Double opt-in: what it is and how to configure it
What is double opt-in
Double opt-in is a subscription to an email newsletter that requires additional confirmation of the email address by the recipient.
You are most likely familiar with this type of subscription. You may come across it when you leave your email address in the subscription form on a website to receive a newsletter with useful articles. This is the first stage of this type of subscription.
Then you receive an email that asks you to confirm your email address:
You agree to receive the newsletter by clicking the link. This is the second stage of this type of subscription.
Advantages of double opt-in
It improves the sender's reputation with the email provider.
It does not overload the subscriber base with invalid email addresses.
It reduces the risk of emails getting into the spam folder
It increases the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns
How to set up double opt-in
Step 1. Add an «Unconfirmed» subscription to profiles
Go to “Data” → “Profile databases”. Find the database with the profiles for which you want to set up a double opt-in. Click “Update profiles” in the context menu:
If you want to add double opt-in to a certain group of profiles, segment the audience. Add conditions that users must meet in order to be in this group:
Then specify what needs to be done next with this group. In our case, it is “Add a subscription”. The source of the subscription is either a profile field or a resource:
Select a resource. Please note that an email channel must be configured in this resource. Set the subscription status “Unconfirmed”:
If you have selected “Profile fields” as a resource, specify this field — “Email”:
Start updating profiles by clicking “Update” on the top of the screen:
If you import and update profiles using API request, set the following parameter: "status" : "unconfirmed".
Step 2. Create a template with a confirmation link
You can send an email only with this template to unconfirmed users. Let's create this template. Go to the “Templates” section. If you have a ready-made template, select it. If you do not have it, create a new one. Click «Add a link» in the «HTML email version» field to add a confirmation link to the template.
Enter the URL of the link and the text. Tick the “This is a confirmation link” box. Click “Okay”.
Now you can see a new line in your email template:
<a href="http://confirm_example.com" title="Confirm the email" confirm-link>Confirm your email</a>
This is the confirmation link. Its main difference from usual links is the confirm-link attribute. Here you can see how the template looks in preview mode:
Step 3. Send an email that asks the user to confirm their subscription
Now you need to send a confirmation letter to your subscribers. There are several ways to do this:
Let's consider a trigger campaign. Go to “Campaigns” → “Triggers”. Select the email channel, subscriber base and resource to which you want to confirm the subscription:
Select the template type — “Opt-in messages”:
Only templates that contain a confirmation link are available for this type of message. Select the appropriate template:
Now you need to set up a trigger . A trigger is a condition or event that will activate (trigger) your newsletter. Select the type of event — “Subscription update”. Specify the resource and subscription status “Unconfirmed”.
Thus, you tell the platform that every time the user's status changes from «subscribed» to «unconfirmed», it needs to send them an email.
Now you can send out your newsletter to your customers. Click the activation icon in the context menu of the trigger campaign.
The setup is now complete.
Conclusion
On the one hand, double opt-in complicates the subscription, since it requires more actions from the user. Some people simply forget to log in to the mailbox and confirm their email addresses. However, this is the only disadvantage. Double opt-in allows you to get more interested subscribers and reduce the percentage of complaints about your newsletter.