Should You Use Double Opt-in?

MAR 2024

By Caitlin Elgin

This may be controversial, but in my humble opinion - no.

Well, mostly. More on that below.

Most email service providers will give the default recommendation that you should use double opt-in when collecting email addresses via a sign up form on your website. While this is technically the best way to ensure explicit email consent, is it really the healthiest thing for your list growth?

First things first - what is the difference between single and double opt-in? Single opt-in (SOI) only requires that a user submit their email address, whereas double opt-in requires an additional confirmation. Double opt-in (DOI) will send the user an email asking them to confirm their subscription after they've submitted a form on your site - if they don't click the confirmation button in that message, they won't receive any further emails from you.

The best thing about DOI is it guarantees the contacts entering your list truly want to be there - plus the additional confirmation step will kick out any deliverability risks like email addresses with typos or bots and prevent them from hurting your bounce or spam rates.

The major drawback to DOI is it adds extra steps to the customer experience - and people generally do not like extra friction when first engaging with a brand. According to this study by GetResponse, even though DOI may result in more engaged subscribers, SOI drives significantly higher list growth because of this reduced friction.

As long as you are maintaining good list hygiene and email deliverability practices, we generally don't recommend using DOI simply for the impact it has on list growth. But! There are a few situations in which we'd recommend using it for an added layer of security:

  • If your website is experiencing inflated bot activity. We'd recommend turning on reCAPTCHA first, but if that doesn't bring down the bot traffic to your email list, you can activate DOI until the bot traffic subsides.

  • If you've been struggling with email deliverability. If you've been experiencing severely low engagement or critically poor deliverability metrics, activating DOI can improve the quality of your incoming contacts while you focus on improving content or cadence.

Every brand is different, so there's no one-size-fits-all approach to managing email opt-ins. We have worked with some brands who have found the added layer of confirmation from DOI helps them maintain a certain level of trust with their subscribers, while others have found SOI to be more efficient with scaling their list growth. The great thing is you can always test and find what works for your brand!

Have questions about growing your list? Let us know!