Increase your reach: How to improve your email deliverability with double opt-in

Running a successful email marketing campaign is tough! We all know it is. You can work hard to increase the number of subscribers and email deliverability, but sometimes it isn’t enough - especially if you don’t use a double opt-in.

Having great content, a really impulsive call to action and a top-notch subject line are great - but it’s not always enough. 

Imagine the pain of spending so much time creating that brilliant content with a really engaging CTA at the end only to see open rates plateau or decrease. Your subscribers want to hear from you, but also remember that they want to read the right message at the right time.

Those days of pain can be a thing of the past thanks to clever marketing automation - which gives you all the tools and knowledge to improve your email deliverability.

Double opt-in, consent lists, audience segmentation, customisable templates and automated send-outs can really help you to maximise your content, and this is how.

Consent is sexy

One of the first things you can do is to make sure your subscribers actually want to hear from you. A double opt-in is one of the key weapons in this fight, and you can be sure that anyone who gives it really wants to read that email.

Consent is the cornerstone of data-driven marketing. To create an Audience Profile, you must have consent from a user and it needs to be freely given. Double opt-ins are the most efficient way to gain that consent. 

So really, it’s a win-win for you and for your subscriber. You get their lovely data, you get to build your Audience lists with it, and you get another name on your mailing list - a name that really wants to be there. Your new subscriber will also be signed up to receive comms they really want to read, because they’ve been given the chance to change their mind.

Double opt-in works like this:

1. A profile fills in a registration form.
2. You then send them a confirmation email.
3. The new profile is directed to confirm their subscription. Once they do so, they have now double opted-in. 

The benefits of double opt-in

Double opt-ins also allow your business to practise good list hygiene as it makes sure that spam and incorrect addresses don’t get added to a mailing list, which helps users to avoid spam traps and activity that would harm a sender’s reputation. 

Additionally, having a mailing list stuffed with double opt-ins means that your emails have a lower chance of landing in a spam folder - which generates spam complaints that kill deliverability.

An effective email marketing campaign needs to be built upon marketing automation flows that are driven by data. You can improve their deliverability by reaching the right customers at the right time using automated send-outs.

Example

You can set up your flows depending on the actions a Profile has taken on your website. For example, you run adventure tours and have a killer online offering and have plugged into the APSIS One matrix. 

A user has been browsing your latest range of kayak days out but is yet to make a booking. You can set up an email flow that is personalised to their behaviour and may include a discount code or a reminder of the latest sale on your hottest adventure!

The objective here is to nudge that person into making a booking, but because the email is also highly targeted, it’s more likely to be opened.

Because every person on your list has gone through the double opt-in process, you can be sure they really want to receive communications from you.

Email campaigns like this can be set up to automatically kick into action once a person meets a certain trigger.

Gotta look the part too

Don’t forget, you’ll need your email to look the part as well. There’s no use telling your customers about the latest and greatest when your email looks like something an 8-year-old did on Word Art back in 2003 - and remember, all those subscribers to your list will also expect high quality from you, or they’ll hit that unsubscribe button.

You need to pick a provider that allows you to create the perfect email by using eye-catching email templates.

Customisable templates will mean that your subscribers will get a well-formatted, properly branded piece of prime communication every time they see one of your missives drop in their inbox and will come to expect quality from your business.

Tip! APSIS One offers all of that and more. You can use the platform to really spice up your newsletters, as a subscription to the service also provides use of an image library that includes free access to over 10 million photos, icons and illustrations. 

Segments can help pay the bills

Part of having killer email deliverability is producing personalised content that really speaks to your mailing list. This can be done by building the right profiles and segments to make sure that the right content is sent to the right people.

And this isn’t just waffle - MailChimp proved it. Their study showed that segmented campaigns performed significantly better than non-segmented campaigns. Here’s the stats that prove segmented campaigns have:

✅ 14.1% higher open rate

✅ 100% more clicks

✅ 10.64% higher unique open rate

✅ 4.65% lower bounce rate

✅ 3.9% less abuse reports

✅ 9.37% less unsubscriptions

You can create segments based on the fundamentals of marketing and sales, such as demographic, purchase history, position in the sales funnel and location. 

Real value for money

Each group will then be sent a different email blast, with more personalised content, in a way that targets them the most effectively. It does take more time than hitting your entire mailing list with one email, but the rewards are plain to see. All you have to do is decide what content is best suited to which segment. 

Using a double opt-in will also decrease the risk of your emails being marked as spam, which is good because a business can have its reputation ruined by too many spam reports.

Additionally, bounce rates should drop and quality leads should increase. There’s real value to be had!

Profiles provide payday

Profiles are containers of data that are created and assigned to users that interact with your brand online, and they can be either unknown or known and will house four types of data: attributes, events, tags and consent. 

All of this data will have been provided with consent, hopefully via a double opt-in, which we’ve gone over at the start of this post.

Unknown profiles are filled with data provided by anonymous users, while known profiles contain data collected from users that have given you their mobile number or email address.

The goal is to have as many known profiles as possible because once you do that you’ll be able to see who your average customer is and create messages that appeal to more people. 

When you combine an excellent profile database with intelligent segments, you’ll really hit the email deliverability jackpot.

Subject lines are important too

Without a really engaging subject line, your emails aren’t going to get opened. Subscribers may have said yes to the double opt-in, but that doesn’t mean they should be taken for granted - you still need to work for their love!

That’s where the subject line comes into play. It’s important that you follow a few steps to create a sense of action without overburdening the reader:

• Keep it simple, 60 characters or less!
• Try to create a sense of action - open now!
• If it’s within your style, be humble - thank you so much.
• Be friendly - cheers pal!
• Or play on a sense of FOMO - you’ll never believe what sales are on now!

Double opt-in is so important

You don’t have to move mountains to create content and emails that will improve email deliverability because subscribers want to read it - but it does require you to pay that newsletter a little TLC.

Start off by making sure the data is right, and by getting enthusiastic consent from everyone on your mailing list.

From there you can play around a little bit - use those segments and create those profiles that will help you to serve folks with personalised content they feel compelled to click.

Finally, get those subject lines right. You can have the best email marketing practices in the world, but if the subject line is wrong it could be worth nothing. 

All this talk about email best practices giving you the knowledge bug? APSIS has got an incredibly detailed handbook on just that! Click here to download it, and be prepared to enter a whole new world of insights.