Surprisingly, today many Russian online stores either do not use the email marketing channel at all, or limit themselves to sending post-transaction emails (notifications about successfully placed orders).
However, the market dictates its own rules and those who, as they say, an email marketing are “not in trend”, will soon not be able to succeed in the constant competitive struggle for buyers.
The Russian mentality, having absorbed the great era of the dawn of spam technologies, is gradually adapting to the new conditions of doing business, where email marketing is one of the leading channels of online sales, requiring high expertise from the end performer.
The Difficulty of Choosing the Best Scenario
In close dialogue with our clients, for whom we organize trigger mailings , we constantly encounter the eternal questions of the best choice at different stages of building an email marketing strategy.
One of the most frequently asked questions is the choice of a scenario for collecting email subscribers. What to choose? Simple and popular Single Opt-In or reliable in terms of the quality of the collected base Double Opt-In ? Ultimately, marketing chooses between the size and quality of the customer base.
Single Opt-In is a scenario where a user voluntarily leaves their email address in a so-called lead form in order to receive offers from an online store. Some online stores often use this mechanic in a not entirely open and honest way, automatically subscribing customers to newsletters when they have only placed a one-time order on the site and have not agreed to receive any promotional offers.
What do statistics tell us?
The staff of the popular email marketing platform comoros email list 7974 contact leads conducted their own comparative study of subscriber collection scenarios.
MailChimp took a random sample of 30,000 of its own customers who had sent at least 10 newsletters. These customers had subscriber list sizes ranging from 500 to 1.5 million. Some of them sent newsletters every day, while others sent emails a couple of times a month.
The disadvantages include:
- Slow base growth: It will require significantly more effort to attract subscribers, since, according to various statements, building a verified base can take away from us on average about 40% of subscribers.
What is better: more clicks or a high Click Rate?
Open Rate and Click Rate are not the most accurate indicators. Let’s consider the example from the zettasphere agency of the same mailing for two email bases: one was collected via Double Opt-In , the other via Single Opt-In . The first base is significantly smaller due to the obvious problem of losing subscribers.
Single Opt-In attracts slightly more clicks: 40 versus 37, but the quality of such traffic remains highly questionable.
Let’s turn to large stores
The solution to the issue of choosing a subscription scenario is really not obvious, let’s figure it out. And how are things going with the largest online retail players?
Let’s use the rating of the Top 200 online stores according to Kommersant.
For the sake of purity of the experiment, we will use a common scenario for collecting email addresses through the appropriate form, which is intended only for collecting addresses for the purpose of sending offers, i.e. we will not use registrations in personal accounts, order placement, etc.
Methods of collecting subscribers
We have covered the main advantages and disadvantages of both Single Opt-In and Double Opt-In . The answer to the initial question “Which one to choose?” was still not found, despite the fact that we learned a lot of statistical data for both scenarios.
To decide on the choice of scenarios, you first need to make your own list of “touchpoints” with potential subscribers. Then ask yourself: in what case is subscription confirmation so critically important and necessary.
For example, on the website of the this article will explore in depth store, the subscription form is present on all pages of the site: Checkout form: During the checkout process, the user is asked to provide their email.
You can’t figure it out without tests
So, you’ve identified all the possible touchpoints with potential subscribers. Since shopping data to know for sure which solution works best, you need to conduct tests.
The quality of the base, the percentage of subscriber losses. Since spam complaints, and traffic quality will be different, so when conducting tests, we suggest taking into account the following observations:
- For Opt-In, a good tool for reducing the number of incorrectly specified addresses (typos) is to use a mask check of the “email” field (prohibited characters, address mask like name@domain.*, etc.).
- Also, for Opt-In, it is good practice to use checkboxes to agree to receive the newsletter, and it is good practice to have the checkbox disabled by default.
For different niches
- For registration in your personal account Since Double Opt-In is most likely redundant if you have taken into account the two previous tips.
- For classic forms of collecting subscribers (special block or pop-up), Double Opt-In is suitable if you are primarily concerned with the quality of the base. If you are ready to constantly analyze and check the indicators and promptly respond to alarm signals. Then Single Opt-In has the right to exist, but here it is definitely necessary to conduct repeated tests.