You would be amazed perhaps at the amount of list owners who don't do either though.Originally Posted by DEVELISH
Their basic attitude is it's an email address and it belongs to me so I'll do what I feel like.
So, they don't honour unsubscribes and keep the person on the list, and they don't bother to verify that the email address is valid.
Having a double opt-in *helps* reduce the number of invalid, fake, spammers who are spamming your newsletter and trojans that are mailing to your newsletter address. And of course it helps cut down on the complaints.
The other thing that you can do is physically look at your subscriber list and remove obvious spammer addresses, b.s. email addresses etc... And also other mailing list addresses.
People will sign up other mailing list email addresses and autoresponders; those can often end up on your list if your double opt-in mechanisim allows for replying to the email.
Bounces are allways fun because sometimes it doesn't mean that the email address is permanantly dead. It can mean that the person's email box is full, that there's a temporary network problem or that their ISP is flagging you as a spammer, purveyor of porn or what not....(Unfortunately most of the time you won't even receive a bounce; it'll just go into a black hole.)
Basically keeping a clean list boils down to 4 points. 1. dbl opt, 2. Easy unsubscription process that is honoured; 3. Too many hard bounces cancel their sub 4. keep a keen eye on the actual email addresses.
Anyhoo, just a few of my thoughts on the matter drawn from the years I put into sending out newsletters, mini courses, and promo emails.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks