Getting people to confirm Newsletter Subscriptions

Whats the best way?

[knighty]

I have a number of sites that have a Newsletter which gets sent out every now and then when something changes on the site.

At the moment heres how it works:

1) user types in email address and clicks subscribe.

2) they then receive an automatic reponse saying "click here to confirm" or words to that effect inside the email.

3) when we get the confirmation email back we add their email address to the mailing list

The problem is that there were tons of emails in the inbox from people who hit the reply button instead clicking on the link inside the email.

People only get added to the mailing list IF they click the link and do no not alter the subject line. i.e only "subscribe_me" gets added and not "RE : subscribe_me" or "Fwd: Subscribe_me" etc.

Im using Outlook Express on the Mac to manage the mailing list and setting up rules to add/delete users.

[Brett_Tabke]

The "Click to subscribe" method doesn't work very well. There is a pretty high percentage of users who won't have html enabled in their email client (thus, no link to click). The traditional reply email is still the best and most universal way to go.

I've found that "click to subscribe" e's have a 20-30% lower confirmation rate than a simple reply to confirm method.

[knighty]

Yeah, I think you're right Brett.

I'm thinking of removing the second step where people have to confirm and just add them straight from the form.

Any legalities I should be aware of?

When they submit they will get a confirmation email with "if you didnt request then unsubscribe" etc