it will get rid of most of the time wasters and keep your list size down.

If you use Office Autopilot you can do this using what they call an "active re-engagement" sequence on autopilot.

It's going to be harder to do this with other auto responder services but I still thought it was worth a mention.

Cheers, Malc

Thanks for that! This thread is doing my head in haha

Test and measure, OP, test and measure

Malc

That's true.

Another point about single opt in is that around 15 to 20% of people are estimated to either put in garbage email addresses or mistype them.

Filling your list up with non-functional email addresses firstly costs you money that you are paying to your provider, and secondly your relatively low delivery rate gets you - personally - a black mark with ISPs, lowering your delivery rate. In America 18% of mail is either classified as spam or is withheld by the ISPs. In the UK it's 16%, the latest figures.

If you have low delivery rates through having bad email addresses you are much more likely to be within this percentage.

Malc