Web site opt-in sign up forms - advice?

Hey David, good question. In fact I had posted asking for comments of single opt-in vs. double opt-in.

We currently use 1ShoppingCart, which has not only the ability to send out broadcast emails, create opt-in forms, etc. but also adds a shopping cart and e-book management. Sounds like Constant Contact might be a good route to go for you. It saves you from having to create forms and databases, and instead does it for you. I have heard nothing but great comments on it.

So in a nutshell, we didn't set it up ourselves. And I'm not familiar with Flash-based forms. I believe the cost you will save subscribing to something will save you a lot of headaches in the long run.

But I'm a single voice here, and maybe some web developers out there have more of an isight of "doing it yourself".

Hey David,

I have used a little know program for several years called DaDa Mail found here: http://mojo.skazat.com/

This is a CAN-SPAM complaint application that has single and double opt-in options. It also creates all the code for you.

I highly recommend this to anyone looking to do their own opt-in lists or online newsletters.

hope this helps.

Zou hao.

David

I do my mailing list and newsletter through Aweber and I am really happy with it. You can sign-up for my newsletter to see how it works. The advantages of this over Constant Contact is the auto-responder capability and being able to have multiple lists for no extra cost. It is cheaper than Constant Contact. The one thing Constant Contact is better at is html templates. They are beautiful. Kaya

Hi David,

Setting up eNewsletters is something I do a lot and I’ve used just about every service out there. Personally, I recommend iContact. It's the least expensive and has all the bells and whistles.

I used to use 1ShoppingCart. If you need a shopping cart and are trying to sell info products, they’re about the best thing for you but they're kind of expensive, hard to use and their deliverability rate isn't very good.

Constant Contact is pretty good but they start at $20 month whereas iContact starts at $10. Constant Contact has a newbie friendly user interface but they make it pretty hard to import your own HTML code. Plus, I don’t think they do auto responders.

I've used AWeber too but they require you to use double opt in which will reduce your sign up rate by about 25%. Plus their reporting is terrible and when I asked them about it, they blew me off. (It's not possible to have over a 100% open rate no matter how great your newsletter is.)

iContact enables you to do auto responders (which 1Shopping Cart and AWeber do too). It's also got a survey feature and you can archive your newsletter in their public community which has an RSS feed and could be a good way to easily get more subscribers.

Hope that helps,

Elge

Hi David, I came across your post when searching for something else, but was curious to know how you feel about iContact months later?

I started with the free trial, and then finally (got them to extend because I wasn't working on it enough to be sure) signed up for the first level paid. It is my first email marketing service, so I wasn't sure exactly how to use it or how to evaluate.

I signed up right around the Summer update, and I think there may still be a few bugs.

It seems to be working well for me, but I still have trouble with some of the import/export and tracking features.

Support has been excellent.

Mike

Hi David,

Thanks for the update. I understand your reasons for canceling iContact. As you mentioned, your situation is a little different, particularly with Art directors preferring a postcard.

I value iContact's ability to track emails and handle bounces, particularly at this time when I'm combining multiple lists. I'm sure the other email services are similar, but iContact is the only one I evaluated after reading reviews and comparing features. I can see that it could be easier to simply use your own database, but I wanted to take one thing off the plate for managing my own server - especially since I'm about to change hosts and have other things to worry about. I haven't quite figured out how to make the lists work efficiently yet, but I'm getting there. One thing that threw me was that iContact counts a subscriber once for each mailing list they belong to. There is some justification for this, but it was a surprise to me. It should be OK for me to simply know that each person on list A will also be on list B, so I can avoid running over the subscription limits. Does that make sense?

As for the signup forms - on their site and mine - it is early yet. Most people seem to realize that they are on my list from a previous business connection, and I suspect they won't start unsubscribing unless the frequency is too high. It is early as far as promoting my own site, but I am getting some activity on the sign-up form (and just realized that it might be nice to have a place for an optional comment). The danger (and one reason for using an outside service) is that people these days tend to be lazy and click the spam button rather than unsubscribe.

Mike