When it comes to using email marketing software then there is always a choice to make over how you build your list.
There are generally two options – whether to use single or double opt in – and this relates to how your subscribers are added to your list.
Email marketing opt in options are basically very straightforward but they can also be surprisingly controversial.
Some people insist that one is better than the other and in fact RocketResponder is very much on the side of the double-opt in camp. (We will explain exactly why later.)
However let’s not get ahead of ourselves in this story of optin email marketing…let’s explain the difference between both methods first.
When you use email marketing software to communicate with your subscribers via email then you will need their permission to do so in order to avoid anti-spam regulations.
This makes sense because it is not really an totally ethical thing to send emails to people who don’t want to hear from you.
The permission is given when your subscribers voluntarily give you their email addresses and indicate that they want you to communicate with them via email.
Single optin email marketing means that as soon as a valid email address is added to your email marketing software then you can begin sending out emails right away.
There is no problem here if the email address owner is the person who signed up to join your list.
However the danger with this method is that it is open to abuse from malicious people who simply know the email addresses of other people and want to cause mischief.
So if Katie is upset with Jon she might sign him up to a whole host of email lists so that he is inundated with emails from lots of people he has no interest in communicating with.
In this case there is no permission but the owner of the email list will have no idea that this is the case.
This is the major flaw in single opt-in systems and is one of the reasons why RocketResponder does not recommend single opt in for users.
Double optin email marketing adds an extra layer of security to protect the owner of the email address.
In this situation the email address is not made “live” by the email marketing software until it is confirmed by the owner.
This works by automatically sending an confirmation email to the address which just joined the list and asking the owner to click a link to confirm that they really do want to receive emails.
Only once the confirmation has been granted will the address be unlocked to allow any further emails to be sent.
This extra layer of protection will mean that it takes longer to build lists because some people will sign up to receive emails but never go on to confirm their subscription.
At RocketResponder we do not see this as a problem – if the person is not even interested to confirm their interest then they are most unlikely not to want to hear from you anyway.
In addition the extra level of protection to subscribers offered by double optin email marketing is why we insist on this method for all our account holders.