When Bill started collecting leads on his website, he noticed that many of the users' emails were not verified. As a result, he had to spend hours maintaining his email list every month. Bill was looking for a way to ensure his email list was clean without any added effort.
It didn't take long for him to figure out that all this could be resolved, by enabling double opt-in for his email lists.
Double opt-in means that the person had chosen to participate in something and confirmed it when asked again. Only those subscribers who clicked the double opt-in CTA were added to his email list. Bill got verified email addresses at no extra effort.
If you want to know more about this concept of double opt-ins, then you are in the right place. In this article, we'll cover everything you need to know about double opt-in and its pros and cons.
Table of contents
What is double opt-in?
Double opt-in, also called confirmed opt-in, is a two-step process to add new contacts to the email list after getting their permission through email verification.
The first step is to obtain email addresses through a signup form
The second step is to send them a confirmation email to verify the contact information before adding it to the email list.
Here is what this process looks like:
Advantages of double opt-in
While the double opt-in process might seem a bit tedious, it does have several advantages that might make it worth the effort. Here are the benefits of utilizing a double opt-in process to create your list.
✅ Improves deliverability
Since the list built using double opt-in only has verified users' email addresses, it ensures that there won't be any hard bounces, and your email won't be sent to spam traps. So overall, it helps improve your email deliverability and protects your sender domain reputation.
✅ Helps build an email list containing the ideal audience
Users have taken the time to opt into your list; this shows that they are interested in the brand or the content. Thus, they are likely to open your emails and engage with your content, leading to better email marketing results.
Over time this interaction and engagement with the emails will build stronger relationships between the user and the organization.
✅ Helps to avoid any potential legal issues
According to laws like GDPR, CAN-SPAM, and CASL, companies must obtain people's consent before collecting their data. So by using the double-opt-in method, you can avoid any legal issues; this method ensures that you have got permission and verification from users that they want to receive your emails.
Disadvantages of double opt-in
Double opt-in might sound like it's the perfect method to use so far. But, everything is not sunshine and rainbows when it comes to the process. Here are the disadvantages of the double-opt-in procedure:
• Longer signup process
After they have signed up through a signup form, they have to go to their email to confirm their signup. This extra step of confirmation makes people less likely to complete it, and some people even forget to click on the confirmation link.
And when people don't complete the confirmation process, it leads to the loss of potential subscribers. Thus, it will take a longer time to grow the email list.
• Requires additional technical effort
The process of setting up double opt-in requires the set up of several technical aspects, like automating confirmation email, managing the database, etc. This extra step is time-consuming and requires technical expertise.
Double vs. single opt-in
| Double opt-in | Single opt-in |
|---|---|
| More complex (signup form -> confirmation email-> click link-> joins email list) | Simple (signup form -> click submit -> joins email list) |
| Quality more than quantity (small but more dedicated audience) | An easier way to grow audience and focuses on quantity or volume |
| List only has valid email addresses | List might contain invalid or spam email addresses |
| No hard bounces | Possibility of hard bounces |
How to figure out if double opt-in is right for you?
Now you are aware of its pros and cons. But if you are still not convinced, this section is all the convincing you'll need to use double opt-in in your email strategy. You can use double opt-in if you:
Prefer quality over quantity
If you want a small dedicated audience rather than a large number of people, then double opt-in will be helpful for your email marketing strategy.
Have faced issues with your email campaign
If you have faced low open rates or abuse complaints previously in your email marketing, then you can use double opt-in to avoid any such issues in the future.
Confirmation emails help you build a list of users who are interested in your organization. As a result, they are more likely to open emails from you and less likely to report your emails.
Need to follow legal requirements
If you deal with prospects in countries with strict privacy regulations, you need to appease the rules of those countries or markets to get people's information. You can use double opt-in to fulfill the legal requirements as it asks people's permission to collect their information.
For example, the double opt-in process in Germany is the norm for proving legal compliance. However, it's more of a best practice rather than a legal requirement as a single opt-in also gets permission from users.
Double opt-in with interactive emails
With most verification emails, the users are taken to a web browser to confirm the subscription. The diversion of users to a web page might result in users getting distracted by other open tabs and not clicking on the confirmation link.
To avoid such deviations and loss of potential subscribers, you can use AMP for emails to verify the subscription within the email itself. AMP makes your emails interactive and collects data from users in real-time.
What's next
Now that you are familiar with what double opt-in is and its pros and cons, it's up to you to determine if you need to use it in your email marketing strategy.
And if you decide to incorporate double opt-in, you can use Mailmodo to send AMP emails to make users confirm their email address within the email.
Mailmodo is a popular email service provider when it comes to creating AMP emails. They provide various AMP email templates for you to choose from for building your email campaigns.
Sign up for Mailmodo!
