Easy Way to Remind Subscribers of Their Opt-in

Inbox Ideas | Email Marketing Tips by AWeber

Posted by Marc Kline

We’ve posted several articles now on SPAM issues, including those on how to avoid being perceived as a spammer.

Among these, you’ll find blog articles on content filtering, a guide to personal e-mail filters, do’s and don’ts for adding subscribers. You’ll also find some important information in exploring our knowledge base.

These are big, important things to consider. But of course, there are also more subtle, easy to implement things you should do as well. I thought it’d be helpful to chime in with a quick tip.

A short paragraph to add to your messages:

When composing our messages we send to our customers, we always append the bottom with a quick message indicating the IP address, as well as the date and time of the sign up. For example:

Our records indicate that Marc Kline at marckline@example.com requested a Test Drive demonstration of AWeber at http://www.aweber.com

Date: February 27, 2007
IP: 127.0.0.1

This helps to:

remind subscribers of when and how they subscribed should they doubt it
avoid having them mark the message as SPAM

Should someone mark it as SPAM, within the message body itself is some of the tracking information ISPs may review in deciding on the severity of the complaint.

Of course, it’s equally as important to use verified opt-in for campaigns to complete this audit trail.

How do I add this to my AWeber messages?:

You’ll just need to use our personalization fields for name, e-mail, sign up date, ‘add URL’ and IP address. Copy and paste this paragraph into your messages, making modifications as you see fit:

Our records indicate that {!name} at {!email} requested information by e-mail from our company at {!add_url}

Date: {!signdate long}
IP: {!add_ip}

Our system will replace each personalization field with information based on their sign up. As long as you place this paragraph at the very bottom of the message, it will be followed by an unsubscribe link, should they wish to be taken off the list.

Any other quick tips you’d like to share along these lines? Please do!

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18 Responses

Chris
March 6th, 2007 at 9:49 am

Very helpful. Thanks for posting this.
Michele Dortch
March 6th, 2007 at 11:00 am

Marc,

I love this idea and upon attempting to implement it, a question came up for me.

You write, "As long as you place this paragraph at the very bottom of the message, it will be followed by an unsubscribe link, should they wish to be taken off the list."

But this is not true if I use the Signature feature under Global Fields, right?

Unfortunately, placing the "opt-in" blurb at the bottom of my messages is visually unappealing because I use the Signature feature. Is there an easy way to use this great idea and have it so the verbiage you suggest really does appear at the bottom of my message? (Not before my Signature block?)

Thanks for the great suggestion!
Jim Greene
March 6th, 2007 at 2:47 pm

Hello,

Thank you. That is an excellent idea.

Jim
Marc Kline
March 6th, 2007 at 4:44 pm

Michele,

Thank you for pointing this out! If you’re using a signature for your messages, to be sure it appears above this opt-in information, just use the {!signature} personalization field.

For example:

At the bottom of your messages, type:

{!signature}

Our records indicate that {!name} at {!email} requested information by e-mail from our company at {!add_url}

Date: {!signdate long}
IP: {!add_ip}

When you add the {!signature} field to your message, it will move it from the bottom to wherever you place it. Now, your subscribers will see your signature, the opt-in information, and finally the unsubscribe link.
Chibueze C. Okoji
March 7th, 2007 at 5:55 am

Dear,

That is a very good one. I wonder why I never thoght of that.

Keep it up friend!

Chibueze C. Okoji
sally neill
March 7th, 2007 at 4:15 pm

Thanks for the copy and paste paragraph.

And thank you to Marc for the sig explanation.
Ted
March 9th, 2007 at 3:36 pm

Thanks for the excellent tip. A lot of people opt in to so many lists, they often forget. I know from experience…heh.
Mashubi
March 10th, 2007 at 10:22 pm

Thank you Marc for this helpful information! Will this code work for HTML messages as well as plain text? From what I remember, the signature feature works only for plain text e-mails. I appreciate your input!
Marc Kline
March 13th, 2007 at 12:12 pm

Mashubi,

It’s good to hear from you.

The signature field is automatically placed in your plain-text messages, though entering the {!signature} field somewhere in the message will move it to that location instead of all the way at the bottom.

For HTML messages, you need to enter that {!signature} field, as it won’t automatically be added for you. This gives you an opportunity to set the font, color, size, etc. of the text in the signature.

But yes, it will work for HTML, provided that you enter the field as I describe above.
Maria Porter
March 13th, 2007 at 4:11 pm

Thank you Marc

this is excellent info….
we all have memory lapses…this will definitely help
remind an optin where they initially saw the info.
Cheers
Maria
Mashubi
March 13th, 2007 at 4:31 pm

Thank you very much Marc for clarifying this! I appreciate your response which is of great help to me.

Best wishes,
Mashubi
Rose
March 18th, 2007 at 12:16 am

I added this code to the bottom of our newsletters but when I went to the URL that the message said I supposedly signed up from it gave me a 404 error. Someone else e-mailed me and said that the URL wasn’t even present in message she received. It stopped just before the URL was included and then listed the Date and IP address.

This code was added into an HTML message.

Do you have any suggestions to help me fix this?

Rose
Justin Premick
March 19th, 2007 at 8:07 am

Rose,

Our Support Team will be contacting you to assist with that. If you’re having difficulty doing something in your account, it’s best to contact them directly for the fastest turnaround on your inquiry. Unfortunately without specifics I can’t do anything more than speculate on what might be occurring for you.
Thomas Hunter
March 26th, 2007 at 10:18 pm

Thanks for this information. I’ve seen this option on some of the lists I have subscribed to and now will be adding it to all of the lists I offer.
Gary
March 30th, 2007 at 7:31 am

Helpful indeed.

Is there a way to globally insert the suggested codes in all my autoresponders at one time? or is this a case of doing it 20 times for 20 different lists?

Here’s hoping…

Gary
Richard
August 1st, 2007 at 11:19 pm

I like this idea. I will add it to my messages. I added it to my signature fields, but it doesn’t work. {!email} shows up as {!email} in the signture field. Is there any way to add the information to the signature field so that I will definitely not forget to have it in my messages? Please advise.
Gary
March 10th, 2008 at 9:01 pm

I am finding the same thing as Richard did (back in Aug of
last year).

Also my post from March 07 (now one year ago) remains
unanswered. I still have the question.

Hello?

Gary
Marc Kline
March 11th, 2008 at 8:16 am

Gary and Richard,

Sorry for the delay in response.

Placing personalization fields in the signature field will not work for this tip, since they work only within the pages where you compose your messages.

You will need to insert this opt-in reminder by copying and pasting it into each message you’d like for it to appear in, and for each campaign of your account.

When creating *new* messages, you might consider using the "Copy" feature to duplicate a previous message with the same footer, replacing the appropriate content for the new message:

How Do I Copy My Messages?:
http://www.aweber.com/faq/questions/210/