Something a little different for Friday:

We get a lot of people asking what a “good” confirm rate is — out of everyone who signs up to your list, what proportion will open the confirm message and click on the link to activate their subscription to your list?

So, I thought I’d share some of our own results, from our own blog’s email subscribers.

If I had a nickel for every time someone has asked to send a “reminder” email to unconfirmed subscribers… well, my 4th of July fireworks would already be paid for.

It’s a common temptation: email addresses are entered into your form (or imported), sent the confirmation message… and then…

Nothing. They sit there, pending. They haven’t confirmed. And it’s looking like they might not at all.

So the publisher starts thinking…

Ever gotten a spam complaint?

At AWeber email deliverability is serious business. We and our
customers take great care to manage their lists well so they can
enjoy the best possible deliverability.

Even so, occasionally subscribers lodge spam complaints.

I took a support call recently where the customer was concerned about using Verified Opt-In with her subscribers. She remarked at one point:

“My subscribers aren’t web-savvy, and they don’t know what double opt-in means.”

She brings up a good point: language that is understood among one group of people (in this example, senders of opt-in email) may not be understood by another group (such as your subscribers).When telling your subscribers that they need to click a link in the verification message, your wording will affect your verification rate.

Results of a study conducted by AWeber identified that a confirmed opt-in AOL subscriber is significantly less likely to unsubscribe in the first 60 days of publication than a single opt-in subscriber. Statistics were run on a random sampling of approximately 200 AWeber client opt-in email lists of AOL subscribers added in the past 60 [...]