When someone new subscribes to your mailing list, it's a win-win. For businessess, it means there is someone eager and ready to support your brand and receive your emails. For subscribers, it means gaining access to useful information, seeing awesome images, receiving special offers or sales, and checking out fantastic content.
But before this new relationship can go too far, it's important to be on the same page. In this way, a new subscriber double opt-in email serves as the gateway to meaningful communication with your new subscriber, confirming that your emails really are desired.
As a business, your main focus with this email is to drive confirmations; you want to ensure your ability to contact new subscribers. As there is only one major call to action — confirming that the recipient wants to hear from you — it is important to eliminate any additional CTAs or distractions from this message. Keeping the email simple, with a clear “Confirm” button, ensures potential subscribers will become real subscribers by opting in.
As our example above illustrates, not only should you stick to one clear CTA, but you should also stay away from too much additional content, since it’s so key for your company to take this email opportunity to drive confirmations. While the addition of dynamic and predictive content is perfect for the next steps in an email program, like the “Thank You,” or “Welcome” email, it’s perfectly acceptable for the double opt-in message to be simple and straightforward. Stay on brand, without distracting from the main goal: subscription confirmations.
Types of Opt-In-ing
In email marketing, there are a few important emails centered around opting-in and opting-out. Here are some of the key messages, and how they work:
Opt-In: This is when people add their email addresses to a form on a site or via another sign-up method, giving a business or organization permission to email them. It’s a simple one-step process, allowing communications to begin immediately. The only downside? Anyone (often spammers) can sign up with any email address, meaning you may not sign up and somehow wind up getting an email.
Double Opt-In: Once potential subscribers have indicated on a sign-up form or site that they would like to be emailed, the business sends a confirmation with a subscription link. These email addresses are only added to the mailing list if the recepient clicks on the confirmation link, allowing the business to avoid accidental subscribers and spammers.
Confirmed Opt-In: The business confirms a subscription by sending an email thanking users for signing up. This type of opt-in contains an unsubscribe link, in case the recipients were signed up without knowing or, for some reason, changed their minds.
Opt-Out: New subscribers often sign up for gated content (a white paper, blog, infographic, or other valuable content that requires an email address to access), or other information. The sign-up form has fields for information, and typically contains a pre-checked box that opts new subscribers in for emails. For these people to not receive correspondences, they must uncheck the opt-in box before submitting.
Why Double Opt-In?
With all the choices above, you may wonder why we recommend the double opt-in email. Wouldn’t that keep your list size from growing?
Well, yes. But the double opt-in ensures your emails will only reach people who really want to hear from your business. By requiring a second confirmation for a subscription, only the people who truly signed up and have interest in receiving your messages will receive them. Meanwhile, bots, spammers, and people who have been signed up by third parties won’t confirm your email, which means they won’t hear from you. As a business, this is an important step, as companies often face legal issues and complaints when people who did not agree to emails receive and report them.
Additionally, double opt-ins keep your email list clean, as only the people who really want to hear from you will opt-in.
As Yaro Starak from Entrepeneurs-Journey.com notes, “The whole point of an opt-in email list is to attract people who subscribe demonstrating that they are prospects for what you offer — their request for information signifies this. Using a double opt-in list is extremely important for keeping the quality of your email list high.” In turn, a cleaner list means higher engagement, conversion rates, open rates, and revenue from email.
In Summary
Asking for a double opt-in optimizes your email marketing subscriber list, and helps to keep your campaigns out of the spam folder. In an article exploring double opt-ins vs. single opt-in practices, Mailchimp noted that: “Double opt-in lists have a 114% increase in clicks as compared to single opt-in lists.” Going for a double confirmation may seem like a hassle for your subscribers, yet the stats support sending an email confirmation after a sign-up. Ensuring that you are sending to the right people — and that they really want to hear from you — goes a long way with subscriber engagement.
For more on the best practices behind making the most of your dynamic content within transactional emails, be sure to take a look at our Predictive Transactional Email Infographic and Guide.
