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Single Opt-in vs. Double Opt-in

The direction we take from the initial act of the visitor opting in to your list, depends on a decision you made when setting up your autoresponder account. You were likely given the option of setting up a single opt-in or a double opt-in list. Please note that some autoresponder services now require your list to be a double opt-in list.

The choice is really one of protecting yourself from spam complaints. If you are building a single opt-in list then you are going to grow your list faster but at some expense. The fact that anybody could add somebody else's email address to your opt-in form means you are setting yourself up for trouble and the inevitable spam complaint.

Each email you send from your autoresponder will be monitored for these complaints by your autoresponder service provider. Generally an acceptable level of complaints is .001% of the email that you send out. This means for every 1000 emails you send, you are allowed one spam complaint. To be clear, a spam complaint occurs when the recipient of your email reports it as spam.

Since all the emails you send out from your Autoresponder will be sent from their servers, they must take precautions. If you are blasting out spam mail it could have a serious effect on their ability to get the emails they send on their customers behalf (you) delivered. If the autoresponder services begin to develop the reputation as spammers, it won't be long before internet service providers will black list (block) the emails sent through the autoresponder service.

I am not completely sure how these spam complaints are made, but it really doesn't matter. I do know that if the recipient of your mail is an AOL account user, then there is a button close by for them to click reporting the email as spam. If they do that, then I assume AOL forwards the complaint back to your autoresponder service. My guess is that most of the complaints come from AOL users. I say this because I am not an AOL user, and if I receive a piece of email that genuinely is spam, I have no idea where to report it as spam, and I have never had enough interest to find out. I think most people would do the same thing I do and simply delete the junk mail from my inbox without further action.

The AOL "Report as SPAM" button is particularly frustrating because every email you send from your autoresponder contains a link at the bottom of the email where the list member can "unsubscribe" from your list. Once they do that, they will receive no further email from you. But instead of unsubscribing, they click the AOL button and then you have yourself a spam complaint.

In the event of a single opt-in list, once the visitor submits their information they are automatically added to your list. There is no need for further confirmation, and therefore you are leaving yourself wide open for rampant complaints which could jeopardize your autoresponder service account. Your list will grow faster using this method but as I said earlier it does so with substantial risk to your account.

If you are using a double opt-in list then the visitor will be asked to further confirm that they have actually opted into your list. Once they submit their opt-in, they will automatically and immediately be sent an email from your autoresponder explaining that someone at their address has just joined your list, and you want to be sure it was them. They will be asked to click on a link contained in that email to confirm their opt-in. The act of clicking that link to confirm their opt-in represents a second act of opting in and therefore they are considered a double opt-in member of your list.

Here is a screenshot of the confirmation email. If you opted in to Bob's list then you received this email shortly after you did so. If you did not receive this email, then please check your junk mail folder as it is likely in there.

If you opted in to Bob's list you will find that as soon as you clicked on the "Send Me Johnny's Tips" button you received the email above. Once you confirm by clicking on the confirmation link you would have been automatically re-directed to the sales page for Bob's "Little League Coaching Guide" and you would have also received an email containing Johnny Bench's 10 tips at the same time.

See where we go from here on page 4.

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