3 Reasons to Use Double Opt-in for Your Mailing Lists (Even If You Think It’s a Pain)

Posted October 13, 2009 · Filed Under Explanations · 281 views · Leave a Comment

emailatsign So, even in the age of blogging and RSS, we’ve established we still need our mailing lists. Most everybody thinks the double opt-in process for mailing lists is a pain. (Double opt-in is when your subscribers have to enter their name and email address first, and then click a link in a confirmation email to confirm that they really want to be on that list.) I’ll admit – sometimes I get whiney and start to agree. But no matter how much a pain you think double opt-in is, you don’t want to build mailing lists without it. Here are 3 reasons I use and recommend double opt-in, anyway.

1. No Fakin’ It – For You or (and more importantly) Anyone Else

No, you can’t just sit down and add all the people in your address book to your mailing list and be done with it. But, guess what? Neither can anyone else.

So what? Here’s what: With all the trouble we have getting email through SPAM filters these days and the work we put into getting our messages read when they do make it through, our mailing lists are a pretty darn important business asset, don’t you think?

As you know, there are some sneaky, underhanded, even malicious idiots online who entertain themselves making trouble for those of us legitimately using the Internet for business. One of the easiest ways to make life miserable for a legitimate business owner is to get their mailing list account shut down for spamming.

How can they do that? By subscribing a bunch of email addresses to your list so that when you send something to that list, lots of people mark your message as SPAM and you get your account shut down because of all the complaints. Oh, and some of these jerks have programs that do this for them, so they’re not even working too hard while making trouble for you. But they can’t do this to you if your lists are double opt-in lists.

So, while it’s more work for you in some scenarios, double opt-in ensures that only people who really want to be on your list actually get on your list. Your mailing list is a valuable business asset…using double opt-in makes sure the knotheads of the world can’t mess with it.

2. If There’s a Problem, There’s a Clue

When you use double opt-in, people know to expect a confirmation email to be coming their way. If one doesn’t show up, they know there’s a problem somewhere. The most likely scenario is they had a typo in their email address when they signed up, so when they don’t get the confirmation email, they know to go back and try again.

If you use single opt-in and they have a typo in their email address, they’ll be off and doing other things, thinking they’ve subscribed to your mailing list when they really haven’t. You’ll have no way to get in touch with them because the typo will prevent any emails you send from reaching them. They’ll likely never know they messed up their email address, and just might conclude your mailing list is dead, anyway. Oh well.

3. The Responsiveness of Your List is Much Better

Now, this is a philosophical argument in favor of double opt-in. If it’s harder (meaning it takes more attention and a couple extra clicks) to get on your mailing list, that means that it’s likely only those who really want to be on your list will get on it, right? I mean, those just barely interested won’t work that hard.

When it comes time to send messages to your list, a much higher percentage of the people on your list are going to be inclined to open and read the message because they had to work a little harder to get on the list to begin with. I consistently have better than 70% open rates on my mailings and about half of my mailings have open rates in excess of 100% – meaning people are opening them more than once! (Must be some good stuff in my messages, eh?)

I don’t know about you, but I’d far rather have a list of 100 people who pay attention to me and what I send out, than a list of thousands who largely ignore me.

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