Every Download a Confirmation

We often talk about confirmed opt-in (aka “closed-loop opt-in” or “double opt-in”) as the gold standard for address acquisition for permission-based mail.
It’s not the only way to gather permission, and in some ways it’s a rather blunt tool that can discourage people from completing a sign-up process if it’s done badly – the confirmation email isn’t sent immediately, it goes to the recipients spam folder, they don’t have any reason to go and look for it, …
When it’s done well, though, it’s excellent.
Tor.com, the site for science-fiction and fantasy operated by publisher Macmillan, just did it very well with an ebook giveaway.
Last year they published Every Heart a Doorway, a novella that won several awards and caused quite a bit of buzz in the SFF community, partly because it’s very good and partly because it’s author, Seanan McGuire, has some serious social media chops. The sequel, Down among the Sticks and Bones, is being released in the next month or two.
Perfect timing for a time-limited giveaway of the first book, tied to signing up for their mailing list.

The signup form is on a page dedicated to the giveaway that talks about the book and sets some expectations about the mailing list. The form itself makes it very clear that you’ll need to enter a real email address to get the ebook download, so me@privacy.net is less likely to subscribe.
People aren’t required to sign up for the mailing lists to get the download. This isn’t a barter, a mailing list signup for a book, rather it’s putting the opportunity to sign up for the mailing lists in front of people who are self-selected to be interested in the content. That probably reduces the “how many people signed up” metric somewhat, but I bet the “how many new subscribers are still signed up in a month” numbers will look very healthy.
It provides some options. Do you want weekly content? Monthly? Both? You know that you’re not going to end up on a thrice-daily list from Macmillan and all their affiliates.
The confirmation email landed in my inbox within a few seconds after I clicked the “Sign Me Up” button. That’s important. If it takes even a few minutes I might have moved on, and wouldn’t be looking for the confirmation mail if it had ended up in my bulk folder.

And the confirmation mail isn’t a “click here to confirm your subscription” yawnfest. The subject line is “Download EVERY HEART A DOORWAY by Seanan McGuire Now” and the body content is on-brand and includes the front cover of the book.
Way more compelling.
It’s still solid informed consent from me, and confirmation that I, the owner of the email address, want on the list. (And, yes, the download link has 56 bytes of opaque hex-encoded data in it, so I know they’re tracking that.)
This is how it should be done.
(And, if you like fantasy you should head over to Tor and sign up for their promo. Seanan writes some amazing things, and I’m not just saying that because she’s a friend.)

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Irony

Saw this on twitter today:

Oh, the irony of an append vendor using COI for a whitepaper download.

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Truth of Consequences

“If you want to use another means that violates the law, and every common definition of “spam”, then by all means, go ahead. You can enjoy fines and being added to the ROKSO database,” says a comment on my recent COI blog post. It’s both disconcerting and entirely predictable.

My post was a discussion of what to do with addresses that don’t confirm. Data tells us that there is some value in those addresses – that there are people who won’t confirm for some reason but will end up purchasing from an email. Using COI leaves some fraction of revenue on the table as it were. My post was a short risk analysis of things to think about when making decisions about continuing to mail to people who don’t confirm.
Mentioning COI often brings the only-COI-mail-is-not-spam zealots out of the woodwork, as it did in this case. In this case, we have the commenter first asserting that failure to do COI is a violation of CAN SPAM (it’s not). When this was pointed out, he started arguing with two people who have been actively fighting spam for 20 years (including running a widely used blocklist). Finally, he ends up with the comment asserting that anyone not using COI will end up on ROKSO. It’s as if he thinks that statement will fear other commenters into not having opinions. It can’t because everyone in the discussion, except possibly him, knows that it’s not true.
The worst problem with folks like the commenter is that they think asserting horrible consequences will make people cower. First off, people don’t react well to threats. Secondly, this is a hollow threat and most people reading this blog know it.
There are millions of mailing lists not using COI and have zero risk of ever getting on ROKSO. The only thing hollow threats do is make people not pay attention to what you have to say. Well, OK, and have me write a blog post about how those threats are bad because they’re completely removed from reality.
Exaggerating or lying about consequences is not just wrong, it’s stupid. “Do this or else BAD THING,” is awesome, up until someone decides they’re not going to do this and the bad thing never happens. It makes people less likely or pay any attention to you in the future. It certainly means your opinions and recommendations are not going to be listened to in the future.
I probably go too far the other direction. I can spend too much time contextualizing a recommendation. It’s one of the things I’m trying to get better about. No, client doesn’t need a 4 page discussion of the history of whatever, they just need 2 lines of what they should do. If they need the context, I can provide it later.
In order to effectively modify behavior consequences have to be real. Threats of consequences are meaningless. Any toddler knows this, and can quite accurately model when mom means it and when she’s just threatening.
Risk analysis is not about modifying behavior. It’s about analyzing a particular issue and providing necessary information so the company action understands potential consequences and the chance those risks will happen. The blog post about COI was not intended to modify anyone’s behavior. I know there are companies out there successfully maintaining two mail streams: one COI and one not. I know there are other companies out there successfully mailing only single opt-in mail. I know there are companies with complex strategies to verify identity and address ownership. And I smile every time I walk into a retail store and they ask me if my email address is still X and if I want to make any changes to it.
Lying about consequences does nothing to modify behavior. All it does is diminish the standing and audience of the liar. Be truthful about the consequences of an action or lack of action. Don’t make up threats in order to bully people into doing what you think is right. Sooner or later they’re going to realize that you don’t know what you’re talking about and start to ignore you.

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Using confirmation to get good email addresses

For 25 hours the group De La Soul is releasing their entire catalog for free online. What none of the articles are mentioning is that they’re using this to build their database of email addresses in a way that’s going to result in a clean database of high value email addresses.
How are they doing that? By making sure the addresses belong to their fans before they actually give fans access to the catalog. Yes, they are using confirmation as part of their signup process.
If you go to their website: wearedelasoul.com you’re asked for an email address so they can send the downloads to you.
dls_website
The fine print is the interesting bit:

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