Question

I have written a script for my clients to generate a newsletter form, embed it on their website, collect email addresses and then email them using a php while and PHPMailer.

Currently, the script uses a “double opt in” which sends an email from “[e-mail]” to the subscriber to click on a confirm link that then goes to “http://myserver.com” to complete the confirmation process.

My question is,

the mail address they are receiving the confirm script from and the address they are confirming their email address with is different, will this be a problem?

In other words, does the spam filter add the confirm email “from address” to the friends list or the address of the link in the email?

The desired end result obviously being the “from address” (my clients address) being the one that will not be junked in future.

Thanks,

Anthony

Answer 1

My company does something similar. The double opt-in is something that you’re doing on your end to ensure that you have valid results, not an email sent in by the user’s enemy wanted to load up their account with spam. The theory goes that if someone is going to be malicious like that, they wouldn’t have actual read access and time/means to respond to the second opt-in, making it about as fail proof as possible.

The spam filters don’t know if you did an opt in at all, they just know what they see and who’s doing the sending. So as long as you’re sure the user you’re getting approval from is the same one, you should be good to go. If you’ve properly configured headers, ensured list accuracy, aren’t mail bombing (i.e. loading a host with thousands of messages in a short amount of time) and include content that’s not “spammy” you’ll be fine. Just remember, there’s virtually no way to 100% guarantee delivery of an email thanks to overzealous IT guys and spam filters and the distributed nature of the web.

Note that being a new system, your host is not yet “trusted” so you’ll have higher than average bounce stats likely. I’d recommend doing a “break” script when you send to ensure that emails are “trickling” out at first while you gain hosts trust. Even with well-established servers, my company’s policy is no consecutive emails to a host will be delivered with less than 50 ms break in between, and it’s worked well for us (we deliver 100k+ per day) And no matter what, include CAN-Spam items such as opt-out, physical address, and proper subject line…no exceptions.