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Michael Green's 'How To' Forum
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How To Forum
Re: 30% lose of subscribers with verified opt-in? Do you actually lose sales though...
Posted By: Tom Kulzer In Response To: Re: Aweber, GetResponse, Proautoresponder - comparison pros and cons (Trevor Clarke)
Date: Monday, 5 April 2004, at 2:26 p.m.
Trevor,
> A point about the autoresponders confirmation opt-in. We have no control
> over the content of what goes out to the prospect, that asks them to
> confirm. A bog standard worded email, no matter what service, ezine or
> offer they have registered for, can easily confuse a person or lack theOur confirmation emails are definitely customizable.
You can customize the subject line as well as the first
paragraph of the email that is sent for subscribers to
confirm.Let me pose one question...
Many have quoted that they lose 30% of subscribers using
verified opt-in. I see that stat quoted over and over
again. I never see the corresponding stat of the number
of sales generated from an opt-in list however.We personally use verified opt-in on all of our test drive
web forms placed on our site. We too "lose" about 30% of
email addresses that fill in that form. However, since we
implemented verified opt-in on those forms the number of
sales generated by test drives has stayed exactly the same
which means the percentage of people who actually confirm
and then buy has gone up signficantly. The "people" that
don't confirm are the ones that enter bogus information in
web forms and are not interested in what you have to offer.
I can't even begin to tell you the number of email addresses
that we see people type into web forms on a daily basis that
are flagrantly bogus/invalid. That's not including the others
that may look correct but bounce on the first message which
means that those to are invalid.Please look at all the stats before drawing a conclusion on
verified opt-in. Saying you haven't had a problem in the
past doesn't mean you've never spammed someone by having
someone else enter a bogus email address that didn't belong
to them. It also doesn't mean you'll never have problems in
the future.The new CAN-SPAM act also throws some additional fodder into
the discussion. If you look at the act closely their is some
vague wording on the paragraphs that state you need to have
explicit permission from a subscriber before emailing them.
Without verification you have no idea that the person entering
the email on the web form is indeed the owner of that address.
Hence, in the most technical of senses, you could be violating
the CAN-SPAM act by not verifying. It won't be until some case
law is estabilished to clear this up that we'll know for sure.
I don't know about you, but I prefer to have my ass covered and
not let that liability hang out there. It's just ripe for abuse.> I found this with GetResponse when re-importing the 'undeliverables' for
> another attempt (note that they do allow that option) and their shortOuch, I wouldn't recommend that. AOL and several other ISP's
have very strict guidelines about removing undeliverables from
a list after the first permanent undeliverable message is received.
IE) user mailbox closed, non existent, etc. Remailing undeliverable
addresses on those ISP's can get you blacklisted.Sincerely,
Tom Kulzer
CEO & Founder
AWeber Communications
AWeber Unlimited Autoresponders.
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