Advantages and Disadvantages Of The Double Opt-In Lists by Anne-Marie Ronsen  The point of an opt-in email list is attracting people to your list that are good, solid prospects. Good prospects are those likely to buy products from you in the future. A double-opt-in list will almost guarantee you get a high quality group of subscribers on your list. This will include people that want to receive the information you have to give. You may have a smaller list of only 5,000 people if you do a double opt-in list, but chances are very high the people on this list are very eager for the information you have to offer. They are more likely to respond to advertisements posted on your ezine, which may result in more residual income for you. Having 5,000 high quality prospects is much better than having one million general prospects that may or may not have an interest in your product. You want to spend 80% of your time focusing on prospects that are genuinely interested in what you have to offer. You can spend the remaining 20% on leads that may result in some sales. The biggest advantage of a double opt-in list is it reduces the number of complaints of Spam your host receives. You don’t want to be charged with Spam accusations too often, or major ISP’s may ban your domain name. So make sure you always set up a double opt-in list when you can. You can do this easily using most of the common software programs available for mailing ezines and newsletters. Not sure what these are? Check out Aweber.com. This is a great site that will help you set up an automatic opt-in list. All you have to do is click a button to turn a single opt-in list to a double opt-in list. You don’t have to know anything technical about how to set up an email ezine. Another handy site to check out is GetResponse.com. They too offer a double opt-in facility you can use to reduce the likelihood your messages will be considered Spam. Summary The double opt-in list is a good alternative to the traditional opt-in list for many reasons. The most obvious reason is if a customer chooses to confirm their subscription to your email list, you can rest easy knowing they will not consider your emails Spam. It also prevents the likelihood that someone else may enter your site and enter someone else’s information as their own. If someone receives a subscription they did not want, they are more likely to report your actions as Spam, and you want to avoid that at all costs.