Mayank AgarwalOct 6, 2021 10:42:08 PM5 min read

Create A Double Opt-In List

A Step-By-Step Guide To Creating A Double Opt-In List.

What is a Double-Opt-In in Email Marketing?

In the double-opt-in process, once you enter your email address in a signup form, your subscription is not yet confirmed. There is a second step of logging into your inbox, look for the email received from the brand you are signing up for and confirm your subscription by clicking a button or link in that email.

Double-op-in a signup method used by brands and newsletters to ensure that the subscribers who sign up for their newsletter have valid email addresses and a monitored inbox.

Here is an example of a double opt in process:

There is a signup form where I entered the email address.

Right after that, I received an email in my inbox from the same domain.

Once I clicked on the button 'Yes, I want to subscribe', it showed me the screen to confirm subscription.

Until the subscriber clicks on the link or button asking them to confirm subscription, they are not added to your email list. These subscribers are called 'unconfirmed'. When you broadcast your emails, they won't be sent to an unconfirmed audience.

Why is Double Opt-In needed?

You might think that double-opt-in will not help you grow your email list faster because some people might miss confirming subscription or some might just be lazy to login to their inbox, find the email and confirm.

That's true. It will not help if you are looking to grow rapidly.

But this has advantages if you are trying to avoid any soft, hard bounces or spam email IDs. Sometimes, bots may start signing up for your email list. This will put the burden of paying for those bots in your list and won't get you any ROI as they are… bots, not humans.

So double opt-in will help improve email deliverability and improve your sender reputation (as you won't have any spam trap IDs)

But, you might miss out of getting some subscribers confirmed for your list.

Should you use double-opt-in?

There are some advantages and also some disadvantages of double opt in. Let's see what those are:

Advantages:

Get highly qualified leads: When someone makes an effort of going through two steps to join your list - one to signup and another to confirm, you can be sure that they are your target audience and hence highly qualified leads.
Improve email deliverability: As your list will contain high-qualified leads, they will engage more with your list compared to cold audiences. This will improve all your email metric and hence your deliverability. Because mailbox providers see your emails as valuable and avoid sending those to spam folders if they see a lot of subscribers engaging with them.
Less bounce rates: Sometimes people might put in wrong email IDs or make typos while signing up but if you have double opt in, they will have to enter the right email address, to get a confirmation email and get into your email list. It will increase your open rate as less emails get bounced.
Create a better connection with the subscribers: Double opt in may keep some subscribers who haven't confirmed, out of your newsletter broadcast and email list. But the ones who sign up and confirm will be highly qualified. They will be invested into reading your emails and thus you will build a better connection with them, over time.

Disadvantages:

You will lose leads: There will be some subscribers who will forget to confirm or won't do it out of laziness of going through one more step. These might not be highly qualified leads but might have the potential to become those, later. But because of double opt in, you will lose some leads
Extra functionality by your ESP: You will need an ESP that provides double opt in functionality. Some ESPs might charge extra for this or might not provide this functionality at all. In that case you will have to pay more or switch your ESP… which is a lengthy process.
List growth takes time: Since double opt in process has two steps which everyone might not do, your list growth will be slower compared to single opt in process.

By the end of this guide, you will be able to quickly create a double opt-in list within SendX. Depending on your business's needs, you may need to create a double opt-in list, where the user receives a verification email on submitting his email ID. Only after he verifies through that email will he be added to the list.

How Double Opt-In Works

The double opt-in process consists of 2 steps:
Step 1 -> Potential subscribers submits his info.
Step 2-> Potential subscriber confirms via a verification email sent to him afterwards.

After the completion of these 2 steps, the subscriber is successfully added to a list.

How To Create A Double Opt-In List

Go to the Contacts + Lists screen from the Top hand side pane.

Click on New Lists, and type a name for the list under the Name field.

Go to the Advanced Email Setting tab. Choose Double Opt In from the drop-down menu below List Type.

Write the From Name, From Email, Subject and the Email Body for the verification email that will be sent after a user submits his info.

And you have the options to send a Thank You mail once a user has subscribed to your list. As well as a Goodbye mail once a user has unsubscribed from it. Click on the Thank you email setting, and type out the email that you want to send to your subscribers/unsubscribers.

Thank You Email from SendX for Opting in

List Confirm HTML Page

After a user confirms to subscribe to your list, he is taken to a separate page which conveys him the message that he is subscribed to the list. You can edit that page and how it would look like by customizing the message under List Confirm HTML Page.

The field for Default List Unsubscribe Footer allows you to edit the footer that is attached to every email of yours sent to this particular list.