Double Opt In

Hi,

2 questions -

1. when a get a "Signups Statistics Update" email from VR, does that mean that the person has done the Confirmation for the double opt in, or just the initial signup?

2. Some folks just don't seem to get the double opt in. They ignore the confirmation emai and they don't receive my eNewsletter. I then get a complaint from them that I never added them per their signup request. Can I setup a list without the Double opt in? Or is that "illegal"?

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Permalink Reply by Jay on July 8, 2009 at 4:54pm: OK.
Here's what I do -- to change a Single to a "Manually Downloaded"
1. Login to VR. (this takes me to my Home Page which has a number of major sections. One of the sections towards the very bottom is "Lists"
2. Go to "Lists" and go over to the right side you should see the word "Actions" (If you have mutiple lists, you'll see mutiple "Actions" -- 1 for each list.)
3. Click "Actions" and you get a number of choices -
3. Select "View" (3rd one in the list).
4. You will 20 names (which you can change it to view 200.
5. Go page by page until you find the entry you're looking for.
6. On that entry, over on the right click on "Detail"
7. Now you should see a list of fields, the first one is labeled "Record Status".
8.Click the down arrow for the pulldown and select "Maually Downloaded"
9. Click the "Submit" botton at the bottom of the screen.
that's it.
Now do it again -- really tedious if you have a whole bunch.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Kevin McCarthy on July 8, 2009 at 6:08pm: Jay. . .you are in a parallel VR universe that is different than the one I am in. . . .yur instructions do not calibrate with the work-flow I'm seeing. . . .I am losing you at step 7. . .there is no entry for "record status". . .no option for "manually downloaded"

Here's what I see:
View Details
Edit Member
Edit Lists
Edit Comments
Delete
Unsubscribe

That's it. . .nothing about "record status"; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Jay on July 8, 2009 at 6:39pm: Hmmmm.....How do you download a copy of your list for safekeeping in case VR disappears overnight and you have to go to another vendor?

Permalink Reply by Jay on July 8, 2009 at 5:48pm: OK.
Now to easily find your Singles

1. Login to VR. (this takes me to my Home Page which has a number of major sections. One of the sections towards the very bottom is "Lists"
2. Go to "Lists" and go over to the right side you should see the word "Actions" (If you have multiple lists, you'll see mutiple "Actions" -- 1 for each list.)
3. Click "Actions" and you get a number of choices -
3. Select "DOWNLOAD" (6th. one in the list).
4. You will get a page with 3 major section..
5. In section #3 "Which fields do you want to download:" select "Record Status" and "Email Address"
6. Select "Submit"
7. You should get a screen that says "Download Your List ", "File Complete",
"Your list is ready for download here" .
8.Click "Here" and then depending on tour browser different things will happen, but basically you should end up in EXCEL with a spreadsheet.
9. One of the columns is the "Record Status" click on that column and then click on the EXCEL Sort button.
9. Click the "Submit" botton at the bottom of the screen.
10. You should now be able to easily see all the email addresses that are sinle opt in.
11. Copy then out and paste them into an email into the BCC field and send them an email explaining what's going on and ask them to respond if they you to complete their signup.

Questions???; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Mike Clark on August 19, 2009 at 9:24am: That's what I *used* to do, as well.

Just chatted with VR Support, and they say they removed the 'change record status' functionality "to improve security".

It also detracts from the usability of the service in my humble opinion. A proportion of my sign-ups have proven themselves to not be entirely at home with the idea of going through the double opt-in process. I figure if I can send them a polite reminder and they can then send me an email confirming that they'd like to get my newsletter, and I can produce that email on demand, then that should be enough.

Now, instead, it seems we have to forward each of these emails to support so that they can change the record's status. Why is this so bad? Well, before I could just jump in and make the necessary changes in small batches as and when necessary, but now I'm going to have to come up with some sort of system for sending them off and then monitoring that the changes I ask for actually get made. It's all unnecessary overhead, for me and for VR :(; ▶ Reply to This