Single opt-in vs. double opt-in for email marketing campaigns

Single opt-in means your customers signed up or verbally agreed to receive your emails or newsletters. It means what it says – they opted in once. Double opt-in means that customers not only agreed to hear from you, but they also confirmed so in an email. A typical double opt-in autoresponder email, sent after a customer uses a sign up box (ListBuilder) on your Website, may read something like this:

This email is to confirm that you’d like to receive Benchmark Email’s monthly tips and tricks newsletter. Please click here to confirm.

While it’s far easier to build a single opt-in list, the results are often less-than-stellar. With so many customers ready to hit the “spam” button, double opt-in is the way to go. Read on to find out why.

Single opt-in headaches

	Customer doesn’t remember signing up Many people receive hundreds of emails a day, both legit and not legit. Even though your customer shook your hand or passed along a business card, thus granting you permission to send them email, there’s no guarantee that the customer will connect those few pleasant moments with the email you’re sending. They may simply delete your email or worse – hit the dreaded Spam Button.
	Someone else (other than the customer) signed up Remember those boxes that ask you to sign up five of your friends to receive emails? This is a sure way to get abuse complaints, even if the person who signed up their friends/family meant well.
	Customers signed up for list via Opt-out This is particularly insidious. This is when you sign up for an email list only to see various (sometimes pre-checked) boxes asking you if you want to also receive emails on various subjects (fly fishing, electronics, you name it). The biggest problem? Many times the customer does not remember signing up for a specific email from you, even if it falls under the category that happily check marked in the not-so-distant past.

Why double opt-in is king

Think of double opt-in as your get out of jail free card. It’s an easy way to protect the reputation of your business.

Double opt-in is a two-step process:

Step 1: A customer signs up or agrees to receive your emails.

Step 2: Customer confirms their sign up in a second (autoresponder) email.
While some customers may not take that second step, the ones that do are telling you (and ISPs) that they are certain that your mail is not spam. Hence, if you later send an email to a double opt-in customer and they shout “Abuse!” or hit the Spam Button, you have air-tight, solid proof that you’re in the right. So basically, the benefits to double opt-in are as follows:

	Fewer customer complaints
	Solid evidence against customer complaints
	Improves your delivery rates
	Improves your relationships with ISPs
	Builds your reputation as a reputable sender

Solid ways to build a great contact list

A double opt-in list is a great reputation builder. It means fielding fewer complaints from customers, getting into the good graces of ISPs and improving your delivery rates.

	Use a sign up box / ListBuilder A sign-up box on your Website, also known as a ListBuilder, is the best way to build a permission based, double opt-in list – especially if you send an additional email to confirm customer sign ups after customers have visited your site and filled out the info box. Place the box on the home page of your Web site where guests can enter their email address, name, etc.
	Practice good list hygiene Responding promptly to unsubscribe requests is just the beginning. After you send our your email, spend a significant amount of time responding to email verification requests from customers (such as Spam Arrest). Make note of customers that are no longer with their respective companies and redirect emails to other addresses if customers wish you do so.
	Make it easy to unsubscribe We know, it’s painful, but it has to be done. According to Can Spam regulations, government guidelines for email marketing, making it difficult for customers to unsubscribe is a violation of the law. This can mean jail and fines. There is a bright side to having your unsubscribe options so easily available – it helps narrow down which customers are truly interested in your services.
	Permission pass your list There may be a significant number of contacts on your list that may never respond to your emails, but never open them or delete them either. This is why you need to permission pass your list. Permission pass means that you’ll send confirmation emails to all of the people on your list who never seem to respond. But if they still don’t respond after four or five sends, it is time to delete them from your list. If you’d like to permission pass your list, just contact Benchmark Email for help.
	Don’t use an old list If you have a list, say, one year or older, and you haven’t sent to your customers on that list, it’s probably time to abandon that list. Recent studies show that over a single year, as much as 30 percent of people change email addresses. So off the bat, 30 percent of your list is no longer valid. Try building a new list.