This is a very common question, and most commonly occurs when using MailChimp, but is also true of other CRM and Email tools.
With your squeeze page, the visitor follows this path:
- Visitor reads your page
- If they are interested, they enter their name/email details
- They get an email asking them to confirm their email address.
- They click on the link to confirm their email address
- The visitor then gets your lead magnet
In the Squeeze Page Toolkit, if the user enters their details and submits, that’s tracked as a conversion.
Where it goes wrong…
Particularly in MailChimp – if the visitor to your squeeze page does not click on the link to confirm their email address (at step 4), they don’t get added to your list.
It’s that simple. (Some CRMs do things slightly differently, adding the contact anyway, but not allowing you to email that contact).
The usual reason that they do not click on the confirmation link is if the confirmation email does not convince them to click the link.
In MailChimp – the confirmation email talks about ‘clicking to confirm a subscription‘ (a known conversion killer). 99% of people we talk to don’t change that confirmation email. Which is crazy. You’re just throwing away money and leads.
Why double opt-ins are important
It helps you avoid getting sued/reported if someone reports you for spamming. For Canadian visitors (regardless where you are located) it’s the law that it’s a double opt-in. The penalties for non-compliance are considerable.
Although you can use single opt-in legitimately, and many businesses often do this, you’ll typically find that the spam reports will be higher in your CRM/email tool. There appears to be a correlation with how easy it is for someone to join your list, versus the likelihood that someone will report you for spamming. If you get lots of spam reports, your CRM/email tool may force you to use double opt-in to continue using their system.
Use Fix #1 – Encouraging them to click the confirmation email when using double opt-in…
Ensure that the confirmation email is as convincing as possible to ensure that the visitor enters their contact details. (This MailChimp guide will give you a few clues – around the 6min marker).
Remember to focus on the visitor. Just because you’ve created a squeeze page, doesn’t mean people will opt-in. The visitor has to have a reason to opt-in, then confirm, and read emails.
- If there’s no benefit to them, they won’t do it.
- If they don’t know what to do, they won’t do it.
- If they are confused, they won’t do it.
The best way to get conversions (and sales) is make it really easy for your prospect to do what you need to do.
Or Fix #2 – Remove the need for a confirmation email / confirmation click
Essentially this is the single opt-in option where you’re not requiring someone to click on a confirmation email to join your list. You do this by removing the need for a confirmation email or click.
For MailChimp, you choose ‘Single Opt-in’ when editing the Action Set within the Squeeze Page Toolkit. For other systems, typically you disable the confirmation email.
If you need any help with setting this up with your email tool or account, please just contact the support team.
