If you’ve been wondering what Mailchimp’s Single Opt-In is all about and whether to go with it or keep your double opt-in, I’ve found the article for you. Kirsten Oliphant has the scoop:
Single Opt-In: Essentially when someone enters their email into your form and clicks “I Want It What Way!” (because “Subscribe” is so 2011), they are automatically subscribed. Right then and there. The end.
Double Opt-In: When someone enters their email into your form and clicks “Send Me All The Things!”, they will receive an email asking them to confirm. If they do not click, they will not get an email from you. They are not, in fact, a subscriber.
Legally Opted
Single opt-in is not legal all over the world. (True story.) The un-apt-ly named CAN-SPAM Act (which says you CANNOT, in fact, spam people) doesn’t care about opt-ins, surprisingly. You can single opt-in all day long legally in the USA and many other countries.
Just not Germany.
I’m sure there are others, but Germany has super strict laws on privacy. So if someone from Germany signs up through your single opt-in form, you’ve broken their laws.
Are you really going to be hunted down or fined? Probably not.
But do you want to be breaking international laws when you send emails? Um…probably not.
The PBS Blog 
Thanks for sharing.
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Great information here. I signed up for MailChimp about a year or so ago, and have never gone any further. I keep investigating and researching the best options, and they keep changing! Rather frustrating! I know I don’t like to go to a person’s site and get ‘hit’ continually with sign-up, pop-ups. So I’ve been reluctant to take the plunge. Plus, I just don’t know if the e-mail lists really work. Still collecting info on that one! 😉
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I feel you. So far my experience with MailChimp has been smooth. I have found the set-up and the process of sending emails easy. As far as whether email works or not will depend, I think, on your goals. Not everyone is interested in an email list and those who do may use it for different reasons.
I think the email list is something we are all still trying to figure out and that its success is dependent on a lot of different factors. If you are using it to gather together readers and fans of your work, for instance, as an easy way to keep them updated, whether this “works” will mean something different than if you are looking to increase sales or something like that. Some authors keep their list updated weekly, some biweekly and some monthly. Some authors offer freebies as a way to grow the list and some don’t. Some know how to grow the list but not how to keep people engaged. Some prefer small lists, others large. Some have even switched to using Facebook and messenger instead of email.
It really depends, I think, on how well we know our audience and the value we can offer them. While I’d recommend building a list at least to keep track of your core readers or maybe to build an ARC team, I also understand that it’s not for everyone.
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Thank you! Lots more helpful information! I’m really struggling with trying to figure out the best way to go about marketing and branding. The writing part is easy! lol
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Lol. I know right.
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