Opt in or Double opt-in – The War of Ideologies to Grow Email List

It is a common question while trying to grow email lists “Should I use single or double opt-in when growing my email list?” To begin with, this question should not be treated in silo, the common concern with double opt-in is that it requires the customer to perform the additional step of opening an email and clicking a link to confirm they want to opt in.

Double opt-in – Everyone Slips

So most people slips in the last stage not everyone completes the confirmation step. The reasons can be many may be they didn’t get the double opt-in confirmation email or they don’t get around to reading and clicking the link in the email or have a change of mind.

The slips are concrete there are studies that shows almost 20% is not uncommon including instances of brands with 40% of people signing up failing to confirm opt in. Therefore there is no option that single opt-in list will grow a list faster. The argument for double opt-in is that it builds a higher quality list and therefore an important measure of initial customer loyalty.

What matters Most – More clicks or higher click rate?

Both clicks and open rates are not the best measure; evaluate a scenario for two lists, one grown with double opt-in and one with single. The double opt-in list is smaller because of the leakage problem.

	List size	Open rate	Click rate	Opens	Clicks
Double opt-in	750	22%	5%	165	37
Single opt-in	1000	18%	4%	180	40

The single opt-in list drives more clicks, even though the click rate is lower, clicks are 40 versus 37. This makes single opt-in better as more traffic has to be better.

In fact, simple logic is that double opt-in can never beat single opt-in. Since a single opt-in list will contain everyone who would have double opted-in plus more people it’s not possible for a double opt-in list to drive more traffic.

Decide the Job – Decide the Opt ins

Both single opt-in and double opt-in have their own benefits, the source is to identify the single and double opt-in, the reason is to consider the source and sign up process in order to decide whether single or double opt-in is more appropriate and assigning each of them accordingly.