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Single Opt-in versus Confirmed Opt-in |
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Written by Adam Audette
December 5, 2006
Taking a step backwards: are publishers defaulting to single opt-in?
I thought Steven Rothberg's comments were very interesting in issue 2298 on the subject of double opt-in lists:
> My point isn't to bemoan the recruitment advertising campaign
> that we ran. My point is that double opt-in is an extremely high
> standard and I believe one that is unrealistic for us to expect
> of typical users.
This is a very important point. I've been doing a bit of thinking since this post ran and have to admit being surprised this didn't stir up the bee's nest. It's a pretty controversial issue with email publishers, always has been really.
I remember when Ann Holland of Marketing Sherpa really let me have it for saying that confirmed opt-in was "the only way to go for professional e-mail publishers." She replied in part,
"Professional publishing means running your company as a business. It's smart business to not put barriers in front of a sale (or opt-in). Every barrier reduces the opt-ins, even from very willing folks, by a big percent.
"If I changed my company's policy to double opt-in -- which would reduce our new monthly opt-ins by perhaps 50% -- I would then lose substantial revenues. Not smart business."
(This discussion took place on a private list called ePublisher that Adventive hosted back in the old days.) I have to admit that Ann raises some critically important points. I can't really find fault in her choice, either. My ethical standards are not anyone else's, and the bottom line in business is ROI regardless of the aims of best practices.
I'm sure that if I went to single opt-in for the LED I'd have twice as many new subscribers each day. But I'm also wary of opening that door to the possible abuse, and moving backwards in the pursuit of an ethical publishing standard (if there can be such a thing - what I really mean is "part-of-the-problem or part-of-the-solution" - say that 3x fast!).
L-Soft (the huge software company) runs a list called SPAM-L and they take spam very seriously. The company and list advocate against single opt-in lists and consider them "spam machines." They have declared war on these single opt in lists.
Next, consider the large email providers you have to comply with. AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo want me to publish SPF records or Domain Keys or, in Hotmail's case, a version of SPF that is confusing at best. I'm all for complying. But then there is no guarantee on their end that LED will get through to my subscribers. And there's absolutely no transparency in the processes involved or the status of my email. Gmail is much better (for now).
It seems pretty defeating to go through all the trouble of playing nice with these email services, then running a list as single opt-in and possibly adding to the spamming problem.
And alternatives? RSS was encouraging when it first came on the scene as a new channel for email publishers, but unfortunately it's more of an alternative browsing method than anything else. RSS is fantastic to keep the signal-to-noise high in the saturated blog space, but it's not going to rescue email. I don't know what will.
Adam Audette
 this post ran in LED Digest 2301: Questioning SEOs on their Methods
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