Building a healthy relationship with your audience starts with how they join your list. Opt-in is the process where people give you explicit permission to send them marketing communications, usually by sharing their email address through a form or chat.
In Positive User, managing this process correctly ensures you are reaching people who actually want to hear from you. This leads to better engagement, fewer spam complaints, and a more effective marketing strategy overall.
There are two methods how you can collect the consents from your audience. Choosing the right method helps you balance growth with list quality.
With this method, a person is added to your marketing list the moment they submit their email address. There is no second step for the person to complete. It is the fastest way to grow a list, but it can sometimes lead to typos or fake addresses entering your database.
Advantages: Offers maximum convenience and simplicity for the "Contact", leading to faster list growth.
Disadvantages: Higher risk of fake or mistyped email addresses entering your "Workspace" since there is no verification.
Your team can collect email addresses instantly using a few different tools in Positive User:
Forms, Pop-ups, and Landing Pages: While sending a form, a person can input their email and select a checkbox to give marketing consent. This selection updates a boolean attribute in their contact profile.
Chatbot: During a conversation via chat widget, a chatbot can ask for an email address so your team can send a follow-up answer later.
Also known as confirmed opt-in, this adds a verification step. After someone submits their email, there is an automation flow that sends an email with a confirmation link. They are only marked as having "Double Opt-In" consent after they click that link. This ensures your list is full of valid, high-intent contacts.
Advantages: Provides added security and ensures your list consists of authentic, high-intent subscribers.
Disadvantages: Requires an extra step from the contact, which may result in fewer total signups if they forget to click the link.
You can collect the consents with double opt-in using the same channels as single opt-in (forms, pop-ups, landing pages, chatbots), but due to the fact that this is a two-step process it requires an extra layer of verification to your subscription process:
Initial Collection: Your team gathers the initial data (email and marketing consent) using one of the single opt-in methods described above.
Verification Email: An automation flow is triggered. It sends an automated email asking the person to confirm their address by clicking a link or button.
Final Confirmation: Once they click, they are directed to a thank-you page. The system updates a dedicated opt-in attribute with "true" value.
While single opt-in is easier for the person signing up, double opt-in is highly recommended to improve your sender reputation. It helps your emails land in the inbox, not spam, by ensuring every address on your list is real and active.
Single opt-in carries the risk of collecting invalid or mistyped data, which can negatively impact your email health over time. By using double opt-in, your team ensures that every person has taken the extra step to click a "verification email", confirming they are real and genuinely interested in your content. This results in a cleaner database, better engagement rates for your campaigns, and a stronger sender reputation that helps your emails stay out of the spam folder.
