Great article, and even better questions! We’ve been using the double opt-in for a couple years now but I’ve been researching switching to single. My biggest question after reading this was similar to the original question posted by Ben Carlson. It’s obvious that you’ll get better click and open %, but are your aggregate numbers smaller because you’re missing out on people that give their email address but fail to confirm subscription?
Mailchimp currently doesn’t have a list of people that started the signup process, but didn’t click the confirmation link, which is unfortunate. So I dug up the following data via Google Analytics (each email submit is a “goal”), here’s what I’ve found:
From Feb to May of 2013, we had 26,921 email submits on our website. Of those, only 19,276 completed the double opt-in process. This equals a 40% loss – which blows me away! Think I’ll try switching to a single opt-in and watch my sending reputation like a hawk.
