What’s the best opt-in method?

Kickbox interviewed a bunch of us to find out what methods of opt-in we recommend. Go check it out.

What’s your favourite method of opt-in?

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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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March 2017: The Month in Email

It’s that time again… here’s a look at our last month of blog posts. We find it useful to recap each month, both to track trends and issues in email delivery and to provide a handy summary for those who aren’t following along breathlessly every single day. Let us know if you find it useful too!

As always, I wrote about email filters. It’s so important to recognize that filters aren’t arbitrary — they’re detailed instructions that help meet specific user needs, and the more you are cognizant of that, the better you’ll be able to work with them. Additionally, filters aren’t perfect and likely never will be. False positives and false negatives are frustrating, but as long as spam is still a viable business for spammers, they’ll continue to figure out how to work around filters. As such, we can’t expect filters to be 100% accurate in determining what constitutes wanted and unwanted mail.
Part of this, of course, is due to the problem of fraudulent signups. Companies aren’t particularly vigilant about address acquisition and hygiene, and as a result, they’ll claim you “signed up” for their email when you did not. Some people believe that a confirmed opt-in (COI) will solve this problem, but our experience is companies are reluctant to leave revenue on the table, and that they will continue to mail to addresses that have not confirmed.
Address sharing and co-reg is also part of the problem. As we saw in the extensive RCM data breach, many major brands continue to work with third-party senders to send mail in ways that are quite clearly spam. And in more criminal activity, I looked at the rise of botnets and how some of those criminals were brought to justice. In other justice news, there’s been an indictment in the Yahoo breach and another CASL enforcement action.
I wrote a post about bounce handling and “relaying denied” error messages, which are quite rare. It’s useful to have an understanding of these and other error messages, since bounces are sometimes indicative of a larger technical issue, such as when AOL accidentally bounced all messages for a short period last week. Speaking of AOL, we noted that there’s no official timeline for the move from Verizon addresses to AOL addresses following the 2015 acquisition, but it may be worth considering asking your customers to update their addresses.
Spam and filters aren’t the only factors of course. It can be challenging to figure out the multiple factors that make up the black box of delivery. And of course, the most important part of delivery continues to be engagement, engagement, engagement.
I wrote a few posts this month on why I do what I do, and why it’s so important to me. First, I wrote about A Day Without A Woman, and my choice not to participate in offering advice and guidance for that day. The truth is that I enjoy sharing what I know and helping people solve problems. I was honored to be named one of 11 Innovators in Email, and I know that my volunteer work in the industry and my unpaid blogging work is a big part of that. It may sound corny, but I really do believe we are on the front lines of the fight of good vs. evil online, and despite the distractions of politics and world events, we must all continue to do our part.

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Subscription transparency

I regularly tell clients to be transparent with their sends. With email, permission is better than forgiveness. A surprise change in mail frequency or type leads to complaints. Complaints lead to bulk foldering. Once mail is in the bulk folder, it’s hard to get out of there, particularly at some webmail providers.
The permission is better than forgiveness is hard for a lot of senders to understand. Much of marketing is about assuming the yes in the absence of a no. Sure, they’ll back off when there’s a no, in DMA terms it’s the “one bite at the apple rule.” Unfortunately for senders the one bite rule doesn’t work in the email space.
There are a couple reasons that permission is better than forgiveness in the email space. The biggest is that the ISPs own the mailbox and as the owners they make decisions about who gets access. They prioritize the wants and needs of their customers / users over the wants and needs of advertisers. It’s easy for users to give feedback; in many cases they just have to hit a button. But that’s another whole blog post.
Today I get an email from The Guardian. They’re modifying and expanding their newsletter program, so they sent subscribers an update about it.

 

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