HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR DOUBLE OPT-IN RATES BY 30% OR MORE

Average opt-in rates have fallen quite a bit over the last couple years, and
will likely continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

Double opt-ins are especially prone to this trend.

First of all, “What is double opt-in?”

Basically, that means when someone goes to your site and signs up for your
newsletter or autoresponder series, they are sent an email with a confirmation link.
They must confirm by clicking that link in order to receive what they signed up for on your website.

If they don’t confirm, they are never added to your list.

It is a way to lower spam complaints because they have to go the extra step to get added to your list.

It would be virtually impossible for someone to “accidentally” be added to your mailing list.

This protects you if someone complains because they forgot they signed up to your list or simply mad because you sent them an email promoting something.

That doesn’t change the fact that they still had to confirm their original
subscription and now you’ll have proof.

The Biggest Complaint

The biggest complaint people have about double opt-in is that they don’t get
as many subscribers as they would by allowing any and everybody to join their
list without confirmation.

But here’s the flaw in that line of thinking…

Let’s say that 100 people sign up for your newsletter and 100 email
addresses are added to your list because you aren’t using double opt-in
confirmations.
Up to 30 or more of those email addresses could be worthless anyway.

Maybe someone mistyped their email address or they entered one that they don’t
really use thinking that they would be able to download some freebies on your
thank you page.

If you’re using double opt-in you would never see those worthless email
addresses. The people who typed in their email address the wrong way most
likely won’t sign up again but more importantly, those bad addresses won’t be
added to your list.

The people who purposely entered a bad email address thinking they could
download something on your thank you page most likely will not give you a good
email address anyway.

In other words, with confirmed subscriptions you are basically dealing with
people who have given you valid email addresses they actually use. If someone
won’t even give you a real email address do you think that person would bother
to buy from you?

Probably not.

The key to getting the most people to sign up to your lists and confirm their
subscription is to offer some sort of incentive for them to do so. But you don’t
want to make that incentive available on your thank you page.

Your incentive MUST be sent only to the people who take the time to
confirm their subscription. Make that known.

Let people know they have to confirm their subscription before they
can get any incentives you offer for signing up.

Here is a good example of what you could say on your thank you page:

In the beginning, people are more interested in the bonus you promised
them than they are in your list because they don’t know if the content you’re
going to send them is any good yet.

That’s why you have to make sure they understand that to get your
incentive, they have to confirm their subscription.

Before you go live with your list, sign yourself up then go to your inbox and
take a screenshot of what they confirmation email looks like. Upload that
screenshot to show people.

That way, you’ve told people what to look for AND you’ve shown them.
You’ve just made it easy for them to confirm.

I know it sounds simple, but sometimes simple is best. It’ll definitely improve
your confirmation rates dramatically.

As long as you let people know immediately after they sign up for your list
that they have to confirm to get anything from you, the number of people who
actually confirm will rise significantly.

Remember, many people (especially in non-marketing niches) just assume
that since they signed up for your emails, they should automatically get them. Many Don’t

Hope that helps.

Talk Soon,
Billy Holder