Double Opt In - the why's and how's

Recently we had a customer ask us to provide best practice advice for a registration process.

So we recommended a number of improvements to their form. Among them was the suggestion of employing a double opt-in system. This got us thinking about making sure you all know how this works and why it's a good reason to start using it today.

A quick recap on how this process works is as follows:

1. A registration form is completed
2. A confirmation email is sent to stated email address
3. The recipient clicks on the link in the email to confirm their subscription

That's all there is to it. Nice and simple!

The benefits of this process are:

1. The recipient can verify that the email address supplied is correct and that they own it
2. The recipient has a chance to add this address to their contact or safe senders lists
3. The sender now has a valid email in their database

Our studies show that an average of about 78% of double opt-in emails are validatated (clicked through). The reasons for this are obvious - you have the registrants' attention. They're telling you that they want to join your list and will do what you ask.

The remaining ~20% are usually invalid addresses - which you didn't want anyway.

So the net result, either way is that you'll end up with a perfectly validated, qualified subscriber.

What more can you ask for?! :)

Now it doesn't necessarily have to follow this exact process. There are a number of ways that the end goal of the double opt-in process can be achieved to make it less troublesome or complicated.

For example

A creative way to employ this validation process is to integrate it with your registration process. This means breaking up the registration into two parts.

Step 1 - Basic rego info

• Email (validated using javascript and/or double entry)
• First name
• Last name
• Salutation*
• Post/Zip Code*

You can ask for more but we'd suggest keeping it to these 5. (*you can extrapolate gender and geographic location from these). At the very least, ask for email and first name.

Then you send a confirmation email which asks for validation and sends them onto part 2 of the process on the validation links' 'Thank You' page.

Stage 2 - more info

Here's where you can ask for the extra info that you may have left out of step 1 and then ask for other relevant information such as preferences or other demographic data.

Of course some type of incentive works best. But sometimes just a reminder that you can give the subscriber a better quality service if they give up this information is enough.

In all cases remember one important rule. Only ask for the information you need, when you need it.

For more tips and hints, feel free to drop us a line.