I'm working on an Aweber follow-up campaign for a client (using confirmed opt-in) and he's complaining that almost 20% of his subscribers don't confirm their subscription.

I have told him that is about a normal percentage that don't confirm. But he's still unhappy. So I'm wondering whether:
a) switch to a single opt-in system (would involve setting up a whole new Aweber account, I think)
b) figure out a way to increase confirmations.

Any ideas or thoughts on either option would be welcome.

A few things that have worked well for me:

On the "thank you" page DO NOT thank them. Put up a big "Warning", "Important", "You're Not Done Yet" etc type headline and explain exactly what they have to do.

Pictures and videos showing the process work well.

Make sure there's some kind of widget they get ONLY when they confirm, make sure they're aware of this.

Here's my experience.

I never understood double opt-in. Not from a "this is the email standard, every does it, you're nuts not to do it, what about SPAM complaints, you'll get a better quality list" point of view... That gets pounded into everyone's head enough--so I'm clear on that.

I'm talking about viewing double opt-in from the point of view of my customer. I try to do things that keep them from having to actually WORK to get messages from me.

They already asked once to get my message. Making them ask twice is like asking them if they're really sure they want to buy my widget after they've already said they want it.

I've killed way too many sales by asking questions AFTER the sale was already made.

And until AWeber and everyone else can 100% guarantee that my subscriber is going to get that confirmation email, well, then I KNOW I'm losing money.

I used double opt-in for a while, and in all cases it was a pain. I turned it off. Sales went up.

That was neat.

And if you branch out with your marketing and don't JUST depend on email for every cent your business earns, then it works even better.

Thanks guys. Interesting comments on single optin, Jason. I'm actually using single optin on my own sites, because I know I'm never going to send spam and I also know I'm going to get more sign-ups. But for clients I've always felt I have to 'play by the rules' and give them double opt in.

Anyway, with this client I've just rewritten the confirmation page so it's absolutely hitting them in the face what they have to do to confirm.

I'll test the results of that. If there's no noticeable improvement, I will look at single optin.

Don't AWeber, and many of the other autoresponder services, require you to use double opt-in now?

I found that despite having a very well designed post-signup page that shows exactly what the confirmation email will look like, explaining they dont get free videos til they confirm, and where/how to click, I still have a very high rate of people not clicking their confirmation links.

I'm wondering about a couple of possible solutions, short of going back to single opt-in (which isn't good since competitors could sign up via single optin links then complain they never signed up and you're spamming them, and you have no proof that they signed up, which a double opt in provides... it's a risk mgmt tactic that's a good idea, but we need to improve it)..

- solution: export the non-confirmed emails to a csv file and then use a desktop mailer to say "oops your confirmation email must've been lost, please try again (link)" .. to them, via a single email (which also has unsub directions in it, for compliance)

I'm in favor of double opt in, but I too am concerned about the large percentage of "yellow bars" in aweber indicating all the potential customers I've lost because they didn't click the confirmation email.

Likely the confirmation email is getting spam-filtered by the customers' ISP, which is impossible to control if it's not put in the junk or trash folders but is eliminated before it gets to any of their email boxes, so that's a problem.
I also encourage them not to use aol or earthlink or spamarrest emails since they get filtered out/don't work, either.... ideas?

thx,

-k

hey ken,

one of the tools in conversion elite (from myself and million dollar mike) is turbo confirmation. it will show the subscriber exactly how to add you to their whitelist based on their email address provider, gmail, aol, spam arrest, etc. It also does other things. I'm sure i'll add even more when I get back from marketingsherpa's email summit. hth

big jason

those are some great tips. i like using the red stop sign.

big jason

OK, I'm going out on a limb here but I usually check them confirmed if they signed up in the first place. But I don't use Aweber. Am I breaking some ethical law here? No one that I have confirmed has unsubscribed or complained about it. But I don't want to go to prison.

Are you guys able to auto confirm with that program or are you simply that ethical? Because honestly, I thought I was the biggest square on the planet. Square with a wild hair but still a square.

clicking the "Mark as Spam" button is the equivalent of unsubscribing and complaining but most people don't know how many people do that to them.

big jason