Single or double (aka “confirmed”) opt-in… it’s always been a dilemma for marketers.
At first glance, the answer is clear – confirmed opt-in gives cleaner lists, and that ensures the best possible deliverability for your messages.
But confirmed opt-in has one major flaw.
If the subscriber doesn’t get the confirmation email, they can’t join the list.
And with the likes of Google and Yahoo controlling whether confirmation emails go to the inbox or junk/promotions folder, this can dramatically lower opt-in rates (even after accounting for subscribers who mistype or use fake email addresses).
Probably why more marketers seem to be recommending single opt-in these days.
But what if there was a way to get the best of both worlds?
The convenient user experience of single opt-in along with the delivery benefits of a confirmed opt-in list?
Well here’s an idea that might just fit the bill, which I’ve called…
The Reverse Confirmed Opt-in Method
The idea is to have a single opt-in list which you use for signups in the normal way.
But, instead of using this as your main list, you simply set up a series of followup emails that push for a confirmation link click. So, if you were offering a lead magnet, you would send a series of reminders for them to click and go get it.
And you replace your regular link with an AWtomator Link Event that moves the subscriber to your main list before redirecting them to the content they wanted.
(Alternatively, you can use an AWtomator Tag Event to trigger the move when they open the email OR click a link)
That way, your main list ONLY gets subscribers with valid email addresses who actually wanted to hear from you… just like confirmed opt-in.
But, instead of giving them just one chance to see and click a confirmation link, you can now send as many reminders as you need to maximise your conversion rate.
And if they don’t engage, you can unsubscribe anyone still on the list once they reach the the end of the followup sequence using an AWtomator Tag Event (if using Campaigns) or an AWtomator Automation Event (for legacy followups) and then delete them using an AWtomator Purge Event.
What are you thoughts on this? Leave your comments below.
Thomas says
2nd November 2016 at 2:10 pmHi Rob and all other AWtomator users!
I would like to borrow your expertise for something :). I hope that is OK.
I am trying to create an automated aWeber chain for our affiliate company.
Every day we are sending different promotions with products that are sold by our partners. We have about 10 websites where we gather emails and our current lists are exceeding 160k subscribers.
What do I want to achieve?
List 1: Name: Signup
I want to use the “Reverse Confirmed Opt-in” Method.
3 Reminders where a person needs to click a link to activate his subscription. – After clicking an activation link the subscriber will end up in the ‘Email Chain’ list
List 2: Name: Email Chain
After clicking an activation link the subscriber will end up in this list
Email 1: Welcome Offer 1 (right after activation)
Email 2: Welcome Offer 2 (one day after activation)
Email 3: Welcome Offer 3 (two days after activation)
Email 4 to Email 10: Offers from partners that will be in a loop
So in theory Email 4-10 are ‘broadcast ready’
Every month we have one dedicated week where we introduce a new product that will get dedicated attention. We want to approach these promotions as normal broadcasts and we will promote them in List 2: Name: Email Chain so all mailers in this list need to be put on hold. These dates always have to flexible for each month.
My questions:
– Does this all make any sense? 😉
– How does the subscriber that clicks the activation link in his signup reminder (List 1: Name: Signup) end up in the following list (List 2: Name: Email Chain)? How can I make the connection between the different lists?
– Is it possible to see open/clicks rates for every single mailer in List 2: Name: Email Chain?
– Is it possible to loop email 4 to email 10? So the receiver will only see the email 1, 2 and 3 once? Or would you suggest to make 3 Lists? For example – List 1: Signup (reminders), List 2: Welcome Chain (email 1, 2, 3) AND List 3: Normal Chain (email 4 to 10 with loop)
– Is it possible to put a chain on hold for flexible dates? Every month we promote our new products in a different week.
Rob Woodgate says
3rd November 2016 at 2:16 pmMy questions:
– Does this all make any sense? 😉
All makes sense up to the loop part. So if my answers on that are based on misunderstanding of what you want, let me know.
I’m not convinced that looping the same 7 emails (“4-10”) is a great idea, as after the first loop, the subscriber experience starts to suffer.
Though this setup might be of interest?
https://www.awtomator.com/crushing-affiliate-offers/
– How does the subscriber that clicks the activation link in his signup reminder (List 1: Name: Signup) end up in the following list (List 2: Name: Email Chain)? How can I make the connection between the different lists?
As per article above – simply set up a link event with the activation link – this link event will then move them to List 2
– Is it possible to see open/clicks rates for every single mailer in List 2: Name: Email Chain?
Each event has its own stats, so you would be able to see total daily click rates for the link event (i.e. link clicks) as well as total unique subscribers processed.
So, if you want to track click stats per email sent, then you would use a separate link event in each one.
Or use a single link event and something like this for google analytics reporting:
https://www.awtomator.com/using-google-analytics-custom-campaigns-with-aweber/
Open rates are available in AWeber reporting, so are not repeated in AWtomator.
– Is it possible to loop email 4 to email 10? So the receiver will only see the email 1, 2 and 3 once?
I would set up the 3 welcome emails in an AWeber Campaigns campaign, and trigger it with a Campaigns tag when the activation Link Event is fired.
See: https://www.awtomator.com/trigger-aweber-campaigns-subscriber-clicks-email-link/
The looping could be done by copying the emails 4-10 into the legacy followup series. You would need to put an email at the start as AWeber sends first email right away and set email “4” to go out after 3 days (to allow for welcome series)
So maybe you’d put a “thanks for activating” or “here’s your free report” as first legacy followup, then set the welcome email Campaign start after a wait period.
You could then use a series of automation events (set to different wait times) to achieve the number of loops you want (each event fires only once per subscriber).
The automation event(s) would then loop them back to message 1 (the “thanks for activating”) so they are ready to receive the first offer (email “4”) again.
– Is it possible to put a chain on hold for flexible dates? Every month we promote our new products in a different week.
It’s not possible to put Campaigns or legacy series “on hold” while you do broadcasts.
But you could tag them as “broadcast ready” in the first looping automation event and then they will only get 2 emails (looped + broadcast) once they have already had 10 emails from you.
Courtney Kostelecky says
11th January 2017 at 8:08 pmOr what I do is make a nice opt in box- and pass the info to Aweber. Lots of options.