Before sending marketing emails to your contacts, you should ask for their permission. Theoretically, you have three options:

1. Single Opt-in: A contact enters their email address in a signup form. With this they are immediately registered.
2. Double Opt-in: A contact enters their email address into a signup form. The contact receives an email with a confirmation link and clicks on the link. Only then they are registered.
3. Opt-out: A checkmark is pre-set in a form, by which the contact silently agrees to receive marketing emails unless they manually remove the checkmark.

According to many experts, only the double opt-in method is compliant with data protection in the EU.

Yet the method as such is not even legally prescribed. The problem is that any person can enter any email address in a form (single opt-in). Only when the person clicks on the confirmation link (double opt-in) do you have the certainty that they have registered personally and really agree to receive marketing emails from you.

Another advantage of double opt-in is that you can be sure that the email address is valid and in use. This gives you better deliverability and open rates.

With single opt-in you do not have this security. Please also note that the pure opt-out is in no way GDPR compliant, because it does not count as consent for a contact to not actively object to the data processing.

We therefore always recommend that you get double consent from your contacts when asking for their email addresses.

Here we explain how you can easily do this with Friendly Automate.

What do you need for double opt-in?

To implement a double opt-in, you need three components:

1. A form by which the contact signs up for marketing emails.

1. An email with the confirmation link.

1. A simple landing page that opens in the browser when the contact clicks on the confirmation link.

Almost everything is already set up in your Friendly Automate. You can create your double opt-in in just a few steps.