What are the best ways to mitigate risks when disabling double opt-in for email sign-up forms?
Summary
What email marketers say11Marketer opinions
Marketer from Email Geeks shares to remove anyone who doesn't engage in the first 30 days, or even 2 weeks, depending on the message frequency. This helps to minimize the impact of garbage addresses.
Email marketer from MailerLite Blog explains that proper list cleaning and segmentation is essential. Regularly remove unengaged subscribers to maintain a healthy sender reputation.
Email marketer from Reddit suggests monitoring bounce rates closely. A sudden spike in hard bounces is a sign of invalid emails and requires immediate investigation.
Email marketer from Gmass Blog shares that using a dedicated IP address for sending email can improve your sender reputation and prevent your emails from being affected by other users' sending practices.
Email marketer from Litmus Blog recommends to use a confirmed opt-in process for high-value actions (like purchases) to verify email addresses and maintain data quality.
Email marketer from HubSpot Blog shares to implement a welcome email series that encourages engagement immediately after signup. This helps identify active and interested subscribers.
Email marketer from StackOverflow recommends to implement a honeypot field on your signup form to attract and trap bots, preventing them from submitting fake email addresses.
Email marketer from Email on Acid Blog suggests to regularly test your signup forms to ensure they are working correctly and preventing automated or invalid submissions.
Marketer from Email Geeks advises validating email addresses on the sign-up form to catch and correct errors made by users, such as typos.
Marketer from Email Geeks recommends using services like Kickbox, Zerobounce, TheChecker, or Neverbounce, which offer APIs to automatically verify new email addresses and prune invalid mailboxes.
Email marketer from Neil Patel's Blog shares that implementing strong email validation at the point of signup, like using an email validation API, catches typos and invalid addresses immediately.
What the experts say3Expert opinions
Expert from Word to the Wise shares that setting up and actively monitoring feedback loops with various ISPs helps identify subscribers who are marking your emails as spam, allowing for their prompt removal from your mailing list.
Expert from Email Geeks suggests adding reCaptcha 3 to the sign-up forms as a risk mitigation strategy.
Expert from Spamresource.com explains that using suppression lists, which contain email addresses of people who have unsubscribed or marked emails as spam, is critical for maintaining a good sender reputation when not using double opt-in.
What the documentation says4Technical articles
Documentation from SparkPost Documentation explains that setting up a feedback loop with ISPs allows you to identify and remove subscribers who mark your emails as spam.
Documentation from Mailchimp Resources explains that segmenting lists based on subscriber activity and demographics helps target engaged users and avoid sending to inactive addresses.
Documentation from RFC Editor details the importance of adhering to SMTP standards to ensure reliable email delivery and prevent deliverability issues associated with single opt-in.
Documentation from SendGrid Documentation states that using reCAPTCHA on signup forms helps prevent bot signups and reduces the risk of spam traps entering your list.