Why Opt-In Forms Alone Don't Guarantee Email Growth

One client refused to add double opt-in. They were convinced it would “kill list growth.” At first, the numbers looked great. Signups kept coming in. But most weren’t real people. Their forms were full of bots and fake emails. Soon Spamhaus flagged them. Then Microsoft blocked every campaign. We flipped the script: ✅ Added double opt-in ✅ Protected forms with reCAPTCHA and hidden honeypots ✅ Cleaned the list to remove the damage Growth slowed slightly, yes. But revenue per send went up. And the best part? Their reputation recovered, so campaigns started landing in the inbox again. The lesson was clear: Quality always beats quantity.

A/B testing your popup forms based on Opt-in Rate alone is plain DUMB. You could have one form that has a 15% opt-in rate, but the quality driven by that offer pegs them at a likelihood to convert at less than 5%. Or you could have an opt-in rate of 5% but the quality of those signing up has a likelihood of converting at 60%. FACTS: There is no way for you to hold the quality of audience consistent to run a valid A/B test based on an opt-in KPI. There's no one in the world currently that can tell you the quality of your audience in real time before they interact with your website and even those people that track interactions on your website get it wrong pretty much all the time. Opt-in rate tells you that someone joined your list. It doesn't tell you the quality of the audience that signed up and their likelihood of conversion. I REPEAT Anyone telling you that Opt-in rate alone matters lacks a solid understanding of how statistics and probabilities work. The problem is, there's too many people that lack this understanding telling people how to optimize their popup forms around a KPI that doesn't matter by itself. Did you know that the quality of audience that signs up to your popup forms differs by Channel, by Campaign, even by Ad? I mean it makes logical sense right that people coming from different places would have different levels of intent. When optimizing based on a variable audience there's no way to know what will work better or the actual status of the person that is seeing the popup and where they are in the customer journey. In layman terms, your form isn't converting people, the quality of the audience and the stage they are at in their buying journey is what is converting them and causing them to opt-in. If you want the highest opt-in rates - do a giveaway, but the quality drops relevant to purchase consideration. So optimizing for opt-in rates is completely misguided. Else, everyone would be doing nothing but giveaways. Logically, more people on a list means more revenue is a nice trope that people like to say without actually looking at what that means. In the below example, what happens if an opt-in rate increases but so does the amount of people looking to buy "in a few months" rather than "today"? I'll tell you, they don't purchase at the same rates. Ask people, "When they are looking to buy?" during signup that you'll get a distribution of likelihood of conversion. Not all visitors are going to sign up and not all those that do are going to convert, the key isn't opt-in rate but knowing the difference between who's opting in and the relevant quality of audience that opted in. I get it. It sucks. But it's time to change your approach to popups generally speaking. See attached image.

This eCom email myth is costing your brand millions every year. I’m so tired of it so let’s address it once and for all: The amount of people that sign up to your email list does not matter. At all. You could have a 10% conversion rate from pop-up to your list. Or you could get 30,000+ people sign up to your email list in a few days. Doesn’t matter one bit. Why? More people on your list doesn’t mean more bankable profits for your brand:  - No extra funds you can reinvest back into your team  - No extra profit to reinvest back into systems and operations  - No extra capital to spend on expanding your brand Plus it’s extremely easy to get low-quality signups to your list. All you have to do is go heavy in discounts or giveaways in exchange for emails. It’s not impressive and doesn’t mean much for your brand’s bottom line. So where should your focus be? It should be on the conversion of email sign-ups to paying customers. This is the gold-standard of growth from an email marketing perspective. The best way to achieve this? Gather more zero-party data from your customers and add it to your overall marketing:  - Your core flows  - Your email campaigns  - Your paid ad campaigns Use your pop-up to gather the zero party data. Zero party data = voluntarily data your customers provide about their product preferences. Here’s how to collect it: 1. Remove pointless questions from your pop-up like ask for full names or gender 2. Ask brand-specific questions like “what matters to you most when it comes to {pain point}” 3. Use these findings across your entire marketing fly-wheel My biggest lesson: Growing vanity metrics like list sign-ups by itself won’t grow your brand. Focusing solely on metrics that lead to more profit is how real growth occurs. Keep growth simple by following the money.

Building a massive email list sounds great in theory—but it’s only as valuable as the strategy driving it. A giant list of random emails? Costly and ineffective. A list of people who opted in? Better. A list of engaged subscribers who always have a clear next step in their journey? That’s real revenue. Growing your email list isn’t about big numbers; it’s a science. Here’s how to optimize for revenue growth without just piling on ESP costs: The Basics: Quality Opt-Ins > Volume While email opt-ins should consistently outpace unsubscribes, it’s not just about quantity; it’s about quality. From managing quarter-billion dollar e-commerce portfolios, one rule became clear: “In data we trust, but not all data is equal.” When new Customer Acquisition Costs are rising, this principle becomes critical. Quality Over Quantity: Brand-Driven Opt-Ins, Not Discounts If discounts are your main hook, you’re attracting the wrong crowd. Ideally, deal-seekers should make up less than 20% of your list. Instead, use brand-driven incentives—exclusive updates, early access, sneak peeks—to attract high-intent subscribers. These are the people who convert better and drive long-term revenue. Benchmarking Success: Engaged Segment = 30% of Revenue If your brand does $250K+ per month, your engaged email segment should account for at least 30% of that revenue. Not hitting the mark? You may have a data quality issue. Here’s how to fix it: ✓ Optimize Opt-Ins: Aim for a 4% CVR on pop-ups to attract high-intent subscribers. ✓ Create Urgency: Use site banners that offer exclusive benefits for email subscribers. ✓ Build a Journey: Every subscriber should have a logical next step, whether they’re new or returning fans. A strong backend ecosystem focused on real brand-fans—not just discount hunters, is the only path to profitable scaling. Otherwise, it’s just wasted costs.