Email Marketing: What’s Really the Issue With Confirmed Opt-In?

Posted: 03 Oct 2016 06:00 AM PDT

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks in the discussion surrounding confirmed opt-in (COI) and the direction that the industry is headed. I wrote about the inevitability of confirmed opt-in becoming the standard at some point in the future. The discussion began with a rash of Spamhaus listings, which were supposedly generated from a list bomber. We didn’t discuss the merits of how the “list bomber” got the Spamhaus trap addresses, whose anonymity are key to their credibility.

We didn’t talk about how the “list bomber” targeted mainstream marketers who used larger ESP’s. We didn’t talk about just how Spamhaus knew exactly which marketers to list. I bet you didn’t tell Spamhaus if you were hit by this. You can draw your own conclusions from what’s been written, and also what hasn’t been written. It was also interesting timing for this to “randomly” happen just before the holiday period.

So, it’s out there, and one could argue that this was a concerted effort on behalf of someone to drive senders to this practice. The funny thing is that COI isn’t even a radical concept anymore. Think about when you purchase or sign-up for many programs these days. You get a please confirm your email address, confirm your subscription, or confirm your preferences message right away.

Companies do this for the security of their customers. They don’t want to send your information to the wrong person, just because someone made a typo. COI is already a common email practice. You sign up for a Gmail account, and you have to confirm your email address. Nobody sees that email and freaks out, it is standard operating procedure.

Pradeep Mangalapalli, Director of Deliverability Operations, wrote a post last week which highlighted some extensive metrics that we pulled from across the marketing universe (Not just Oracle, we looked at senders regardless of ESP). We found that these campaigns perform at a very high level. Open rates are high, and read rates are also very strong. The spam complaint rate for these types of email is almost zero.

That’s because we understand that for the most part, these messages are now part of the expected back and forth conversation with someone we are doing business with, or interested in receiving information. Affiliate marketers have been confirming permission for years, because they were trying to avoid those previously mentioned complaints.

If you are a marketer who doesn’t want to do COI right now, that’s fine. But I would encourage you to ask yourself (and your team), what are you really afraid of? We’ve established that consumers understand the process now. That wasn’t the case 3 or 4 years ago, but it’s basically mainstream these days. I would propose that the real issue isn’t the actual COI, but a fear that you are going to lose subscribers.

If that is really the case, it is not because of the COI itself, but some other probably more important issues. What does it say if you think 75% of your subscribers won’t click a link in an email whose only purpose is to protect your security?

Maybe they don’t know they were “signing up” for your program. Is the user afraid they are going to be bombarded with email they don’t want? Is it the fact that you aren’t converting 100% of address to your list? Just because you have an email address doesn’t mean it wasn’t faked, made-up, mistyped, or is a valid address at an account they will just never check.

Would you want an ATM card that didn’t have a PIN number, or a credit card where you didn’t have to verify a signature? There’s a reason why you have to activate a credit card you receive in the mail. You activate it so in case it falls in the wrong hands, there’s a step required before that shopping spree. Clicking a link is so much easier.

If you fall in the category of “scared of confirmed opt-in” I would suggest you look a few levels above a simple email. Why would your customers not trust clicking a simple link that protects them and you as a sender from many dangerous elements?

The answer is most likely not the confirmation email, but something else that is probably already costing you money. You can wait until something like CASL comes along and freak out about the “changes” you must make at the last minute, or just fix the leaks today.

Another thing you could do is download Email Deliverability: Guide for Modern Marketers to find out how to achieve email deliverability that really delivers.