Single Opt-in vs Double Opt-in: these are two easy and secure ways to collect customer contact information and part of one of the biggest discussions between email marketers; Should I Single or Double Opt-in?

This is the first and one of the most important decisions you’ll need to make before beginning with your email marketing strategy. So, before setting up your plan of action, let’s dig into the pros and cons of Single & Double Opt-in.

What is the Single Opt-in method in email marketing

Essentially, the single opt-in means that the user only needs to subscribe once. They fill in the signup form, submit and then their information is saved in your list, no extra confirmation is required and they immediately become a subscriber.

The form saves information such as the contact’s IP address, the date, and the time that they signed up. The single opt-in method is simpler and also, the easiest way to grow your audience quickly and convert. This first one is useful mostly, for those people that sign up via mobile device.

With this method in fact, “Marketers generally see about 20-30 percent faster list growth when they use single opt-in.” according to GetResponse stats.

What is the Double Opt-in method in email marketing

The double opt-in method has more steps but it’s still easy to use, the only difference is that it includes a confirmation step where the contact receives an email and needs to confirm their signup form.

With this method, the customer needs to confirm within that email that they actually want to join your list so that they’re added as a subscriber, only then their information is saved along with the information we mentioned above – IP address and time stamp.

One of the main advantages of the double-opt-in is that once they’ve double-checked their subscription you can be sure that the email address is from a valid and monitored inbox.

Pros and Cons of Single and Double Opt-in

With the single opt-in method, you reduce the number of steps a user needs to take to access your company content or email marketing. Thinking from the user experience side this one would be the best option to simplify their process of subscription.

On the other hand, double opt-in ensures that the users that are subscribing to your brand’s content are indeed real and high-quality. If they’re willing to make that extra effort, they’ll most likely engage and even convert with your email strategy.
This means that you should actually need to carefully take a look into your goals and audience objectives so that the actions that you’re trying to drive with these campaigns manage to achieve the desired results.

If you’re still not convinced with these comparisons, let’s talk about metrics and ways to test which of these two is more successful for your brand.

Measuring the success of single and double opt-in campaigns

As you should already know, in digital marketing, the best way to measure the effectiveness of any approach is to perform an A/B testing using both strategies for a considerable period of time that allows you to come up with conclusive results on what your customer is willing to do, and what drives the most rewarding results for your company.

There’s no right or wrong here, both options have their own merits, and deciding which one is best for your email list depends on your priorities. If a quick list growth is what you’re looking for, then the single opt-in is your best deal while if you’re concerned with the quality of your leads and want a list that is highly engaged, then the double opt-in is better.

If you have leads coming from different sources and might spare some time try out both options and evaluate which one drives best results, otherwise choose the one that aligns with your marketing goals whether they’re to grow your audience or to get qualified leads that will simplify your deliverability efforts.

Don’t have the time to dive deep into the merits of single or double opt-in and would rather have an expert set the best one for your store for you? Give us a call. Whatever the method of customer information collection, we’ll make sure it counts!